Did Utah’s congressional map go too far? Here’s what Utah’s Supreme Court justices said ahead of ruling.

The Utah Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a challenge of Utah’s congressional districts, drawn by the majority-Republican Legislature.

Justices are weighing whether the state court system has the ability to take on questions surrounding the constitutionality of political maps, and whether a district court judge should have thrown out allegations that the Legislature illegally disregarded a ballot initiative outlining an independent redistricting process.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs in the case — the League of Women Voters, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and a number of Utah residents — argued that lawmakers intentionally drew the congressional districts to split Salt Lake County into four parts in order to dilute the vote of the most liberal part of the state.

The Legislature and the Attorney General’s office are asking that the case be dismissed, claiming that the courts don’t have the power to consider such complaints. After a district court judge refused to dismiss the case last year, the state asked the Utah Supreme Court to intervene.

Lawmakers and their attorneys have argued that there is a logical reason to split Salt Lake County — they want an urban-rural mix. And ultimately, there is nothing in state law or the state constitution that prohibits a partisan gerrymander.

The justices did not issue a decision Tuesday, and it will likely be a few more months before they rule on the matter.

Standing in front of the justices, with Republican House Speaker Brad Wilson seated directly behind her in the gallery, attorney Taylor Meehan contended that if it were to answer the question of whether districts were fairly drawn, it would be delving too deeply into politics — far beyond its judicial authority.

“It’s politics all the way down,” Meehan said. “Redistricting is all about politics in a ‘small p’ way, and sometimes in a ‘big p’ way.”

The only standard the court could use for judging electoral boundaries, Meehan said, is a political one.

Associate Chief Justice John Pearce pushed back on the argument: “If you’re saying there’s no standard we can apply, there is a standard we can apply. It’s the standard the people of Utah wanted to apply to these maps. ... Why couldn’t we look to that for the standards we should apply here?”

Meehan called the bill establishing the Legislature’s redistricting process, and overriding those included in the ballot initiative, a “great compromise.” But if voters didn’t like the maps the Legislature ultimately approved by a supermajority (eliminating the possibility of a referendum), they can vote lawmakers out.

“In practice, there will be serious political checks on them” if they circumvent the people’s will through partisan gerrymandering, Meehan said.

“When do the people have the last word, though?” asked Justice Paige Petersen. Petersen continued, “You’re saying they can’t have the last word through the initiative process. People structurally don’t ever have the last word.”

Although several other states bar partisan gerrymandering in their constitutions, Utah’s does not have such an explicit provision, nor does the Beehive State have any laws barring such practices.

Justice Diana Hagen wondered whether Utah might be the first state in which courts could make a decision on unfair redistricting claims without constitutional mandates or laws on the books, and said not having those standards concerned her, she said.

Mark Gaber, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center who’s representing the plaintiffs, said the questions around the Legislature’s are “implicating the fundamental right to vote” — not just in elections, but the initiative process.

He alleged that the Legislature’s redistricting process considered how people voted in past elections.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have as a governmental principle that redistricting ought to occur by the standards that the people chose — the traditional neutral standards that don’t take into account the partisanship of voters,” Gaber said.

Wilson, who is named in the lawsuit, said the hearing was “interesting,” adding that he thought Meehan and other attorneys representing the state “did a great job representing the legislature’s perspective about the constitutionality of the legislature, the elected officials from the people, being the ones to do the redistricting process and have accountability for that by their constituents.”

Andrew Christiansen contributed to this story.