SALT LAKE CITY — A critical court hearing is getting under way in the legal battle over redistricting in Utah.
The judge will consider which map to adopt to represent the state's congressional districts. The Utah State Legislature has submitted its map, while the plaintiffs in the lawsuit over redistricting have submitted theirs.
The League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and others sued the legislature, alleging it improperly overrode Proposition 4, the citizen ballot initiative that passed in 2018. They also argued that what the legislature passed in a congressional map was illegal gerrymandering to favor Republicans. Judge Dianna Gibson sided with them, declaring Prop. 4 law and ordered a new map. Under a court order (and under protest), the legislature met and adopted a new map, known as "Map C."
The legislature continues its appeals, maintaining it has the sole constitutional authority to conduct redistricting, despite a court-held right for citizens to alter or reform their government. It's led to a lengthy legal battle. Here's a blog of the latest events in court:
11:55 a.m.
Dr. Chen is asked again about the academic studies that appeared to be critical of his works.
"That's just absolutely a complete lie," Dr. Chen says, adding there was no way he could take thousands of maps and alter their districts by hand, calling it "preposterous."
Since the Pennsylvania case, Dr. Chen says his work has changed as it happened eight years ago.
Gaber calls up Utah's statute on redistricting and goes through the methodology, asking if his algorithm used what was in there? Yes. Did Drs. Trende and Barber use them? No, Dr. Chen testifies.
"As an example, none of their maps are equally populated," Dr. Chen says.
On the redistricting comments, Gaber asks how would defining a community of interest affect his algorithm? Dr. Chen says respecting communities of interest under Prop. 4 would tend to keep Salt Lake City or another municipality (say Holladay) together.
What if a community of interest crosses lines? How does the algorithm keep it together? Dr. Chen says it would not split more and more counties just because somebody said they have a community of interest that spans multiple counties. Communities of interests is a lower priority than the other criteria of Prop. 4, Dr. Chen testifies.
Geiger is back with a re-cross. He asks about changing his algorithm eight years ago?
"I do different things now than what I was working on eight years ago," Dr. Chen replies, suggesting it is not abnormal.
Geiger asks about publishing papers and making his algorithm available for download online? Dr. Chen says he did make an algorithm available in 2021.
Dr. Chen is done testifying. Judge Gibson calls a break.
11:46 a.m.
Dr. Chen is being grilled about the data he plugged in to generate his maps and how he knows they are matching Prop. 4's tenets. Dr. Chen argues that "communities of interest" is a "tie-breaker" when put up against the other criteria for redistricting.
Geiger shows Dr. Chen some comments made during redistricting which describes the Avenues, east-central Salt Lake City as "liberal," and describing other places that "tend to lean Democratic." This continues for some time as Dr. Chen is asked to read people's comments describing their neighborhoods as "progressive" and "liberal" and "Democratic" but being in districts that include "rural" and "conservative" representation.
Geiger ends his cross-examination. Gaber is back for redirect.
11:30 a.m.
Dr. Chen is still being cross-examined. Geiger continues to show academic papers that appear to be critical of Dr. Chen's work. It is clear he is trying to cast doubt on the witness and his methods for the judge.
Geiger hands Dr. Chen a pair of maps, giving Judge Gibson a copy.
"I can see they're similar," Dr. Chen says, but adds he cannot point out the specific differences without a more thorough analysis.
Geiger shows more maps.
"Same answer," Dr. Chen says.
More maps are shown.
"I can see some differences, but generally the same answer as before."
This Q & A continues through a series of maps.
Geiger asks Dr. Chen about a report he generated that claims only three counties must be split. But to achieve population equality, it could keep 27 of 29 counties whole, Geiger says, but Dr. Chen chose not to. Dr. Chen acknowledges he did not do that.
Salt Lake County must be split in any congressional plan, Dr. Chen acknowledges in cross-examination, because of its population size. There is a Democrat-favoring district in 99% of his maps, Geiger suggests. Dr. Chen says he does not know if that is always the case.
"Out of your 10,000 plans, your algorithm created about 9,100 plans... by taking Democrats in northern Salt Lake County and joining them with voters in another county," Geiger says.
"I'm going to have to take your word for it," Dr. Chen replies.
Dr. Chen adds that the Great Salt Lake remains a natural barrier and he is not allowing districts to "jump across the water." He also notes Draper and Bluffdale, which span Salt Lake and Utah counties. That makes certain configurations "more likely."
But is the Great Salt Lake a natural barrier between Salt Lake and Tooele counties?
"No," Dr. Chen testifies.
Geiger appears to be laying out an argument that the plaintiff's own maps are gerrymandering, too.
11:12 a.m.
Dr. Chen is still on the witness stand, being cross-examined by Soren Geiger, one of the attorneys for the legislature. He is asked about his algorithm to generate maps for the plaintiffs.
Again, this is very, very technical testimony. Dr. Chen explains a methodology known as "Monte Carlo" and the different ways it's applied. There is a lot of testimony about Monte Carlo, Sequential Monte Carlo and other simulations.
Geiger goes over a previous case Dr. Chen has testified in, a redistricting case in Pennsylvania where he described his simulation modeling. Geiger talks about open source simulation models and who has used them? Drs. Trende and Barber (who are the legislature's experts).
Is their simulation model unreliable? With respect to Prop. 4? Yes, Dr. Chen testifies.
Geiger suggests it cannot be programmed to comply with Prop. 4. Dr. Chen says he has no opinion on that.
Is your algorithm publicly available? Dr. Chen says it is not. Only you can use this algorithm? Dr. Chen says he has no opinion on that, but to use it they must have a copy of his code.
"If the Utah legislature wanted to use your algorithm, how would they go about doing that?" Geiger asks.
"I have no opinion on that," Dr. Chen replies.
"Would they need to hire you?"
"I have no opinion on that."
Geiger shows Dr. Chen an academic report from 2021 and asks him to read from it describing "petri dish methods," referring to his methodology.
"Yeah, they're talking about me," Dr. Chen says.
The academic paper sounds critical of Dr. Chen's methodology. Geiger asks why Dr. Chen only generated 10,000 plans and not more? Dr. Chen argues that is "more than enough to draw broad, statistical conclusions."
10:46 a.m.
On the witness stand, Dr. Chen is addressing criticism of his own maps generated for the plaintiffs, and accusations he has engaged in gerrymandering. For example, he creates a "northern Salt Lake County" split.
"I produced 10,000 maps and every one is different," Dr. Chen testifies.
He calls the another expert's map "exact copies of the previous map." Dr. Chen notes the Great Salt Lake is a barrier and he doesn't want a congressional district to cross the massive water body. But he also pointed to Bluffdale and Draper, which cross the Salt Lake/Utah County line.
But Dr. Chen says when you combine Prop. 4 with natural political geography
For the judge, this will come down to which expert she chooses to believe when she issues her final ruling: the plaintiffs or the defendants? We do expect to hear from the defendant's experts either later today or tomorrow.
The judge has called a recess and the legislature's attorneys will get a chance to cross-examine Dr. Chen.
10:22 a.m.
Dr. Chen continues to trash the methodology used by the Utah State Legislature's experts in creating maps, arguing that it still favors Republicans in redistricting.
"These maps are clearly not adhering to the Prop. 4 neutral criteria," Dr. Chen argues.
Dr. Chen also argues that some of the maps prepared for the legislature split Salt Lake County more than is necessary. He testifies he believes Salt Lake County is being treated differently than other counties, getting split into three or four districts in every simulation while it does not happen for other counties in Utah.
10:00 a.m.
As Dr. Chen continues his testimony in evaluating Dr. Trende's maps, Judge Gibson is taking notes and looking directly at the witness.
The highly technical testimony is occasionally interrupted by people who come in to court for Judge Gibson's regularly scheduled "recovery court" (a judiciary program for defendants in recovery), which has been moved to another courtroom where another judge is handling those cases today.
Dr. Chen continues to call the partisan bias test "not appropriate" for a state like Utah and points out methodology used to generate maps for the legislature are not compliant with the tenets of Prop. 4. Dr. Chen argues that his own maps were drawn with strict adherence to Prop. 4.
Again, this is part of the plaintiff's case that Judge Gibson ought to reject the legislature's map in favor of the plaintiffs.
9:42 a.m.
Dr. Chen has been asked to review Dr. Sean Trende's maps, which were created for the Utah State Legislature's Redistricting Committee.
Dr. Chen reviewed the software and the code that was used and found "it's not appropriate... because it's not built with the Proposition 4 neutral redistricting criteria."
Gaber continues with questions about population deviations, partisan characteristics, etc.
9:32 a.m.
Dr. Chen continues his testimony, making a case for the plaintiffs that the legislature's proposed "Map C" does not comply with Prop. 4.
"It is a partisan outlier," he testifies.
Dr. Chen is going over very technical simulations to make a case of which maps pass the tests of Prop. 4. He testifies that the plaintiff's maps pass the tests, while the legislature's Map C does not.
On the topic of a "partisan bias test," Dr. Chen says it requires them to consider "a hypothetical world in which Utah is a tied 50/50 state." Asked if he has an opinion on whether it is appropriate, Dr. Chen says "it's inappropriate in Utah."
The legislature recently included it in their special session bill that reworked the criteria for redistricting.
9:22 a.m.
Dr. Jowie Chen of the University of Michigan, who studies redistricting and gerrymandering, is the first witness for the plaintiffs. He has been retained in cases of both Republican and Democratic gerrymandering. Judge Gibson agrees to designate him as an expert witness.
Mark Gaber, an attorney for the plaintiffs, brings up the criteria of Prop. 4. Most importantly, equally populated districts. Then there's minimizing the municipalities and counties. He generated maps built with those criteria in mind. Dr. Chen says he also considered geographic boundaries through an algorithm, to avoid splitting 590 "communities of interest."
Dr. Chen says he also considered the legislature's communities of interest like military bases, Native American tribal lands, etc.
"I generally found the similarly plans I produced were pretty comparable to all the proposed remedial plans," Dr. Chen testifies.
Did he consider partisan election results, voter info or racial data?
"No," Dr. Chen testifies.
Dr. Chen is now bringing up his computer program to talk about the partisanship of each of the four districts. Typically, the normal range for "least Republican district" is about 42-46%. He also ran the remedial plans and the legislature's Map C District 3 has a "least Republican district" of 56% GOP vote share.
"It is more heavily Republican..." he says.
Dr. Chen appears to be making a case for the judge to adopt the plaintiff's maps instead of the legislature.
8:56 a.m.
Court is under way and Judge Dianna Gibson is on the bench. They are discussing scheduling for other motions. Judge Gibson says she'd like to consider those at the end of the day or another day.
8:30 a.m.
Attorneys for the legislature have begun to arrive in court, bringing boxes of documents. Asked how long today is expected to go in court, FOX 13 News was told: "Long."
8:18 a.m.
Before court gets started, here's what the judge must consider: whether or not the map approved by the Utah State Legislature complies with the tenets of Prop. 4. But there are side issues that will also factor in. During the special session earlier this month, the Utah State Legislature passed a bill that re-wrote what can be considered in terms of redistricting. The plaintiffs have asked Judge Gibson to throw that out.
(Separately, the plaintiffs have also asked a judge to block the Utah Republican Party's initiative to undo Prop. 4.)
Here's the map submitted to the judge by the legislature:
Here are the plaintiffs maps submitted for the judge to consider:
