Fighting Gerrymandering: It started with the microphone

GERRYMANDERING in Utah - Report on the Public meeting in Logan, Utah on

November 3rd for an initiative to repeal of Utah law (Proposition 4) requiring fair House district maps be drawn 

It started with the microphone. Well, it started with the chairs. On Monday, November 3, former Congressman Rob Bishop, a Republican from Brigham City, Utah, appeared in a meeting room in the Logan Library to conduct a hearing (which it really wasn’t) for a proposed initiative to go on the 2026 ballot. There were about 20 chairs. Several of us said they’d need more chairs. Mr. Bishop was doubtful. With about 50 people at the start of the meeting, and about 75 at its peak, we added a lot of chairs over the original 20 or so that they had put out.  And a few people stood. 

 Mr Bishop started the hearing with some opening remarks on his topic – the effort to repeal the results of Proposition 4 (Prop. 4) which is a voter approved Initiative in 2018 that created an independent redistricting commission to determine fair political district maps for elections of our four Congress persons in Utah. This became law. The Prop. 4 process was tried in 2021, and then the our state legislature ignored the recommended maps enacting their own, gerrymandered maps splitting Salt Lake City County into 4 districts. Lawsuits took years and in 2025 our State Supreme Court said they couldn’t ignore Prop. 4 because it is law.  After which Republican members of the state legislature wanted to change how state supreme court judges are selected, and started to find new ways to ignore laws created by voter approved initiatives.  

Rob Bishop has a quiet voice - unusual for a former state representative, congressman, and a teacher.  So I spoke up and asked him to use a microphone.  He seemed annoyed by the request, and he blamed the lack of a microphone on the library -  “the library was supposed to set that up for us, but they didn’t do it”.  After which a woman (who was not introduced) there to run the meeting with him, went to the anteroom, found a microphone, turned it on.  Problem solved in about 15 seconds. From Rob Bishop’s long experience, one would have thought that he’d have worked out how to be heard by people.

The hearing is a requirement for any group hoping to put an Initiative on the Utah ballot.  The group must have at least seven hearings, one in each of seven regions of the state, and meet other conditions, few of which seem to help shape the language or intent of the initiative - they seem to be impediments to ever getting an initiative on the ballot.  This is, of course, by design, as new rules were passed in the last 10 years to make initiatives more difficult in Utah.  Logan, the 17th largest town in Utah, was at the time, the largest city to have a hearing. The law that governs the initiative process doesn’t give any guidance as to how the hearings should run.  Rob Bishop outlined their rules for the hearing, which it wasn’t – no questions allowed or to be read into the record.  This wasn’t a debate; we were not there to discuss policy.  People would be given 2 minutes to make a statement.  We could make only statements - questions would not be recorded into whatever record was going to be made.  After 60 minutes of statement time, the hearing was over. The 60 minutes is required by law.

 Many in the crowd grumbled, because, being Americans, we expected to come with questions and discuss the merits of the case.  After some clarification, Mr. Bishop gave a short overview as to why their initiative should be passed.  He didn’t really bother stating what his initiative would accomplish – he either assumed we knew, or didn’t seem to want to tell us.  After that the comments started.  

The comments from most of the participants were clear, forceful, and intelligently stated, and in a few cases, profane.  Several people who spoke were registered Republicans; some mentioned they vote for Republicans and Democrats, and many stated that people in Utah do not feel their voices are heard by our legislature, and approving Proposition 4 was OUR voice trying to break through.  At least several people who commented had never spoken in this type of public meeting. 

One of the supporters of repeal is Lyle Hillyard.  Lyle Hillyard had served in the state House and Senate and rose to become one of the most knowledgeable senators on state law and budgets.  He was mostly a traditional conservative Republican; he had thoughtful things to say on a range of issues when he served.  For a short while he was state senate president – until Republicans from the populous Wasatch Front snatched that from his hands to keep power in the population centers of Utah.  He had been on the redistricting commission for the one time it operated, to recommend maps that were ignored, and his two minutes consisted of complaining about how poorly the commission operated – from tight timeline, lack of information, and complex procedures.  He didn’t provide context for any of these complaints nor how anyone might have solved the issues. Apparently the man who once was one of the most powerful people in Utah could no longer solve problems, and he couldn’t say more -  he ran out of time – and after his statement said – ‘I have to go I’m going to watch the ballgame’, and he left.  So, we couldn’t engage in any dialogue – because, well, games.

This hearing was part of the 3rd effort the Republicans launched to kill Prop, 4.  Effort one was an ‘indirect’ initiative, which was to also have hearings on Oct.  25, but the Republicans canceled that at 3:43 pm, Oct. 24.  In theory, effort 2 is still at work, though the Republicans have effectively quit this. This was an effort to  undo a law - SB 1011, passed in early October, that created a new map for the 2026 congressional districts - a map we all refer to as Map C.  So the Republican-dominated state legislature approved a new map, and 10 days later the Republican Party filed to try to get a referendum on the ballot that would disallow that law. 

   If you think that is complicated, on Nov. 10, the judge hearing the district map case ruled that Map C violated the law, and approved another map proposed by the League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government, with a Democratic leaning district in metro Salt Lake City.  This led to howls of indignation amongst Republican legislators for the judge overruling a map that they passed, but their party subsequently filed paperwork to undo. Consistent logic is not a Utah Republican strength.

  Recently U. S.  Senator John Curtis’s newsletter contained the usual senatorial photos and feel-good stories of school groups, introduction of likely pointless legislative efforts, but Sen. Curtis, like most Republicans, got in his digs at how the meany Democrats are causing the shutdown.  He continued to state that for the sixth time he voted to open government, but Democrats opposed them.  Rep. Celeste Maloy, also a Republican, from Utah, echoed the talking points of Democrats being at fault in an opinion piece in the Deseret News. Last week Governor Spencer Cox, our Republican governor, had to get in political digs when he announced some efforts by the state to cover the SNAP. The Republican position appears to be that they will continue to take food away from Americans until the Democrats negotiate away their stand to reduce the increases in health insurance premiums that many people will face for coverage in 2026.

We can tell what people are really like by listening to what they say and watching what they do, from the small to the big stuff.  Our Republican representatives do not care if they are heard; they do not want to hear from us; they do not really want to govern. They blame others- librarians, Democrats, pesky constituents, universities, immigrants, daycare workers, laws;  they don’t solve problems – getting a mic, getting chairs, explaining a procedure, negotiating in good faith; having Congress in session, swearing in Adelita Grijalva.  If things don’t go their way – they change the rules. They spend their time crafting and repeating tired blame messages while holding control of all three branches of the federal government.  With little effort, the ACA issue could be solved, SNAP funded, and a containing resolution passed. The vast majority of Utahns, of all political persuasions, do not care who is to blame, do not watch Mike Johnson’s press conferences, and do not care who “wins the fight”.  Most Utahns want people to eat, families to have health care, federal employees to be paid and federal programs to operate.

• Jim Evans