Chair Perucci opened the Redistricting Committee meeting, noting that the panel is acting under a court order and that the legislature plans to appeal the decision: “we do fully intend to appeal it to the Utah Supreme Court and if necessary the US Supreme Court,” she said, and added that the committee must follow the court-ordered timeline for selecting a new map.

The committee reviewed five maps labeled A through E that staff and the committee's mapping contractor produced to meet the statutory requirements of Proposition 4. Committee leaders repeatedly told the public that map-drawers were prohibited from using partisan information while creating the maps: “we can absolutely not use things like election results, voting records, party affiliation information, or consideration of incumbents or prospective candidates,” Chair Perucci said. The committee also emphasized that it would not vote on a final map at that meeting and that maps must be posted for a 10-day public comment period before the legislature may adopt one.

Members and outside presenters walked the committee through the five options. The staff presentation summarized each maps municipal and county splits and other Prop 4-related metrics. For example, committee members noted that maps A, B and C each split three municipalities (examples noted during discussion included North Salt Lake in multiple maps) and three counties (Davis, Salt Lake and Utah), while map D split more counties (Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Tooele and Wasatch) and map E split Cottonwood Heights and Provo and four counties (Salt Lake, Summit, Utah and Wasatch). Committee members and the hired technical expert said the maps were drawn to minimize municipal splits and to drive population deviation toward zero, an objective one member described as a way to reduce legal exposure.

Representative Owens and Senator Escamilla presented a competing map (described in committee discussion as derived from an Independent Redistricting Commission map with modifications) and introduced an independent expert, Dr. Daniel Magleby, who said his team adjusted an IRC-origin map to comply with Prop 4 and reported that the proposal "falls well within the range of what we would expect from a neutral redistricting process." Magleby identified the map as splitting 13 municipalities and four counties (Davis, Morgan, Salt Lake and Utah) and said it had a small population deviation that could be remedied with additional adjustment.

The technical and legal debate focused on how to measure partisan impact after maps are drawn. Mike Curtis of Lehi Research and other counsel cited the statutory language enacted by Prop 4 and referenced the statutory citation discussed in committee (noted in committee as "section 28 19 1 0 3"), saying the statute requires use of "judicial standards and best available data and scientific and statistical methods, including measures of partisan symmetry." Supporters of the maps produced for the committee said they applied a range of post-hoc statistical checks (the staff and one expert ran a partisan-symmetry/quantile comparison and other ensemble-style analyses and posted ranges in the meeting materials) but told members they had intentionally not used partisan data in the map-generation step.

Opponents and some committee members challenged the choice and application of partisan-symmetry tests, saying certain symmetry and bias measures can be misleading in a state with consistently lopsided statewide results. Representative Owens asked for the underlying datasets used by the committee's technical vendor; Dr. Magleby said he had requested those data and that staff informed him the dataset was made available the morning of the hearing. Committee members also sought clarity about whether any map-creation processes screened candidate plans using partisan metrics before presenting them to the committee; staff and counsel said maps were created without partisan inputs and then separately analyzed.

Public comment was extensive. The chair reported about 150 people were online at the start of the meeting and the committee took a mix of in-person and virtual testimony. Speakers from rural counties urged maps that preserve rural constituencies and access to federal-land and water issues; other commenters urged maps that would produce at least one more politically competitive or Democratic-represented seat for Salt Lake County and the Wasatch Front. Several members of the public and some legislators pointed to municipal-split counts as a key compliance concern under Prop 4.

Committee procedural points: members reiterated that any map the legislature adopts must have been publicly available for the full 10-day comment window identified in Judge Gibsons order, and the committee said it will reconvene on the morning of Oct. 6 to review public comments and vote on a recommended map for the legislature. The committee took a noncontroversial procedural motion to approve minutes from the Sept. 22 meeting (motion made by Representative Brooks; minutes approved), but it did not take a vote on any map.

Why it matters: the meeting put on public record how the legislature is interpreting Prop 4, how outside experts and committee staff are applying statistical tests to detect partisan bias, and when the public can comment. The committees choice will determine the congressional map Utah uses for upcoming elections if the court-ordered timeline is upheld.

What the committee left unresolved: committee members differed on which post-hoc tests are most appropriate in a lopsided state, whether the committee and its vendor had relied on any partisan analytics during map selection, and whether the competing map introduced by Representatives Owens and Senator Escamilla should be treated as an additional public option for the final vote. The committee allowed public comment to continue online for 10 days and scheduled a reconvening to act after that comment period.