SALT LAKE CITY – The special session of the Utah Legislature may have settled political differences over House Bill 267, but the war of words between Utah Democrats and Republicans over Proposition 4 goes on and on.
After offering an olive branch to Democrats by repealing House Bill 267 (Public Sector Labor Union Amendments), the Republicans who gathered at the Utah Capitol on Dec. 9 stuck back on the redistricting front by passing a flurry of bills aimed at countering the impact of Third District Court Judge Dianna Gibson’s recent ruling imposing new congressional districts in Utah.
The first of those bills (House Joint Resolution 201) was authored by Rep. Casey Snider (R-Paradise), the House Majority Leader, reaffirming the Legislature’s constitutional authority to draw congressional maps.
In a stunning rebuke to Gibson’s ruling, Snider called led fellow Republicans in calling it “ … a gross miscarriage of justice.”
“But I’m hopeful that the remedy will come through law,” Snider added. “It will come through process. It will come through the people’s voice. It will come through this Legislature.”
While lawmakers debated and voted, more than 250 people packed the Capitol rotunda in answer to a call by Katharine Biele for supporters of Gibson’s ruling to protest the Legislature’s allegedly over-reaching actions.
Biele is the president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, one of the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit against the Legislature for overriding Prop. 4, a voter referendum passed in 2018, which created an independent redistricting commission to redraw state congressional maps.
In 2020, the Utah Legislature repealed and replaced the ballot initiative with a law that made the commission purely advisory. The legislature then drew its own congressional maps in 2021 that ignored the commission’s recommendations, especially slicing up Salt Lake City to carefully dilute Democrats’ influence.
An advocacy coalition comprised of the League of Women Voters and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government sued the state in March of 2022, prompting Gibson’s ruling in November of this year.
Gibson concluded that Republicans in the Legislature had considered political data and gerrymandered in favor of their own party in drawing that map.
Instead, she directed the state to accept the plaintiff’s Map 1 that includes a Democrat-leaning district anchored in northern Salt Lake County.
During the Dec. 9 protest, Biele remarked that she considers the Gibson ruling settled law.
Not so fast, according to Republicans. One of the measures passed during the Dec. 9 special session called on Gibson to finalize the case so GOP lawyers can take it to the Utah Supreme County and even to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
House Speaker Mike Schultz (R-Hooper) said that was the motive behind the bill passed by GOP lawmakers outlining amendments to court procedures giving the Utah Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction over cases involving elections and redistricting issues.
Other bills passed by the special session would push back the congressional candidate filing window until next March for the 2026 election cycle and allow candidates to collect voter signatures statewide rather than strictly in their own districts.
Those measures were considered necessary by legislative leaders to resolve uncertainty in the 2026 election process as a result of Gibson’s ruling, which seems likely to be still in effect at that time.
The only sign of cooperation across the political aisle was the repeal of House Bill 267, which Democrats called “… a clear win for workers across Utah.”
H.B. 267 would prohibit public employers (like school districts or other public entities) from recognizing labor organizations as bargaining agents or entering into collective bargaining contracts.
Liberal teachers unions had been bitter opponents of Republican policies in Utah and other states where lawmakers have eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs; expanded school choice voucher programs; and restricted woke/transgender initiatives.
Opposition to H.B. 267 continued after the Legislature recessed under the aegis of Protect Utah Workers, led by an ad hoc group of labor partners, who filed a referendum on March 17 with the office of Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson to overturn House Bill 267.
In the face of the success of that signature effort, Republican legislative leaders reluctantly agree to repeal the controversial law.