Catch up quick: Voters in 2018 narrowly approved the "Better Boundaries" ballot initiative, which created a seven-member independent redistricting commission to draw new congressional boundaries and avoid gerrymandering. Yes, but: The GOP-controlled Utah Legislature in 2020 revised the voter-approved law to make the commission merely advisory. Lawmakers in 2021 rejected the commission's maps and drew new ones that split blue-leaning Salt Lake County into four congressional districts.

“I Voted” stickers are displayed during primary election voting held at the Lehi Public Safety Building in Lehi on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. A lawsuit against the Utah State Legislature over its splitting Salt Lake County into four districts can move forward. The Utah Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Thursday morning. The suit dealt with who gets to draw congressional maps — the Utah Legislature or an independent commission. “The people’s constitutional right to alter or reform their government is protected from government infringement,” said the court. “We could...

“I Voted” stickers are displayed during primary election voting held at the Lehi Public Safety Building in Lehi on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News A lawsuit against the Utah State Legislature over its splitting Salt Lake County into four districts can move forward. The Utah Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Thursday morning. The suit dealt with who gets to draw congressional maps — the Utah Legislature or an independent commission. “The people’s constitutional right to alter or reform their government is protected from government infringement,”...

A year to the day since the Utah Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case testing the extent of the Legislature’s ability to gerrymander political boundaries and rewrite voter-approved initiatives, the justices have made their decision and will issue their opinion in the case Thursday. At the heart of the issue is the lawsuit filed by a the League of Women Voters, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and a group of Salt Lake County voters who contend the Legislature gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts, carving the most populous and...

Signed sealed and delivered: A campaign backing a proposed redistricting reform amendment turned in more than 731,000 signatures to state officials on Monday. As Andrew Tobias writes, the development puts Ohio one step closer to a high-stakes political fight this November over whether to kick out the Republican elected officials that run the Ohio Redistricting Commission and replace them a citizen’s commission composed of equal parts Republicans, Democrats and political independents.

Lawyers for the state legislature were in court Thursday in Raleigh, arguing to throw out an anti-gerrymandering lawsuit that targets the state's new political maps as a violation of a constitutional guarantee of fair elections. The lawsuit argues the state constitution guarantees the right to fair elections, which these maps violate. The Republican-led legislature argues that no such right exists, since it's impossible to define what "fair" means. Political analyses done by outside experts, as well as by the legislature itself, show that the new maps are expected to give...

It takes about three hours to drive Ohio's 6th Congressional District from top to bottom, and during that drive, you'll encounter areas with different economies and people with different cultures, a new report says. At a press conference Friday, University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven and League of Women Voters of Ohio Executive Director Jen Miller put a spotlight on what they say is a badly gerrymandered district. They argued the way the district is drawn hurts voters. "The slicing and dicing is designed to secure partisan outcomes,"...