Jason Perry: On this episode of "The Hinckley Report," after a lengthy court battle, the legislature reveals potential new congressional boundaries.

How is the public responding to the new maps?

What are the lines being drawn?

And what are Utahns thinking about the current political climate in our state?

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jason Perry: Hello, and welcome to "The Hinckley Report."

I'm Jason Perry, director of The Hinckley Institute of Politics.

Covering the week we have Senator Luz Escamilla, a Democrat from Salt Lake County and Senate Minority Leader; Senator Mike McKell, a Republican from Utah County and Majority Assistant Whip in the State Senate; and Daniel Woodruff, a political reporter from KSL5 News.

So glad to have you all with us this evening.

Such an interesting and timely topic.

A lot of this will be about redistricting.

A lot's happened.

The committee met this week.

Both of you are on that committee.

Daniel was watching it closely.

So many things I want to get to, but kind of set the stage for just a moment.

A lot of this starts in maybe before 2--but particularly in 2018, when the Utah voters narrowly passed Proposition 4.

And since then creating an independent redistricting committee, talking about the standards for redistricting.

After that, the legislature, you all got involved with some legislation that modified that proposition.

Court cases ensued, and what landed this past year in 2025, the 3rd District court really telling you all to come back and redraw.

We're gonna break some of those things down.

I just want to have to make sure our viewers know how we got to where we are today.

But this week you both met in this redistricting committee.

Let's talk about that for just a moment.

It got a little bit tense, right, Senator?

Luz Escamilla: I think it was healthy, right?

I mean, we need to have the different of--differences of opinions amongst the majority.

The minority are critical, and in this process we think there's a lot at stake.

I mean, the two--Representative Owens was the other Democrat in the committee.

And we put a lot of effort into trying to find a way and a process that we felt was fair to get us as a legislature to the point of providing one map that will be happening after our special session on October 6 to Judge Gibson.

So, that process became I think part of why we had a very heated discussion, because we felt there were some pieces of accessing information and data-- we made that very clear in public--that I think it got to maybe more of a heated discussion that you don't see very often at the at the Capitol.

But we thought it was important and very respectful.

I respect my colleagues, and these are very difficult situations to address, of course.

Jason Perry: Senator, as Senator Scott Sandall started the meeting, he talked about how you were all there by by court order, which is very interesting.

Talk about that dynamic right there, because we have maps in play, but you're going to have to submit something based on the court.

But that was sort of the flavor that started the conversation.

Mike McKell: That is where we started.

There is a court order in place, and I'll tell you and be really clear, the legislature intends to comply with the court order.

Obviously, our preference is that the 2021 map that we've already passed that we're working under right now, but we will comply with the court order.

I just want to say it did get a little chippy, but I have tremendous respect for Senator Escamilla, Representative Owens.

I felt like they advocated very, very well on behalf of their constituents.

Obviously, my constituency is a little bit different than their constituency.

But to me, I have just tremendous respect for the minority party, and I felt like they were respectful in the hearing.

And it was a good committee hearing, and I think we involved the public in a very powerful way.

Jason Perry: I want to get to those points which included you with your own map that you submitted, Senator.

We'll talk about that in just a moment.

Daniel, talk about what's sort of in the balance here.

So, you talk about these very strong assertions back and forth, which you might expect in something like this.

Talk about what you're hearing from the people throughout the state and what really is at stake.

Daniel Woodruff: Well, what's at stake really is who represents Utah in Congress, and how those maps are drawn is critical for how we elect representatives.

We have four, currently all Republican.

From my perspective in the hearing--it was a long hearing.

I felt that what was in the balance on the most recent hearing was this question of bias, and it felt like the Republicans and the Democrats both were going after each other over questions of who's biased and who's not.

Each one has retained an expert to help them draw their maps.

The Democrats have retained Dr.

Daniel Magleby, a political scientist.

Republicans have retained Sean Trende.

Both have extensive experience in redistricting matters and drawing of maps, but the tension came about really when each side sort of poked at each other about your experts tweeted things that weren't appropriate, or your expert may have relied on partisan data, although we can't prove that, but we suspect that.

And that's really where I felt like things got a little bit tense and really the chair, Scott Sandall of Tremonton, the Republican, really got upset about it, called a point of order and said it was out of line what the Democrats were alleging.

And it's kind of this back and forth, and that's really I think what the big question on Wednesday was, was who's biased, who's not, and can we get to a point where these maps can be trusted as put together without thinking of Republican or Democrat in any way?

Jason Perry: Hey, is it--go ahead, Senator.

Luz Escamilla: No, I think that's a great way to start the conversation, where, you know, this came also with a very limited timeline.

And that's been a challenge for the legislature as a whole, for our staff that's nonpartisan, which I think it's important for the public to understand Utah has what we call a nonpartisan staff that's the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel that staffs all of us.

When we were notified that there was an expert hired for our office, for the entire legislature, 104 members, this Dr.

Sean Trende, that he was just be testing on this partisan bias test, and that's when we start getting into the partisan symmetry definition, that he's correct.

This is where the chaos begins.

You know, and it's very, very difficult, and let's be very transparent, this is hard, and it's part of Prop 4, and it is there in subsection 5 of our laws now.

And when we started--when we realized that he had drawn the maps that were gonna be presented by the majority but we were not getting access to him to help us present on our maps or even help us do a map, that's where everything exploded.

And we're like we need at least the data sets.

So, on Sunday, the day before, we hired another expert, and we're looking for experts.

There's a tie to Utah.

He's a Utah boy, and he understands a little bit of the dynamics, and that's how we end up with Dr.

Magleby.

But it was important for us to have someone, because we realized we work a whole week on maps and they were all failing, and we're like what is happening?

But we couldn't get enough information or data sets for that.

Jason Perry: You wanna talk about that for just a minute?

Because this became a big part of the conversation, the battle of the experts.

But also about--talk about this core issue about part--the partisan nature of boundaries.

What you're looking to avoid is the argument.

Mike McKell: Well, we can't consider partisan data, and I know Senator Escamilla and I, we've been really careful not to consider partisan information.

But I think what Senator Escamilla has talked about, and even Daniel, it just highlights how difficult this process is.

We are under court order.

We have a very condensed timeline.

And getting these experts in place, making sure these maps are compliant with Prop 4 has been an abs--has been a challenge.

Judge Gibson in her order, she invited the legislature to look at data, try to define what partisan symmetry means, and that's why we've got some experts to try to define what partisan symmetry means.

Obviously, there's a lot of other criteria that's important, but that's in the criteria.

Jason Perry: Yeah.

Luz Escamilla: Jason, if I can, because he's right, page 29 of Judge Gibson's decision is where it's very clearly stated, go, state legislature, and define this.

Now, it says the law identifies measures of partisan symmetry, measures with an S, plural, and makes non-exclusive, and for one factor meaning there is ways of assessing this with different ways of doing this.

So, partisan bias, which is a test that was proposed to be codified on Monday with a bill by Senator Brammer, was proposing for us to, the state of Utah, to just codify one test, and that's where everything also became problematic, because that partisan bias test is one that particularly doesn't work for Utah in the way our state, our numbers are.

So, that was where we were coming back and saying, guys, this particular metric requires to assume a hypothetical scenario that is not-- potentially not gonna happen in decades in Utah, and it draw-- it makes it so, you know, it really is not unbiased.

It actually is partisan bias, if anything.

So, that's a concern.

Mike McKell: And I would say I think the partisan bias test that Representative--Senator Brammer has introduced, I think it does--I think it is helpful.

I think it eliminate--it shows what those outliers might look like, but I--part of the frustrating part for me, and I feel like we had some really good committee hearings.

We had two committee hearings where we took a lot of public comment.

I know we've been criticized by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the League of Women Voters over this standard, but what I didn't hear sitting through two days of hearings is what should the standard be?

Judge Gibson has asked for a standard.

We presented a standard.

But what I have not seen is a clear standard from the plaintiffs in this matter from the public, a standard that should be different.

I do think the standard that Senator Brammer has chosen, it does highlight outliers and it makes sure that we are compliant with Prop 4, but if there is a different standard, I don't know what it is and it wasn't--it certainly hasn't been presented by the plaintiffs.

Luz Escamilla: I would just say there is a substitute language to the bill that I proposed, and its public, on Monday.

And Monday the chairs decided not to take action on Brammer's--Senator Brammer's bill.

So, in my proposed language you do have other measures, other statistical pieces, the mean-median test and other tests that are partisan symmetry tests and that actually could probably provide us a broader vision into what we're looking into.

So, you're right, I think having one is never the right answer.

And it's not, I think, what the intent of Prop 4 was ever.

Jason Perry: Hey Daniel, can you break down this bill a little bit?

This is Senator Brady Brammer from Pleasant Grove.

It's on redistricting standards, what it's called, and he puts forward a formula for determining partisan symmetry, and this is it.

And so talk about what you're hearing about this particular effort right here.

You look at the margins of victory in the three previous elections for statewide office, president, governor, attorney general, auditer, and treasurer, and you look at those particular factors right there when you start figuring out whether or not there is partisan symmetry.

Daniel Woodruff: Well, Utah is a very Republican state, right?

And so, this--as I've been able, and I will confess, Jason, I was not in the Monday hearing when that was presented.

But from what I've read and from what my colleagues have reported, this is to deal with the fact that Utah has a very lopsided Republican majority compared to Democratic.

And so, this is an effort to address that.

What I've really heard erupt from this, and we get a lot of news releases reacting to almost every step of this, and my inbox exploded with people saying this feels like what the legislature did a couple of years ago when they altered Proposition 4.

This is altering the judge's ruling kind of a 2.0.

That's what we're hearing.

I'm not saying that is the case or that's not the case, but that's a big criticism is if the legislature bigfoots its way into this via Senator Brammer's bill, the critics would allege, it is doing exactly what they did a couple of years ago that led to the lawsuit that brought us to where we are today.

Mike McKell: And the only thing I would say to that though, and I appreciate that, Daniel, and I've heard that criticism as well, but the judge invited the legislature.

The judge specifically in her order said, look, come up with standards, use the best available data, scientific, and statistical methods.

And we need to have a standard.

We need to make sure that we figure out what political symmetry means.

I think it was ambiguous in Prop 4, and that's what we're trying to do with this, with the Senator Brammer bill.

Luz Escamilla: And so, I will say to my good colleague here to my left, which is very appropriate, that it will be great for them to--if it was perfect for them to consider a more comprehensive and more actually statistically a significant way of seeing the partisan symmetry that is in Prop 4--that is what Judge Gibson did invited the legislature to define--in a comprehensive way, not in just one bias, one test.

And I think, you know, we can work on that bill.

We still have till, I mean till the 6th, but right?

I mean, what does that look like for us to come together and find ways to define this that is not just one that seems very biased, and that's what we're hearing from some of our constituents, as was mentioned.

Jason Perry: Let's get to a couple of other factors that were part of Prop 4, because the judge also said you should try to put these parameters--use these parameters where you can.

Talk about--and there was some discussion in this committee too.

So, one of those is that the boundaries should be compact and contiguous.

Daniel Woodruff: And you saw in one of the maps in particular that was brought up, because it was sort of striking, and I can't remember what option it is.

I need to memorize those better, but one of the districts began in northern Utah, stretched over to east, down all the way to Blanding, and someone brought up, you know, if you were to drive there to there, it's over eight hours.

And so, that discussion of compactness came up a couple of times in that are these districts feasible and realistic for a member of Congress to represent?

Or are they going to find themselves just unable to traverse this very unique state that we have geographically, because you could have constituents on literally one southeastern corner of the state, one northwestern corner that is completely night and day in terms of many things.

And so, compactness came up a lot as well as, Jason, other issues, sort of like keeping cities together, keeping counties together.

Jason Perry: Let's say a couple.

Did you have any more comments on that one?

Compact and contiguous?

Mike McKell: I think Daniel nailed it.

I think it's exactly right.

Jason Perry: That does--before I--maybe before I get to some of these other standards, it does bring one interesting question, is what do you do with Salt Lake and in this case Utah County?

What do you do with those two counties?

Because every one of the maps divides those two counties in some way.

What do you do?

So Senator, start with this a little bit because we have this conversation for a long time, what do you do with the most populated part of the state?

Mike McKell: Well, so Salt Lake County has to be divided.

There's no way around it.

Salt Lake County is a mil-- you've got 1.1 million in residents and you've got about 850,000 per congressional district.

Luz Escamilla: 887,000.

Mike McKell: 887,000, so logistically it has to be divided, and I think Utah County has to be divided.

And when we look at the standards and compactness, I think you're going to have at least two, probably three counties that will be divided.

Luz Escamilla: Yeah, so, I mean, same here, right?

We knew Salt Lake County had to be divided no matter what.

We can't put that many people in one district because then we will not meet the deviation and other measures.

So, county split will have to have at least one county split, and then you also have in municipalities, there's three municipalities, or cities, for our conversation, people get confused sometimes.

Three cities that actually are in two separate counties, so they will also probably--there are some of them will have to be divided as well, because they are--their cities lie in two different counties.

Jason Perry: It gets to this heart of this issue about urban and rural representation also, which we see discussion, Senator, right now about that when you start deciding what map you're going to choose.

Mike McKell: Well, for me, I always want to see a blend of urban and rural.

I grew up in Emery County, southeast Utah.

I live in urban Utah today.

And I think the impact on urban and rural, I think it goes hand in hand.

I look at, you know, I used to have John Curtis used to represent me in Spanish Fork, and I'd watch him do town hall meetings.

He'd go from Salt Lake to Provo, Spanish Fork to Emery County to San Juan.

And I think that's very, very helpful understanding the flow.

I mean, for me, in Spanish Fork, the flow down Highway 6 into Emery, Corinne, and then over to Uinta Basin.

I mean, we're interconnected, and I think that's why having an urban-rural blend makes a lot of sense to me.

Luz Escamilla: Can I just add there was a lot of comment during the public comment related to that with different, you know, ideologies there, philosophical thinking about whether--what about the urban districts that may feel that they're not being represented correctly?

Or can we have half of the districts have only, you know, rural?

It was interesting, because you--the mixes are, I mean, just Harbor Alarm Program alone, project has 6,000 public maps of Utah that you can have.

Just imagine just how many, you have millions of infinite number of maps that you can do.

And that's where it gets convoluted, is it's, you know, the drawing of streets.

I mean, do they flow directly, you know, we have some geographical and geological things as well.

But for people, the idea of do we have to have all districts be all, like, combined urban and rural?

They were saying, people, maybe we don't need all districts.

I mean, it was interesting to hear all their perspectives as residents of those communities.

Jason Perry: Let's get to a couple other standards.

Daniel, you mentioned a couple of these a moment ago, this idea of what they say preserving communities of interest, and the legislature concentrated on a couple of those.

So, maybe help us understand what that means and why these.

It was you mentioned keeps Uinta Basin together, a community of interest.

Tribal lands and reservations, institutions of higher education.

I glad we were on that list right there.

And military installations.

Talk about that for a moment, and sort of the policy thoughts behind these communities of interest and keeping them together.

Daniel Woodruff: Just that those are--those are critical federal issues, right?

And in getting funding for various of these institutions, military bases, such, it's easy to have one point of contact on that versus having to say, well, it splits down the middle, so I'm going to have to involve this one for this and that one for that.

And that was what the chairs brought up as they talked about these communities of interest, that it's hard to define community of interest, but in these particular four it's just that there are issues that are easy to identify as needing federal representation on and being able to go to a key point of contact on that versus making it diluted by having multiple people involved.

And I think we've seen over the years a number of members of Congress who have been very effective in advocating for Hill Air Force Base and things like that, that that was their district, that's their area, and they became experts and specialists in that.

Jason Perry: Go and talk about that, because that was a big topic of conversation.

Luz Escamilla: And to be clear, it is not defined.

And there's a lot of case law attempting to define this.

And even the Supreme Court has not defined communities of common interest.

So, the Supreme Court has been very careful on how they involve themselves on this topic, which--so we've been--we're reading all those case laws, so it is--I don't, you know, we-- what Prop 4 was trying to do, and it is--and it puts that before, so if you look at the-- what it says, before communities of common interest is preserving traditional neighborhoods and local communities of interest.

So, it is infinite also definitions of what that means, and I think that's where also there may be from a legislative perspective a different point of view.

We do agree that there's, for example, tribal lines makes sense, some of the military bases for purposes of advocacy.

But some of the measures that were discussed during committee were the ones presented by the majority.

I think that's important to make sure it's clear.

When they say the legislature, it was just the majority that was presenting them in the way they draw their maps.

And I wanna make sure that's clear, because that's not in Prop 4, what those communities of interest are.

Mike McKell: Well, one of the things I would add to communities of interest is just keeping communities themselves together, cities together.

Some of the maps that we've put together as we've tried to comply with Prop 4, and I think it's important that the public know the maps that we put together, we are directly trying to apply the principles and criteria of Prop 4.

We want to have as few city splits as we possibly can.

You'll see in several of the maps, you'll see three to four county splits with, you know, four--three to four city splits, and I think that's important.

We look at communities of interest, I think it can mean a lot of things, but I do think it means keeping communities and cities together as much as possible.

Jason Perry: Let's talk about what is to come, all right?

Daniel, maybe why don't you lead us through a little discussion about the process?

Because a lot is about to happen between now and October 6, which is when we understand we're planning on voting on the map.

Daniel Woodruff: We are right in the middle right now of what's called public comment, so every map has now been published on Redistricting.Utah.gov.

And that is the five maps presented by the Republican majority, the Democrats presented their own map that was discussed.

That's on there, as well as every single map that citizens themselves have drawn, and I don't know how many there are there.

So, five plus one plus who knows how many.

That is now available for anybody to go look.

You can pinpoint areas of the map, leave public comments.

That goes for ten days, according to the judge's timeline that was set.

And then, as you mentioned, on October 6, the redistricting committee will first meet in the morning, come back, and recommend one of the maps.

It's expected it would be one of the ones that the legislature put together, not a citizen map, but you never know.

They will recommend one of the maps, and then later that day in a special session of the full legislature they would take a final vote.

So, that is what we're working toward.

But right now it's the public's time.

What do you think about it?

Do you like it?

Do you hate it?

What needs to change?

Et cetera.

Jason Perry: What's happening behind the scenes right now as both sides, the majority has has presented several options, and we have your map that you put together with Representative Owens, right?

So, there as well, tell us what's going on right now as we're in the public comment period just so we as the public can understand the process.

Mike McKell: I think more than anything else we're receiving feedback, feedback from the public.

What's cool about these maps when the public provides feedback, they can actually drop a pin on a specific spot on the map and say this is my concern, and it can be very narrow and very specific to a community.

We are looking at that.

I know Senator Escamilla and I have looked at those maps.

We looked at those pins, we look at those comments.

I really want to commend the public and the amount of public feedback that we received through those two hearings, but that's gonna continue all the way up until October 6.

Luz Escamilla: And I think that the ten day period, by the way, and people are like, why do you have to do this so fast?

Is because we try to meet all the deadlines from the court.

I think that's important.

It's not that the legislature is trying to cut time on meetings, or I wanna make that clear, because people have been very upset.

We are just following the ruling from Judge Gibson, and we're gonna meet that ruling timeline.

And so, we are here to listen.

There is the maps look different, but at the same time I think everyone came with the sole interest of fulfilling Prop 4 criteria, meeting what the judge is saying, and trying to define those things, and there's gonna be disagreements, and that's good, that's healthy, and we're here to listen to our constituents.

I'm hearing from my district.

That's important.

We--you should be contacting your state legislator right now.

This is the time, and let them know what map you like and why do you like that map, what's important for you.

This is the time to do that.

Daniel Woodruff: And I want to note on the issue of time, Representative Pierucci, who's the other chair of the commission, noted at the beginning as she was sort of again saying we're here under protest, she said, "We have requested a stay from the judge due to concerns about time in part, and that was denied."

And so, Republicans have sort of been very emphatic about the fact that they would have liked more time to do this, but the judge said no, it needs to be within the time, and I think it's an important point to make because Republicans certainly have had a number of complaints about the process, time being one of them.

It's just a lot of stuff to do in a short amount.

Mike McKell: And I would say the first time we did this, I was on the redistricting committee, we held 19 public hearings.

I went with the committee, we went up and down the state to every crack and corner of the state, and it does feel--it does feel rushed, it does feel inappropriate.

But with that said, we are going to comply.

Luz Escamilla: And just in the process of the maps and the people, some people have really interesting feedback, and they are, some of them are qualified.

I mean, they have some expertise that many of us don't have, so please know that everyone is reading those comments.

They wanna be obviously going back to Prop 4, and we are following, again, those three districting standards and requirements.

I mean, that's what our role is.

And then a map will be provided to the judge, and my understanding is that plaintiffs will also have an opportunity to provide their own map, and then from there we'll see what the next step is, right?

Because I'm sure there's gonna be more steps to come.

Daniel Woodruff: And ultimately, the lieutenant governor's office has said the new map needs to be in place by November 10 for use in the 2026 midterm election.

Jason Perry: And so, your understanding is whatever map is picked right here is the map that will likely be used, or is there one more stop potentially?

Mike McKell: Unless Republicans are successful in their appeal and it goes back to the 2021 map.

Jason Perry: In our last 20 seconds, what's that process look like?

Mike McKell: We're gonna continue to exhaust our legal remedies.

I mean, for me, I really feel like we did a good job in those 19 committee hearings.

I feel like the 2021 map was appropriate.

I felt like it was fair.

I feel like the people of Utah are being very well represented by members of Congress.

And, you know, ultimately we're going to exhaust our appeals and try to preserve the 2021 map.

Jason Perry: Okay, thank you so much for your insight, so timely, so interesting.

And thank you for watching "The Hinckley Report."

This show is also available as a podcast.

Thank you for being with us.

We'll see you next week.

announcer: Funding for "The Hinckley Report" is made possible in part by the Cleone Peterson Eccles Endowment Fund and by donations to PBS Utah from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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