Utah Legislature’s special session will tackle redistricting, repeal public union bill

The Capitol and downtown Salt Lake City are pictured at dusk on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Sunday called the Utah Legislature into a special session set for Tuesday evening to consider a slate of bills meant to “facilitate” Republican state leaders’ appeal fighting the state’s court-ordered redistricting process and its resulting congressional map that created a Democratic-leaning district. 

“I support the state’s appeal and have confidence the Utah Supreme Court will consider it in a timely way so we have clarity for the 2026 election,” Cox said in a post on X late Sunday.

The governor also included on the special session agenda legislation to repeal a controversial law prohibiting public workers’ unions — including those that represent firefighters, school teachers, police officers and other government workers — from collective bargaining. 

“I support the repeal, and appreciate the Legislature’s work to refocus this conversation to ensure government is doing its best to support our first responders, educators, and all those who serve our state,” the governor said. 

The House and Senate are scheduled to convene for the special session at 6 p.m. Tuesday. 

Ahead of the session, anti-gerrymandering groups supportive of 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson’s redistricting ruling and pro-public labor union groups are expected to rally together at the Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City.

Redistricting

Last month, Utah’s Republican legislative leaders held a news conference to announce their plans to appeal Utah’s new court-ordered congressional map to the Utah Supreme Court, calling it the “most gerrymandered map in the history of the state of Utah.” 

They also announced they would be holding a special session to consider extending congressional candidate filing deadlines in order to allow more time for the possibility of a different congressional map to be enacted before the 2026 elections. 

“Utahns deserve a stable, transparent and accountable process for redistricting, one that respects the roles of our elected branches and the voice of the people,” Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, said in a prepared statement. 

They pointed to a recent poll by The Sutherland Institute, a conservative think tank, that suggests a majority of Utah voters think elected officials should be making redistricting decisions, not judges. 

“The Legislature is taking action to restore order, ensure transparency and defend the integrity of our elections, keeping Utah’s constitutional framework strong and stable,” Schultz and Adams said.

During Tuesday’s special session, lawmakers plan to consider the following, according to a news release issued by Adams and Schultz’s offices: 

• SB2001, Election Amendments, a bill sponsored by Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, and Rep. Karen Petersen, R-Clinton. For 2026 congressional candidates only, the bill delays candidate filing and adjusts signature gathering requirements. It would push back the congressional candidate filing period by about two months, to March 9-13. For congressional candidates gathering signatures to qualify for the ballot, the bill would also allow those candidates to gather signatures statewide — not just in the district they’re running for, as they’re required under current law. It would also set a window of time to file a notice of intent to gather signatures from Jan. 2 to March 13, with signature thresholds staying the same. For all other candidates not running for Congress, election requirements would stay the same, with no changes to primaries or conventions.
• SJR201 and SB2002, a resolution and bill sponsored by Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Provo, and Rep. Jefferson Burton, R-Salem, to make changes to court rules related to appeals by government officers or government entities regarding election, voting and redistricting cases. Together, the resolution and bill would delay attorney fee determinations in election cases until after the appeal process has concluded, and they would exempt a government official or entity from posting bond to appeal a case. The bill would also make clear that the Utah Supreme Court has “exclusive and original appellate jurisdiction over election and redistricting cases,” according to the House and Senate news release.
• HJR201, Joint Resolution Regarding Constitutional Authority, a resolution sponsored by House Majority Leader Casey Snider, R-Paradise, and Senate Majority Whip Chris Wilson, R-Logan, to affirm that the “Legislature, who is elected by and accountable to Utahns, has constitutional responsibility over redistricting.” It’s also expected to condemn “the courts’ novel interpretations of the Utah Constitution that infringe on that authority and silences Utahns’ voices.” 

Petersen, the House sponsor for the election legislation, told Utah News Dispatch on Monday that her and Sandall’s bill is meant to create a process that’s clear and fair for election officials and candidates while allowing flexibility if there’s uncertainty about which congressional map will govern the 2026 elections.

“The objectives of the bill are really a process that clerks can administer, a process that’s fair for every candidate running, and a process that’s really easily understandable for voters,” Petersen said.

Brammer, the sponsor of SJR201 and SB2002, said his legislation is meant to change court procedures to ensure the state’s redistricting case appeal — and other future cases relating to elections or redistricting — don’t get hung up on a dispute over attorney’s fees before the Utah Supreme Court can consider issues at the heart of the appeal. 

“What we were worried about is that a small, procedural issue that doesn’t have a bearing on the larger electoral concerns would delay that,” Brammer said. 

His legislation would not set hard deadlines for the Utah Supreme Court to hear the state’s appeal, but SJR201 does have a provision that specifies that in election or redistricting cases, the court “will establish a briefing schedule, hold oral argument, and issue a decision with sufficient promptness to, as much as possible, avoid prejudicing any candidate or voter or delaying an election deadline or election.”

His legislation would also make clear that the Utah Supreme Court has “exclusive and original appellate jurisdiction” over certain issues, including election redistricting cases, and that it can’t delegate those types of cases to the Court of Appeals. 

Brammer said he doesn’t believe the Utah Supreme Court “would ever want to dodge a situation like this,” but he wants to ensure Utah’s highest court takes up the state’s appeal because it’s a “big enough dispute in the state” that warrants the Utah Supreme Court’s eyes. 

It was a groundbreaking Utah Supreme Court ruling last year that sent the redistricting case back to Gibson’s courtroom after she initially rejected it. In that unanimous opinion, the Utah Supreme Court determined Gibson had erred when she initially dismissed the claim that the Legislature had violated the Utah Constitution when it repealed and replaced a 2018 voter-approved ballot initiative known as Proposition 4 that created an independent redistricting process. 

That ruling made clear the Legislature’s power has limits when it comes to repealing or changing “government reform” ballot initiatives — and it set the stage for Gibson’s most recent rulings in the redistricting case. 

Brammer acknowledged the Utah Supreme Court may again rule against the Legislature when it considers its full appeal, but he argued it’s a weighty issue worth vetting with a higher standard of review than past decisions. 

“Now, maybe they will rule against us again,” he said, “but, you know, for the vast majority of the Legislature, their voters did not support Prop 4 and do not support it. And in fact, the vast majority of Utahns are not comfortable with a judge choosing a map by an interest group. So if we’re truly listening to the will of the people, they want eyes on this.”

In a ruling last month, Gibson overwhelmingly sided with the plaintiffs in a redistricting lawsuit against the Utah Legislature, blocking the GOP-controlled Legislature’s preferred map from being used in the 2026 elections and instead approving one of the plaintiffs’ submitted alternatives, known as Map 1. 

The Legislature’s map, she wrote, “fails in many ways to comply with Proposition 4,” which established an independent redistricting commission and neutral map-drawing criteria. 

Utah’s mid-decade redistricting process and its resulting new, court-ordered congressional map was the result of an earlier ruling issued this summer, when Gibson voided Utah’s last congressional map that the Utah Legislature set in 2021. 

In that decision, the judge ruled the 2021 map was the result of an unconstitutional process after she determined the Utah Legislature overstepped its constitutional authority when it undid Proposition 4. In that ruling, Gibson restored Proposition 4 as law while ordering a “remedial” redistricting process to choose a new congressional map in time for the 2026 election. 

Fighting the courts every step of the way, the Utah’s Republican legislative leaders have accused Gibson of violating the Utah Constitution when she picked a map that wasn’t adopted by the Utah Legislature, which GOP lawmakers continue to argue — despite multiple court rulings against them in the state’s yearslong redistricting court battle — has the sole authority to redistrict. 

Plaintiffs in the state’s redistricting lawsuit have pointed to court proceedings in other states and  argued the courts have a duty to intervene and select “remedial” maps when they determine lawmakers have failed to follow the law. But Republican lawmakers contend the judge should have gone another route, like asking the Legislature to vote on an alternative, rather than picking a map and sidelining the Legislature. 

The plaintiffs and anti-gerrymandering groups have argued that Republican lawmakers have long gerrymandered Utah’s congressional maps in the GOP’s favor, and they celebrated Gibson’s map selection as one that most closely follows Proposition 4’s neutral map-drawing criteria and reflects the state’s “political geography” with a district that best represents its urban core in Salt Lake County. 

But the map’s critics argue it created four uncompetitive districts that lead to skewed partisan results in a state that’s dominated by a statewide majority of Republican voters.

The plaintiffs’ selected map was generated by a computer algorithm designed to comply with Proposition 4, which prioritizes minimization of city and county splits. 

Public union law repeal

The repeal of the anti-public union law, HB267, comes after a coalition of labor unions submitted 320,000 signatures in support of a referendum to ask Utah voters to overturn the law in the 2026 general election. The groups far exceeded the signature threshold needed to qualify the referendum for the ballot — and in May the law was put on hold until voters could decide its fate. 

But rather than waiting for the repeal of HB267 to go to a vote, the Utah Legislature will be taking matters into its own hands. 

In a lengthy statement posted on X late Sunday, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, said the ideas originally behind the law — meant to “end exclusive, behind-closed-doors collective bargaining that shut out many workers” and to bring “accountability” to pay raises and personnel policies — “remain just as important today as they were when the bill passed.” 

“However, it’s clear that the debate surrounding HB267 has been overshadowed by misinformation and unnecessary division,” Teuscher wrote. “That was never the intent. Repealing the bill now allows us to step back, lower the temperature, and create space for a clearer and more constructive conversation.” 

The labor groups coalition Protect Utah Workers fought vehemently against HB267, arguing it would effectively gut the power of public labor unions by restricting collective bargaining, the process where unions meet with employers to negotiate a contract or terms of employment. 

In a statement issued Sunday night the Protect Utah Workers coalition thanked legislative leaders for “respecting the will of the people.”

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“This anticipated repeal preserves the rights of firefighters, police, nurses, public educators, transportation workers, airport staff, and all other critical public workers who improve the lives of Utahns every day,” the coalition said. 

Protect Utah Workers organizers also credited the repeal to people who got involved in the referendum effort. 

“The expected repeal belongs to the Utahns who stood up and signed the referendum,” the coalition said. “More than 320,000 people who signed the petition sent a clear message that public workers deserve a voice on the job.”

Teuscher, however, indicated that he won’t be abandoning his legislative efforts around public unions. 

“Moving forward, I appreciate the willingness of Protect Utah Workers to engage in good faith, and I intend to work closely with union leaders, public employees, and Utahns across the state in the coming year to determine the best path forward,” he said. “My focus is on developing policies that protects public workers, supports taxpayers, and keeps Utah’s public employment practices open, responsible, and grounded in good governance.”