One of the Redist State in Our Union: Utah's Electoral System is Under Attack
Happens every time a precedenT is established outside of a protocol that circumvents our Constitution
There is nothing more evident on how the Democrat party will conive, manipulate, and cheat to win than in Utah.
Here are the 2024 election results (wikipedia)…
But yet, everywhere you look in Utah, there a Democrat appeasing moderate streak.
Why?
With this conversation between Charli Kirk and Senator Mike Lee, you will discover Utah made the mistake of going outside the U.S. Constitution by allowing laws to be also made by ballot initiative, which created an Achilles heel that the Democrats are taking a very serious, self-righteous advantage.
This was a precedent that was NOT very well thought out - a case of where good intentions circumvent Constitutional protocol.
Charlie Kirk discusses this with Senator Mike Lee - and it is worth noting the situation in Utah, as it is guaranteed the Democrats will try it elsewhere in Red states.
VIDEO - Charlie Kirk, Senator Mike Lee
Transcript
Charlie Kirk: Lee, great to see you. Senator, I am going to Utah next week, a week from today, at he wonderful Utah Valley State University.
All are welcome.
You guys can get your tickets at americanumbacktour.com.
Senator Lee, this is already making a lot of headlines.
People are very angry.
They're calling for my cancellation.
They think our permit should be pulled.
What? This is a greater response than when I go to Berkeley. Senator Lee, what is going on in the beautiful state of Utah?
Senator Mike Lee: Well, first of all, Charlie, I want to thank you for the work that you're doing on campuses across the country and for your interest in visiting Utah next week.
You're giving students everywhere the chance to hear perspectives that they often wouldn't otherwise get.
You've been on the front lines defending free speech.
You especially where it's been most under pressure, as it has been on college campuses all over the country.
And I'm so glad that you're bringing that fight to Utah State University and Utah Valley University next week.
Look, free speech shouldn't stop at the campus gates.
If anything, we should have a heightened degree of attention and focus a heightened degree of protectiveness around free speech on campuses, because the learning environment necessarily requires open honest conversations where different viewpoints are examined.
Our students deserve open discussion and vigorous debate, and not just the same sanitized woke version that uh so many college administrators and faculty members seem to prefer. and seem to demand exclusively.
Look, Utah's belief in open debate and free exchange of ideas.
What you're doing helps to ensure students get that experience because if students can't handle diverse ideas in college, how are they ever going to handle that in real life?
So, look, I hope and expect that your visit to Utah will be productive, that you will be able to speak, that you're not going to exclude you, and I anticipate that once you're there, a lot of the naysayers, a lot of those people trying to exclude you, we're going to see some real utility behind your visit there.
Who knows why they decide to start these things, but each time they start them, and then you show up and do what you do best.
People are enlightened as a result of it.
So, thank you for doing that.
CK: Well, it's going to be fun and I think some of these people that are getting very angry are going to be very disappointed because I'm the same person on this program that I'm there on campus.
And if you disagree, you can go to the front of the line and we're going to have a a good chat.
It's americanbackour.com.
SML: And when you show up and they see that you when when you show up and they see right and have opposable thumbs I think some of them are going to feel a little bit silly after the big to-do they've made of that.
CK: No, that's well said and and thank you Senator Senator.
I want to shift gears here to President Trump's Truth Social.
He said Monday's court order in Utah is absolutely unconstitutional.
“How did such a wonderful Republican state like Utah, which I won in every election, end up with so many radical left judges?”
Senator, what is going on here?
Please take some time and go into some detail and explain what's happening in the great state of Utah.
SML: Yeah, so Utah's electoral system is under attack by Democrats, including their leftist allies in the Utah courts.
About 7 years ago, there was an effort through which Utah voters passed a law through 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.
In other words, you can make a law either through the legislature or through a ballot initiative.
The power is somewhat rarely used, but when it is used, it runs on a parallel track with laws made by the legislature.
And so that the legislature can subsequently amend or even repeal a law that was previously made under our state constitution through a ballot initiative.
But the 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, and even though one provision in particular, article 9 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, as well educated and well-intentioned as they might be, have never been elected by anybody and and don't serve accountable to the 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, those maps, one way or another, have to be more or less drawn by the commission, even though the constitution belongs to the legislature.
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 supermajority margins in the Utah House and in the Senate and 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, make no mistake, this decision while being heralded by the left because they like it because it's a victory.
These are cheap points. their 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.
And I think that's the whole point is that they hope to pick up at least 1 seat, maybe 2 for Democrats in Utah as a result of this.
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 to Democrats in red states, one that they could never otherwise secure through the electoral process.
CK: Yeah. So, this is part of a broader redistricting fight in California and Texas.
Let me ask this.
Why is Utah seemingly having this Democrat appeasing moderate streak?
Let's just talk more broadly about Utah.
You're a constitutional conservative, Senator Lee, and one of the best, if not the best, in the nation, and you have an amazing track record and you're so good to your constituents and you represent your voters.
Why is it that in Utah, which is supposed to be this solidly red state, why give any ground at all whatsoever?
What are the influences that are seeping into Utah that seem to be changing the politics there?
SML: Perhaps first and foremost, I think we've gotten a little complacent with the fact that we've had these Republican majorities in both houses of our legislature and uh the governor's office and so many of our other prominent elected positions in the state.
The fact that we've had those under the Republican banner for as many decades as we have has, perhaps, caused many in the state to not be aware of what's going on because you have to dig into some of these details to see what's going on when something like this happens.
Then you add to that, Charlie, what happens in a state like mine, a Republican state, consistently Republican state that has no conservative media to speak of it.
You know, we've got a handful here or there, we've got a handful of great people on the radio, for example.
But, as far as our print media and our mainstream broadcast media, TV, and radio within the state, we have no significant large-scale conservative, or even right-of-center media within Utah.
It's a pretty mismatched state in terms of the political views of the constituency, the citizenry of Utah, and the disparity between that and the news media establishment, which doesn't help.
But here again, just with the apathy problem or the lack of awareness problem, the more people talk about this, the more we can draw attention to it.
I think we can remedy some of that defect.
And I think what you're doing, with your visit to Utah next week, which I applaud, helps to shed light on these things and helps to raise awareness of what's actually happening.