The Guardian reports it was largely the work of a hyper-conservative group of Mormon women who derailed Republican efforts to gerrymander a new Republican district in Utah this year.The Pew Research Center reveals that Mormons, also known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were among Trump’s strongest supporters in 2016, with about 61 percent of church members backing him, making the group his second-largest religious support base.But in 2018, the Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) helped gather enough signatures to pass Utah’s Proposition 4, with 50.34 percent of the vote. This created an independent state commission to draw state and congressional maps using nonpartisan criteria, rather than let legislators cherry-pick their own voters.But in 2020, state Republican lawmakers told MWEG to take a hike and repealed Proposition 4. Then they redrew maps that split Salt Lake County – Utah’s youngest, most diverse and bluest region – into four districts. This packed urban Democratic votes into red outlying regions and entrenched GOP dominance for the next election. The MWEG group sued their state government along, arguing that the Republican-led legislature violated the state constitution when it altered a legitimate voter-approved proposition.“Last summer, the women’s groups won,” reports the Guardian. “Now state lawmakers must draw new maps that could pave the way for a Democratic congressional seat in the 2026 midterm elections.”“I live in a district that’s likely going to become Democratic,” said MWEG Founder Emma Petty Addams. “I’ll lose a Republican representative I respect, and I’m 100 percent OK with that if it means my neighbors get representative government.”Defying lawmakers was not easy, said Addams, a mother of three and a piano teacher. But the legal battle was necessary to deal with “an overreach of power” that Utah voters opted to protect with “guardrails”.“People want to see Mormon women as either the secret wives or as a trad wife,” Addams said. “We’re neither of those.”The organization’s is already saddling up for its next fight, however, as the Utah Republican Party pushes to repeal Proposition 4. In an effort to gerrymander Utah to protect Trump’s narrow House GOP majority, the party is seeking 141,000 signatures by February to place the repeal on the November ballot. Trump posted on Truth Social, urging Utah residents to repeal the proposition and let politicians pick their own voters. This follow his nationwide effort to restructure districts to enshrine his majority for the foreseeable future — some with more success than others.“Organizers had gathered around 56,000 signatures as of 26 January,” reports the Guardian. “The Utah Republican party did not respond to a request for comment about its repeal efforts.” Read the Guardian report at this link.
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