How Mormon women fought a Republican-led redistricting initiative in Utah – and won

Emma Petty Addams is used to navigating political divides. She grew up as a conservative Mormon in California’s progressive San Francisco Bay Area. She identified as a Republican while attending the largely liberal Stanford University. At a young age, she learned how to find common ground with those who may not agree with her.

“I was oftentimes one of the most vocal, if not the only vocal, conservative in the room,” she said. “I learned how to speak my mind in a way that was hopefully persuasive.”

Today, more than two decades later, Addams is still Mormon, Republican and vocal, and is co-director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG), a bipartisan, faith-based group of 9,000 women aiming to be more informed and civically engaged. The organization is based primarily in Utah, home to one of the largest populations of Latter-day Saints in the country.

But Donald Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric, his derogatory comments about women and the way he fueled division in the country spurred Addams to push for democracy and constitutional rights for all – even if that means helping the other side, Democrats, to victory.

She and MWEG are at the forefront of an effort that could result in the election of Utah’s first Democratic member of Congress since 2020, after her group backed efforts to redraw electoral maps in favor of the party.

“I live in a district that’s likely going to become Democratic,” Addams said. “I’ll lose a Republican representative I respect, and I’m 100% OK with that if it means my neighbors get representative government.”

The story of how she got here is proof, she says, that Mormon women like her are often misjudged.

“People want to see Mormon women as either the secret wives or as a trad wife,” Addams said. “We’re neither of those.”

How a Facebook page sparked a movement for Mormon women

Mormon Women for Ethical Government began as a Facebook group in 2017, when mostly conservative Mormon women – unsettled by the disparaging remarks Trump made toward women, minorities and refugees – sought a safe faith-based space to discuss the president’s policies. Many of the women had not been politically engaged for years. Addams, a classically trained piano teacher and mother of three, hadn’t been either. But she said Trump’s actions compelled her to speak up.

“I didn’t buy this idea that people were just kind of coming in and invading [the country],” Addams said, referring to Trump’s comments that immigrants and refugees were taking over American cities. “That wasn’t at all what was happening from where I stood.”

During the 2016 election, Trump won Utah, which has voted for every Republican presidential candidate since 1964. According to the Pew Research Center, Mormons, also known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were among Trump’s strongest supporters that year: about 61% backed him, making Mormons his second-largest religious support base, after white evangelical Christians.

Days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order barring foreign nationals’ entry from seven predominantly Muslim countries that became known as the Muslim ban. Early discussions in the Facebook group centered on sharing the stories of Muslims in Utah amid Trump-era attacks, alongside scripture that emphasized the importance of “welcoming the stranger”.

MWEG members outside the Utah capitol in Salt Lake City on 26 August 2024. Photograph: Courtesy of the Mormon Women for Ethical Government

As participation grew, the tone sharpened, with posts increasingly invoking church teachings on charity, accountability and ethical governance; comments confronting Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct; and threads with hundreds of comments and likes.

Trump’s policies triggered a deeper reckoning for many Mormon women in Utah who had voted Republican for most of their lives, said Jennifer Walker, co-executive director of MWEG. “What they saw playing out was a massive disconnect between the political identity and their religious identity that they had always seen as overlapping, and suddenly, they were much less comfortable with that,” Walker said.

In the first month of the page’s launch, membership surged to 4,000. Today, it has 9,000 members, and it is one of the largest women-led, faith-based civic organizations in Utah. About 40% of MWEG’s members are registered Republicans, 34% are Democrats, and the rest are unaffiliated or independent, according to the group.

Nori Gomez, a 27-year-old Daca recipient, first encountered the group as a junior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, a private institution run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and she now helps lead its immigration initiatives. Growing up in a predominantly white, conservative Mormon environment, Gomez, who describes herself as more liberal, said MWEG became more than an advocacy organization. “For the first time in probably my whole life, I found this group of women that made me feel like I belonged, and like my story was important,” she said.

A safe space of engagement and belonging soon evolved into one of the state’s most effective civic forces. MWEG’s first major action: suing the Utah state legislature for redistricting congressional seats to favor Republicans.

In 2018, MWEG helped gather signatures to narrowly pass Utah’s Proposition 4, with 50.34% of the vote, creating an independent commission to draw state and congressional maps using nonpartisan criteria.

But in 2020, Republican lawmakers repealed Proposition 4 and redrew maps that split Salt Lake county – Utah’s youngest and most diverse region – into four districts, diluting urban Democratic votes and entrenching GOP dominance. Addams, who now lives in Salt Lake City, said it was a wake-up call. “You can do all this work as citizens toward good government, but there are still blockades in your way,” she said.

MWEG decided to sue. Along with co-plaintiffs the League of Women Voters of Utah, MWEG argued that the Republican-led state legislature violated the state constitution when it altered a voter-approved proposition and repealed a ban on partisan gerrymandering

Signing on to the lawsuit, Addams said, was not easy. MWEG was still small and volunteer-run, and she knew it would “put a bit of a target on our backs”. But fighting for redistricting, she said, was necessary for fair representation in the US Congress. “This was an overreach of power,” she said. “Utah voters passed Proposition 4 to put guardrails around that power.”

Last summer, the women’s groups won. Now state lawmakers must draw new maps that could pave the way for a Democratic congressional seat in the 2026 midterm elections.

Squaring their faith and politics with their values

Addams and Walker know that MWEG’s ethos has sometimes been at odds with assumptions about its faith community, particularly within a church that is largely conservative, male-led and cautious about overt political engagement. But Walker rejected the idea that the group stands in tension with the church.

“The church doesn’t take political positions, but it has never asked individuals not to take civic stands,” Walker said. “The expectation is that we use our faith to inform our engagement and try to improve the communities around us.”

(The Guardian asked the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for comment on MWEG or members’ political engagement, but the church did not respond.)

As the group’s profile has grown, some right-leaning Utahns have questioned its claim to nonpartisanship. And at times, the group has been in direct conflict with elected officials from within its own faith community.

MWEG members in Washington DC on 6 May 2025. Photograph: Courtesy of Mormon Women for Ethical Government

Last year, Utah senator Mike Lee, a prominent Trump supporter and member of the church, posted, in response to the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.” This prompted a rare and forceful rebuke from MWEG. Lee’s “words masked and minimized the devastation of the shootings”, MWEG’s statement read. “He capitalized on a tragedy to score political points, and he demonstrated a callous indifference to the loss of life.”

Robert Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia University who studies public policy, said Utah’s political landscape, with many moderate voters among its sizable Mormon population, may have helped create conditions that made it easier for a cross-partisan group like MWEG to gain traction.

“The model could conceivably extend beyond Utah,” he said. “The group’s strength lies in the breadth of its membership – Mormon women spanning a wide range of ages and educational backgrounds – a combination that made their advocacy especially effective.”

What’s next for the Mormon women’s group

Addams said MWEG’s next phase is to teach women media literacy, conflict navigation and other skills to counter partisan divisions. The group is also increasingly alarmed by the expansion of executive power under the second Trump administration, such as the deployment of the national guard during immigration crackdowns in US cities and efforts to end birthright citizenship. “We need to re-establish Congress as the pre-eminent branch of government,” she said, “the voice of the people and a bulwark against executive overreach, regardless of which party is in power.”

For now, the most immediate test is closer to home. The Utah Republican party is pushing to repeal Proposition 4 outright, seeking roughly 141,000 signatures by 14 February to place the repeal on the ballot in November. On Friday, Trump chimed in on Truth Social to urge Utahns to repeal the proposition, saying voters should get maps drawn by those they elect, not “rogue judges or left-wing activists”. Organizers had gathered around 56,000 signatures as of 26 January. The Utah Republican party did not respond to a request for comment about its repeal efforts.

MWEG and other Utah civic organizations have been working to raise awareness and discourage residents from signing the repeal petition.

“In a binary political world, people struggle to understand engagement that isn’t about advancing a party,” Walker said. “If you’re not on my side, you must be on the other team.” MWEG, she said, rejects that framework entirely.

“What we pick is the constitution. What we pick is human dignity. What we pick are the rights and responsibilities of citizenship,” Walker added. “That’s the side we’re on, regardless of who it appears to benefit.”