Federal Court in Utah Rules in Favor of Independent Redistricting Commission

In the ongoing gerrymandering fight seizing both major political parties across the country, there was a big win for the voters this week. Utah Judge Dianna Gibson sided with the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and others who challenged the legislature's override of Proposition 4, a citizen ballot initiative that created an independent redistricting commission to draw maps for Congress, legislature and state school board.

Judge Gibson decisively ruled that the citizen ballot initiative voters approved is law in Utah.

The current map, adopted in 2021, had divided a large and diverse district that had encompassed Salt Lake City, the state’s biggest city, into four districts that each had a Republican majority.

The Legislature’s attorneys have said they are planning to appeal.

New Federal Lawsuit Challenges The Use of Party Primaries

Guam has operated partisan open primaries for decades, though the territory’s dominant Democratic Party has toyed with closing them in recent years.

Now a new federal lawsuit by an associate professor at the University of Guam is challenging the use of party primaries altogether for determining which candidates move on to the general election. 

On Guam, partisan primaries don’t just decide nominees. They effectively decide who gets to appear on the general ballot at all.  Dr. McNinch says that’s a monopoly for the major parties — a system unlike that of fellow U.S. territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands, where independents can still run in the general election without being tied to a primary.

“Federal laws are not being followed. The use of a partisan primary for ballot placements chills the ability for non-partisan and independent candidates to be named on the general election ballot, the complaint states.” 

We’ll keep you updated as the case develops.

David Holt, Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, president of the United States Conference of Mayors, a member of the Osage Nation and a long-time proponent for open and nonpartisan primary systems, has been on a tear across the TV talk shows this week after he penned an essay in the NY Times crediting his city’s “red state diversity” to its top two primary elections. Watch his interview on CNN:

In a new piece out in the Fulcrum this week, Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano talks about how the “Primary Problem” is already looming over the 2026 midterms, as voters and politicians alike twist themselves in knots as they manage a broken system of closed party primaries. The answer he declares is political reform, and that’s no hypothetical. From Alaska to New Mexico, open primary reforms are passing and making a real difference in the politics of the states embracing them.

As Troiano points out:

On August 20th, the New York Times published an article entitled, “The Democratic Party Faces a Voter Registration Crisis.” The piece is an analysis of the states where the Republican party has gained voters and the Democratic Party has lost voters.  

Talk about burying the real story. In fact the largest changes in the electorate-by far-are happening with voters leaving BOTH parties. Independents are now the largest group of registered voters in 9 of the 30 states that register by party and the second largest group of voters (more than one of the two major parties) in the majority of the remaining states. These are red and blue states alike.

Shawn Griffiths from the Independent Voter News jumped on the story and wrote a strong response, “Hey New York Times, Your Party Voter Registration Story is Pretty Bad”

He writes:

This is too often the standard media framing. When you fail to discuss what's really happening with the electorate, though, you perpetuate the "us versus them" mentality that the political parties have constructed and negate the views of millions of Americans about both parties and the hyperpartisanship they're engaged in. 

We’ll be working in the coming weeks and months to continue to expose these media biases and encourage more thoughtful reporting.

Well-known journalist Michael Smerconish had OP SVP Jeremy Gruber on his CNN show recently to talk about how closed primaries shut out millions of independent voters every election year and to debate Professor Seth Masket who wants to keep it that way. 

Check it out:

Our new Spokesperson Training Program is now holding an open application process for its next session in October. Held on Zoom, the program offers independents and reform-minded citizens a creative space to develop your skills and share with others why you have chosen to be independent.

The training has attracted hundreds of participants, including many leaders in the open primaries movement. Participants will be presented with an overview of who independents are across the country, learn key talking points to dispel commonly held myths about who we are, have a Q&A session with independent leader Jackie Salit, and get performance training from top-notch professional trainers.

If you're interested in applying for the upcoming session, which will be Tuesday October 28th at 6:30pm ET, Apply here or email Gwen Mandell, Open Primaries’ Director of Leadership Development at [email protected] for more information.

Have a great weekend

The Open Primaries Team