Senator Mike Lee went on Charlie Kirk’s podcast to discuss Utah’s electoral system which is under attack by Democrats and their allies in the Utah courts. Democrat judges are turning the Utah votes over to outside commissions. In the end, it reduces voter participation in the electoral system.
In the clip, Mike Lee discusses the process by which Utah voters passed a ballot initiative creating a legislative redistricting commission. He detailed how the Utah legislature amended the law but the courts are now invalidating it.
Lee emphasized the fact that the constitutional requirement for legislative districts should be drawn by the legislature not by an outside Commission. As a result, the process of drawing legislative districts becomes less accountable to voters and judges make the decisions.
He believes the decision is designed to benefit Democrats by making the maps more favorable to them and criticizes the judicial takeover of the political process and its impact on the rule of law.
Lee concluded that this decision is a cheap political victory for Democrats aimed at securing an unfair advantage in Utah.
He believes this is happening because people in Utah have become complacent. They’re so used to winning the governorship and the legislature. He also puts the blame on the media which is the antithesis of what the Utah citizens believe in. It’s not even right of center. The Utah media is left wing. They don’t have conservative print media.
Go Deeper:
The conversation was precipitated by the fact that there’s a lot of Flak about Charlie Kirk going to Utah to give a speech. He said it’s worse than Berkeley. After they discussed free speech, they went into what is happening to the Utah vote.
Mike Lee began, “So, Utah electoral system is under attack by Democrats and including their leftist allies in the Utah courts. About seven years ago, there was an effort for which Utah voters passed a law for a ballot initiative creating a legislative redistricting commission.
“Now in the years that followed, the Utah legislature subsequently amended that law, which it has the power to do under the Utah constitution. … But Utah courts are now invalidating the legislature’s amendments to that earlier ballot initiative and to Utah’s existing congressional district maps, even though nothing in the Utah constitution compels or even allows that result!
It’s not even allowed:
“And even though one provision in particular, Article Nine of the Utah constitution, actually requires legislative districts, including congressional districts, to be drawn by the legislature, not by some nameless, faceless commission consisting of people who was well educated and well intentioned as they might be, have never been elected by anybody and don’t serve accountable to the voters of Utah.”
“So it now appears that Utah is likely to be bound by a process involving congressional district maps being drawn not by the legislature, but by this outside commission, and although the legislature still has final authority to approve any such maps under the court order that came out last week that maps, one way or another, have to be more or less drawn by the Commission, even though that constitution belongs to the legislature.”
Great for Democrats:
“Look, this is great for Utah’s Democrats who haven’t controlled the Utah legislature in many, many decades, not because Utah voters are ignorant, but because they don’t like what the Democratic Party is selling and haven’t for decades. That’s why we have Republican super majority margins in the Utah House and in the Senate, why we’ve controlled the governor’s office for decades. But now with this, they found a clever way to even the score, by enlisting the help of their judicial allies.
“Look, this is a terrible development for the rule of law, for voters in Utah who deserve to have these decisions made in a manner consistent with the US Constitution and the Utah constitution now. And make no mistake, this, this decision while being heralded by the left because they like it, because it’s a victory, is your cheap points they’re scoring.
“This will make the process of drawing legislative districts in Utah less accountable to the voters, not more, because that’s what happens when you take that constitutional responsibility away from elected lawmakers and you give it to someone else. It’ll also result in maps that are far more generous to Democrats.”
…
“So it’s kind of a judicial takeover of the political process, one that’s designed by leftists to advance the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party in Utah, and it’s yet another example of how these independent commissions are so often used by the left to give an unfair unearned advantage two Democrats in red states, one that they could never otherwise secure through the electoral process.”
Go to 03:36 on the mark:
Emphasis added.
