Each week during the 2026 legislative session, we're checking in with a Salt Lake Tribune reporter about the latest in Utah politics and what you need to know. This week, we talked with politics reporter Robert Gehrke about the Utah Republican Party's effort to overturn Proposition 4, and how the group Better Boundaries is fighting back.
Tom Williams
So first of all, I guess, remind us what this effort by Republican Party to repeal Prop 4.
Robert Gehrke
So Prop 4, listeners probably remember, is the 2018 ballot initiative that created an independent redistricting commission and set some standards for redistricting and banned partisan gerrymandering and got tied up in court for a long time.
Recently, Judge Dianna Gibson ruled that the boundaries that the Legislature drew were invalid and chose a map that created a new congressional boundaries. In particular, the one that has the Republican Party upset, is the district in Salt Lake County that would lean Democratic. So instead of having four safe Republican seats in the state, you'd have three safe Republican seats and one that leans Democratic. So obviously the Legislature is challenging that, and this week, Rep. Burgess Owens and Rep. Celeste Maloy and some other county commissioners filed a federal lawsuit challenging it.
But the Republican Party is also pushing this effort to put an initiative on the 2026 ballot that would repeal Prop 4 and kind of give the Legislature back its carte blanche to redistrict how it wants. So they've gathered about half of the signatures, or had about half of the signatures validated so far, that that they need. They need almost 141,000; they're about 70,000+.
But Better Boundaries is now starting this push, this effort, to get people to rescind their signatures. So there have been complaints all along that the signature-gatherers that the Republican Party had been hiring had been using some deceptive tactics to get people to sign, or people were signing without knowing what they were signing. So this effort by Better Boundaries is an attempt to kind of say, “Hey, if you did sign this and you regret it, or you were duped into it, you can send this form to the county clerk.” They're sending the form already filled out with the voter’s information and a prepaid envelope, and they can send it back in.
Tom Williams
So what does this initiative actually say? There have been reports, as you said, of some of these signature gatherers being a bit deceptive, at least in the point of view of some people about what this actually does.
Robert Gehrke
Yeah, so the initiative is actually pretty straightforward in a way. It just takes all of the Prop 4 language, which includes, like I mentioned, the independent redistricting commission, those criteria for redistricting, and the ban on partisan gerrymandering, and just blacks it out, wipes it out. And so in that sense, it's fairly straightforward. But you're right, I mean, we've talked to some people — I talked to a woman, I guess it's a week and a half ago now, who told me that she was filling up her tank, and somebody approached her and asked if she wanted to sign a petition to keep ICE agents out of Utah. We've had people say that this is an attempt to get people to — or an attempt to let the people decide, you know, what the boundaries look like. And so, you know, there's different levels or different varying degrees of what people are saying is duplicitous behavior.
Now, on the other side, the Republican Party has said that some of the counterprotesters, some of the opponents of this initiative, have actually become violent toward their signature-gatherers. There was one case down in American Fork recently where a woman was charged with assaulting a signature-gatherer. There was a case up in your neck of the woods, up at Utah State University, where a woman who was counterprotesting, you know, protesting nearby the signature-gatherers said that she was threatened. There another one down at University of Utah, where counterprotester holding a sign that said declined to sign had his sign ripped out of his hands and torn up. And so, you know, it's getting a little tense, I guess you could say, and these allegations of misleading and duplicitous behavior kind of been lingering around this for quite a while now.
Tom Williams
And as you're saying, Better Boundaries is taking advantage of the part of the law, which says, if you've signed and you think better of it, you can have your signature removed.
Robert Gehrke
Yeah, it's not super easy, like I said. You've got to submit the physical form, but they're making it as easy as possible by including the form already filled out. You just have to sign it, put it in the envelope, and mail it off. After the signatures are verified, they have all of the names of people who are signed are made public, and so they can contact these folks and make it a little bit more difficult for the Republicans to get this measure on the ballot. I believe it's 45 days from the time the signature is validated that the voters have to remove the signature.
So I talked to the Salt Lake county clerk last week, and she said that they'd received about 220 requests to remove the signatures. I believe the Weber county clerk told me they received about 30. So you know, it's not unheard of that people are having their names taken off, but given that the margins on this might be fairly close, especially in some of those Senate districts that the party has to get, it could make a difference at the end of the day. And you know Better Boundaries isn't going to take any chances. They're going to do whatever they can to make life as difficult as possible for the anti-Prop 4 group.
