The Utah congressional map controversy continues into 2026. On November 10, 2025, a state trial court invalidated the Utah legislature’s congressional map on the grounds that it violated the anti-partisan gerrymandering rules enacted under Proposition 4, which voters approved seven years ago. The court adopted a remedial map submitted by the plaintiffs in the case (The Utah League of Women Voters and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government) to be used in the 2026 mid-term election. That map created three Republican-leaning districts and one Democratic-leaning district centered on Salt Lake County. In response, the Utah Legislature launched an aggressive multi-front effort to reverse the ruling. In a December 9 special session, lawmakers pushed back the congressional candidate filing deadline to March 2026, transferred redistricting appeals to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Utah Supreme Court, and passed a joint resolution condemning the court’s decision and reaffirming the Legislature’s claimed sole authority over redistricting. On the legal front, the Utah Supreme Court dismissed the Legislature’s appeal on February 20, 2026, ruling it lacked jurisdiction because the underlying case had not been finalized, and noting that lawmakers had missed their 30-day window to appeal. Three days later, a federal panel also denied a parallel bid to reinstate the 2021 map, effectively locking in Map 1 for the 2026 midterms.
Simultaneously, the Utah Republican Party pursued a citizen ballot initiative to repeal Proposition 4 outright, a route that would have let voters undo the law rather than going through the courts. The group Utahns for Representative Government, funded almost entirely by $4.35 million from a Trump-aligned dark-money organization called Securing American Greatness, Inc., submitted over 200,000 signatures, well above the statewide threshold, with backing from President Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and Turning Point Action. Better Boundaries, the nonprofit behind the original Proposition 4, organized a sustained signature-removal campaign, sending pre-filled removal forms with prepaid return postage to voters who had signed. The Legislature responded by passing HB 242 on the final night of the 2026 session, banning prepaid-postage removal forms, but the move came too late. By late March, the repeal effort had fallen below the required threshold in two key Senate districts due to signature withdrawals, and on April 30, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson officially declared the initiative had failed to qualify for the November 2026 ballot.
With both the legal and initiative routes exhausted for now, Republican lawmakers are eyeing a third avenue: a so-called “Amendment D 2.0,” a constitutional amendment that would ask voters to limit the power of citizen ballot initiatives and restore the Legislature’s ability to amend or repeal them. Senate President Stuart Adams repeatedly signaled during the 2026 general session that such an amendment was being drafted, but the language was never finalized before adjournment; Adams has hinted it could be advanced via a special session later in 2026, potentially in time for the November ballot. Meanwhile, the court-ordered map is already reshaping the political landscape: the new District 1, centered on Salt Lake County, is rated safely Democratic by election forecasters, and the June 23 congressional primaries, particularly the open Democratic primary in District 1, are drawing national attention as Democrats see Utah as a potential pickup opportunity in their bid to flip the House.
The underlying litigation in League of Women Voters of Utah v. Utah Legislature remains active in the Utah Third District Court. The Utah Supreme Court’s February 20 dismissal of the Legislature’s appeal was solely on jurisdictional grounds, as Judge Gibson has not yet issued a final judgment on all claims in the case, meaning the broader constitutional questions about legislative authority over voter-approved ballot initiatives remain unresolved. Adding another layer, the Legislature passed HB 392 during the 2026 session, creating a three-judge “constitutional court” with the explicit goal of transferring the redistricting case away from Judge Gibson; plaintiffs immediately challenged that law as unconstitutional, and that challenge is now pending before the Utah Supreme Court, meaning the question of which court will even decide the remaining claims is itself unresolved.
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