Posted on 11/11/2025 12:28:01 PM PST by Signalman
A Utah judge just handed Democrats a major win ahead of the 2026 midterms, tossing out a GOP-drawn congressional map and replacing it with one that carves out a new Democratic-leaning district in the deep-red state.
Utah District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled late Monday that the map approved by the Republican-controlled legislature “unduly favors Republicans and disfavors Democrats.” The ruling wipes out the current lines, which gave the GOP control of all four congressional districts.
The move marks the latest flashpoint in a coast-to-coast redistricting war, one pitting President Donald Trump and his Republican allies against Democrats fighting for control of the House.
Gibson’s decision stemmed from a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, who claimed the legislature’s map violated a 2018 voter-approved redistricting reform measure banning partisan gerrymandering. The new map, backed by the plaintiffs, keeps almost all of heavily blue Salt Lake County intact in one district — instead of slicing it into four Republican strongholds as the old map did.
Democrats cheered the ruling. “The DNC applauds the decision to choose a fair, impartial map that reflects the diversity and ideological makeup of the state,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin. “Utah Republicans gerrymandered the maps because they knew they were losing power in the state. Republicans doubled down when they chose to submit another gerrymandered map, but today, they were once again thwarted by impartial Courts.”
Martin added that “Democrats will continue to fight for fair maps in Utah, regardless of what Donald Trump and Utah Republicans try next.”
Republicans fumed, accusing Gibson of overstepping her authority. “Judge Gibson has once again exceeded the constitutional authority granted to Utah’s judiciary,” said state GOP Chair Robert Axson. “After stretching the law to justify taking control of redistricting, she has now rejected Map C — the only option that respected the Legislature’s constitutional role — and imposed a map of activists who are not accountable to Utahns.”
“This is not interpretation,” Axson blasted. “It is the arrogance of a judge playing King from the bench.”
The Utah ruling lands just days after California voters approved Proposition 50, which hands map-drawing power back to the Democrat-dominated legislature and is expected to yield five more blue seats. That move balances out Texas, where a new red map could add up to five GOP-leaning districts.
“California stepped up. Now, we are taking this fight across the country — helping Democrats in other states push back against Trump’s election rigging,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom told Fox News Digital last week.
Trump’s team has been aggressively pushing mid-decade redistricting in red states like Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, part of a strategy to bulk up the GOP’s slim House majority heading into the 2026 midterms.
Democrats, meanwhile, are moving to redraw maps in Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia to protect their own turf. The battle lines are drawn — and with Utah’s ruling, the fight over who controls Congress just got even hotter.
That’s how the dems do it. To use a RISK analogy, they spread their armies as broadly, but as thinly, as possible. Then they use loaded dice (election fraud) to win all of the resulting close battles. Tight margins in which individual elections are won by a few thousand votes are ideal for perpetrating vote fraud. Only need to “discover” a few boxes of mystery ballots in a car trunk somewhere and you’re in.
Insightful.
That’s why the Dems’ propaganda media said again and again “the disproven vote fraud” and “the attempt to overturn an honest and fair election.”
Methinks they protest too much.
Dims are now a federally protected class.
Perhaps this ruling can be cited in the suit to overturn California’s Prop 50?
It’s not clear if the judge is a state or federal judge - the description of being a “district” judge could be either.
If she is interpreting state law, need to see what the law says. It’s clearly not federal law.
It's not like the democrats would ever do such a thing, right judge?
Yeah sure, but it won't be.
The entire redistricting issue is going to the Supreme Court.
For decades, the democRATS gerrymander districts to exclude, as much as possible, Republican representation. To a ridiculous point. They used racist laws to achieve what they couldn’t do with votes. Only recently, the Republicans have begun to fight back in some red states and the dems don’t like that.
This will all need to be ironed out. Any state that is, say, 45% republican ought to have representation roughly matching that. Not exactly, as that is impossible with the lack of granularity (way too many people per representative) but the days of basically silencing conservative people are about to end.
At least I hope so anyway.
Note to Utah ….ignore the judge…no authority.
AFAIK, the only reason for a US district court to stop a gerrymander is some sort of racial discrimination, and that was not an issue in this Utah matter, which would mean this is another instance of a judge playing partisan politics.
Judges and their election inference
No queens.
Where is the part in the constitution that gives judges the right to draw congressional districts?
Tell that to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the p*ssies who call themselves Republicans from PA!!!
1. Anyone who thinks this is “shocking” hasn’t been paying attention. The judge was given 3 maps to choose from. Two were submitted by Democrats. The judge is a liberal. QED.
2. Not only does this map no longer split up Salt Lake City, which is a Democrat shithole and its district (though still marginal) is probably a goner, the map creates a SECOND Rat-winnable district in Salt Lake County. The parts of the county outside the Salt Lake City limits are not as bad as the city (duh), but some areas ARE quite bad.
The final effect, especially if there is an upcoming anti-Trump “blue” wave in 2026 a la 2018, will be to have 2 of Utah’s 4 districts in Democrat hands.
So 50% D representatives... in freakin’ UTAH.
Now that’s some damn fine gerrymandering. No different than having 50% Republicans in Maryland (soon to be 0% Republicans, probably) or Illinois, if such a thing can be imagined.
When you get into a gerrymandering war with the all-time experts, and have the judiciary stacked against you too, it may not be a bad idea to “expect the unexpected”.
I bet the judge drawn map looks more gerrymandered than the legislature’s map. Most of them do - they were actually drawn before for the sake of “fairness” to give Dems a competitive district or two. The new Missouri and Texas maps look more compact / contiguous than those that were there before.
Regardless, she did not have this authority, and the legislature should take action to make that quite clear to her.
“The same legal standard they’re applying to Utah can be applied to blue states.”
No, it can’t. The linked article explains the judge’s ruling that “the legislature’s map violated a 2018 voter-approved redistricting reform measure banning partisan gerrymandering.” So it’s particular to Utah. SCOTUS has held, in allowing a Republican gerrymander in North Carolina, that partisan gerrymandering doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution.
As for California, the proposed Democratic gerrymander involved taking redistricting decisions away from a commission. That change required an amendment to the California constitution, which passed — but again, that’s applicable to only one state.
Texas had no statutory or constitutional restriction on partisan gerrymandering, so the GOP put through a redistricting that’s expected to shift five seats from Democratic to Republican. The Republicans could get away with that in Texas, but, again, that doesn’t mean that they (or the Dems) can get away with it anywhere else.
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