Judge Who Oversaw Utah Gerrymander Resigns For Affair With Plaintiff's Attorney

Authored by Ben Sellers via HeadlineUSA,

With partisan battle lines being drawn nationwide in a legal showdown over redistricting, Utah may be next in line after the judge who forcibly gerrymandered a congressional seat for Democrats stepped down in disgrace.

Diana Hagen, a justice on the Utah Supreme Court resigned Friday in a letter to Gov. Spencer Cox.

Utah News Dispatch: Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen announces her resignation from the court.

Hagen faced allegations she had a relationship with an attorney involved in a case about redistricting, which led to Utah getting a new congressional map. pic.twitter.com/aFQI3Uw8Lf

— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) May 8, 2026

Hagen had joined in the court opinion for League of Women Voters of Utah v. Utah State Legislature, which forced the red state to redraw its Republican-friendly maps in 2024.

Although Utah’s map currently has Republicans representing all four seats, the courts said it must redraw the maps ahead of the 2026 election to create a Democrat-favorable district around Salt Lake City.

The case centered on a 2018 ballot initiative that sought to create an independent voting commission to draw the maps. The legislature later passed its own 2020 law that limited the commission to an advisory role, but the courts determined it lacked the authority to do so.

Hagen subsequently recused herself from the proceedings after her ex-husband leaked text messages showing that she had been conducting an affair with attorney David Reymann, who was representing the plaintiffs in the redistricting case.

Although an independent investigation by the Judicial Conduct Commission found the allegations against Hagen had “very little credibility,” she continued to face pressure to resign over the perceived conflict of interest.

In her letter of resignation, Hagen cited the extra scrutiny on her private life and the toll it had taken on her family.

“They do not deserve to have intensely personal details surrounding the painful dissolution of my thirty-year marriage subjected to public scrutiny,” she wrote.

In a terse press release acknowledging the resignation, Cox’s office said only that additional information about filling the vacancy would be forthcoming.

With previous rulings against the Utah legislature having been unanimous, it is unclear that Hagen’s departure will change the calculus.

Moreover, the seat’s current occupant, RINO Rep. Blake Moore, voiced support for Proposition 4, the ballot initiative that would turn his own seat blue.

Under the new maps, Moore will run in a different district, with Riley Owen, an Oxford-educated naval intelligence officer and CEO, running in the newly blue-leaning District 1.

Ben Sellers is a freelance authored writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.