Within hours of striking down Utah’s congressional maps and directing the Legislature to draw new ones, Judge Dianna Gibson was already taking heat, with lawmakers clamoring to hold her accountable for her “judicial activism,” including an insinuation she could be removed from the bench.

In a blow to the Legislature, Gibson ruled Monday evening that citizens had a constitutional right to put constraints on the redistricting process, which they did when they passed the 2018 Better Boundaries initiative. The Legislature violated that right, she wrote, when it repealed those limitations , ignored maps drawn by an independent redistricting commission and adopted its own maps.

Those new boundaries split Democrat-leaning areas of Salt Lake County into four separate congressional districts

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