Reapportionment

Reapportionment Editorial

On Reapportionment

The Colorado Reapportionment Commission is asserting that it has a mandate to create "politically competitiveness" districts. The purpose of the Reapportionment Commission as currently chartered is to take political agendas out of the reapportionment process so as to make the process objective. Where is political competitiveness listed in the documents that define the Reapportionment Commission's mission? The Commission has no explicit mandate for political competitiveness.

The Reapportionment Commission can argue that it has an implicit mandate to be "fair." No doubt, members of the Commission would assert that a "fair" district is a competitive district, a district which is equally populated by citizens on both sides of a political divide. That notion is flawed both in theory and in practice.

We live in a Representative Republic where we choose our representatives using a democratic process. The democratic process is inherently a winner-take-all affair. All of those who do not vote for the winning side lose. Having winners and losers, by its nature, is unfair. Making districts competitive maximizes unfairness. It maximizes the number of voters on a losing side.

As a theory, the fairness argument for competitive districts ignores the fact that competitive districts maximize the number of voters who are unhappy with their representation. It also ignores the fact that it is impossible to make every district competitive, so making even one district competitive would be unfair to all of the non-competitive districts. Further, it is absurd for the members of the Commission to assert that they can determine that a district will have a competitive election before the candidates have been named.

In practice, what constitutes a viable candidate in a district is determined by the political makeup of the district. The members of the Reapportionment Commission, by replacing Constitutional mandates with personal policy preferences are making themselves the arbiters of who will and will not be viable candidates in illegally drawn districts.

It is the place of the citizens of a district to run candidates that make an election competitive. It is not the place of the members of the Reapportionment Commission to decide for a community where on the political spectrum that competition will take place. For the members of the Commission to do so is for the members of the Commission to use the reapportionment process to implement a personal political agenda.

The Commission has no implicit mandate for political competitiveness. The mandates for the Reapportionment Commission explicitly stated in our Constitution supersede any personal prejudices the members of the Commission have as to what is and is not fair.

Breaking up a community that is overwhelmingly Democrat or overwhelmingly Republican, for any reason, is to break up a community of interest, a community of shared values, a community of shared perspectives, in direct violation of the commission's mandates. By law, communities with a common demographic factor are to be preserved within a single district whenever possible. Political persuasion is a demographic factor.

By law, district boundaries are not to extend outside a county's boundaries except to accommodate a population requirement. In the Denver metro area, there are five counties that have State Senate districts that extend outside of their boundaries: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, and Jefferson. Of those, Adams, Arapahoe, and Boulder counties do not need an accommodation to meet a population requirement. Only Denver and Jefferson counties need such an accommodation.

Denver and Jefferson counties combined are part of five multi-county districts. Together, they meet the population requirement for eight Senate districts without further accommodation from other counties. Respect for the law mandates there be exactly one multi-county district in the Denver metro area, shared between Denver county and Jefferson county. Because the east bank of Marsten Lake is a part of Jefferson county that is bounded on all sides by Denver county, that multi-county district should contain the Marsten Lake area.

By creating unnecessary multi-county districts in order to advance the political agenda of competitiveness, the Colorado Reapportionment Commission has abandoned the rule of law and its mandates.

Craig Jameson