SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Republican Party has filed a citizen initiative seeking to undo another citizen initiative.
On Tuesday, members of the state's dominant political party filed an initiative petition with Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson's office seeking to unwind Proposition 4, the initiative on independent redistricting that voters passed in 2018.
"For me? This is about restoring the voice to our elected officials, or our elected representatives and to the people," said Carolyn Phippen, who signed on as a sponsor.
It is a major shot across the bow in the ongoing legal battles over Prop. 4. The Utah GOP is using the very rules declared by the courts to undo something voters approved — arguing it was by a narrow majority and they don't think Utahns knew what they were voting for.
"We’ve been told by the courts that is the only way now in Utah to do that since the Utah Supreme Court last year has established that something coming from the people supersedes our elected representatives," said Utah GOP Chair Robert Axson.
But the Utah Republican Party will also not exactly take it to voters. If they successfully gather more than 70,000 signatures to qualify, the type of initiative they filed would go to the Utah State Legislature instead of voters.
The legislature is a Republican supermajority.
The Utah GOP also filed a citizen referendum on Tuesday to undo the map passed by the Utah State Legislature in special session last week. That still has to be approved by the judge in the lawsuit over independent redistricting. In that case, the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government successfully sued the legislature, alleging that it improperly overrode Prop. 4 and replaced an independent redistricting committee's congressional map with its own.
The judge sided with them and threw out the state's current congressional map, leading to a special session with a new one. The legislature passed a map favored by the Utah Republican Party.
Axson defended their support for that map, arguing it was the best of the options the legislature considered under court order.
"We still believe that, but we also believe the entire process was not the process the people should be subjugated to," he said Tuesday. "So we are doing a referendum against that action. In no way, shape or form are we condemning the legislature. Their powers were unnecessarily undermined by the courts."
Better Boundaries, the group that sponsored Prop. 4 and has been involved in efforts to defend it, was critical of the Utah GOP's initiative to undo the initiative.
"This is yet another attempt to overturn the will of the people. These are desperate, transparent attempts to run out the clock, obstruct court-ordered reforms, and confuse the public ahead of 2026. They do nothing to serve Utahns — only to protect gerrymandered power," said Elizabeth Rasmussen, the group's executive director.
"The process voters created to remove partisanship from redistricting has been hijacked by the supermajority. We will use every tool available — in court, in the public square, and at the ballot box — to defend Prop 4, protect fair maps, and uphold the rule of law."
In order to gather the signatures for the initiative and the 140,000 required for the referendum in a month, Axson confirmed they will use paid signature-gatherers to fan out across the state. That is something some members of the party have long opposed. But Axson said it was necessary to accomplish it in such a tight time frame, something he blamed on the courts.
The initiative may go back to the legislature, but if the referendum to throw out the legislature's court-ordered congressional map qualifies? It would appear on the ballot in 2026.
Politics
