By Emily Anderson Stern | Photo by Trent Nelson|The Salt Lake Tribune via AP
Utah lawmakers have less than one month to put new congressional district maps in place ahead of the 2026 election — and time is already winding down.
But whether — and how — the state’s supermajority Republican Legislature heeds or pushes back against the decision is yet to be seen.
Nearly four years after legislators adopted a map that split the heart of Salt Lake County among the state’s four congressional seats, 3rd District Court Judge Dianna Gibson ordered Monday that lawmakers abandon those boundaries. The quartered area is one of the state’s most densely populated, and typically one of its bluest.
Instead, she wrote, legislators will need to approve districts that comply with an initiative enacted by voters in 2018 requiring independent redistricting and banning partisan gerrymandering.
The Legislature previously tossed out three maps recommended by an independent redistricting commission organized under the 2018 Better Boundaries effort in favor of their own.
Read more at SLTrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.