WHO IS BLAKE MOORE? How a Utah Republican Helped Hand Dems a Home Seat

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Blake Moore desires you to know he’s in opposition to gerrymandering.

He was in opposition to it in 2017, when he co-chaired Higher Boundaries, the citizen initiative that planted the seed for Utah’s unbiased redistricting fee. He was in opposition to it in 2018, when Proposition 4 narrowly handed.

He’s nonetheless in opposition to it now, as a sitting Republican congressman watching the fee he helped create carve out a Democrat-friendly Salt Lake Metropolis district that would flip a Republican-held Home seat within the 2026 midterms.

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However the monster is his. He constructed it.

A federal decide threw out Utah’s congressional map and ordered new strains drawn earlier than the midterm elections, all of which was made attainable by the authorized framework Moore helped set up.

The consequence, as nationwide Democrats are overtly bullish about flipping a Home seat in Utah with the brand new maps deseret, is a political reward wrapped within the language of reform.

Now Moore says the fee “strayed from its authentic mission.” He calls the brand new Salt Lake district reverse gerrymandering and laments that Higher Boundaries grew to become “extra targeted on outcomes” — particularly, a Democratic end result.

Moore pointed to the truth that solely congressional maps, not state Legislature maps, have been challenged within the lawsuit — arguing it proves the authorized combat was designed to ship political benefit within the combat for management of Congress.

He’s most likely proper about that. The query Utah Republicans have each proper to ask: What did you suppose was going to occur?

Moore didn't create a impartial course of. He created a weapon, handed it to legal professionals, and walked away. When the Utah Legislature amended Prop 4 in 2020 to make clear the fee’s advisory position — after which drew its personal secure four-seat Republican map — Higher Boundaries sued.

That lawsuit is what introduced the decide into the image. That decide is what produced a Democrat-leaning Salt Lake seat. And that seat could possibly be the distinction between a Republican Home majority and Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.

Moore says he all the time believed the fee needs to be advisory. He invokes Ronald Reagan. He says he can’t assist commissions in blue states however oppose them in crimson ones. “There’s a goose and a gander right here,” Moore instructed the Deseret Information. deseret

Truthful sufficient. However geese don’t price your celebration the Home.

Moore now helps a 2026 poll initiative to repeal Proposition 4 — and in addition backs a constitutional modification giving lawmakers flexibility to change future voter initiatives. Each positions are right. Each are additionally years too late. The map is drawn. The legal professionals received paid. The Democrats are organizing in Salt Lake Metropolis.

A Republican congressman who co-chaired the hassle that produced this end result has some explaining to do — not simply to Utah voters, however to each Home Republican whose majority could hinge on what occurs in a state that needs to be the celebration’s most secure turf.