That, apparently, is the philosophy behind the Democrats’ bill, HB-1408<\/a>,\u00a0 for eviscerating the rules concerning Congressional redistricting.\u00a0 Next year, after the 2010 Census and elections, Colorado will, like every other state, draw new congressional district boundaries.\u00a0 In the past, with one notable exception I’ll discuss below, there have been certain statutory rules governing the drawing of those boundaries, describing what criteria the courts may or may not take into consideration. The Democrats’ bill would seek to repeal all <\/em>of these statutory guidelines and replace them with..nothing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In general courts could not<\/em> use “non-neutral” factors such as\u00a0“political party registration, political party election performance, and other factors that invite the court to speculate about the outcome of an election.”<\/p>\n

Here are the “neutral” factors that courts could use, according to the relevant statute:<\/p>\n

(I)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First, a good faith effort to achieve precise mathematical population equality between districts, justifying each variance, no matter how small, as required by the constitution of the United States. Each district shall consist of contiguous whole general election precincts.\u00a0 Districts shall not overlap.<\/p>\n

(II)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Second, compliance with the federal “Voting Rights Act of 1965”, in particular 42 U.S.C. sec. 1973;<\/p>\n

(III)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Third, except when necessary to comply with subparagraph (I) or (II) of this paragraph (b), political subdivisions such as counties, cities, and towns shall be preserved intact and shall not be fragmented or dispersed across district lines. When applying this criterion, preservation of the most populous counties, cities, and towns shall take precedence. When county, city, or town boundaries are changed, adjustments, if any, in districts shall be as prescribed by law.<\/p>\n

(IV)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fourth, communities of interest, including ethnic, cultural, economic, trade area, geographic, and demographic factors, shall be preserved within a single district whenever possible. Traditional communities of interest in Colorado include the western slope and the eastern plains.<\/p>\n

(V)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fifth, each congressional district shall be as compact in area as possible, and the aggregate linear distance of all district boundaries shall be as short as possible; and<\/p>\n

(VI)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sixth, disruption of prior district lines shall be minimized.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Presumably, the Voting Rights Act would continue to apply, and despite the failure to capitalize “Constitution,” one assumes that the Democrats don’t want to introduce wild disparities in district populations. The courts will still be bound by federal law in drawing federal districts.\u00a0 Those details aside, there are good, longstanding reasons for all of these exclusions and inclusions.<\/p>\n

The absence of the additional restrictions would open the door to the sort of gerrymandering<\/a> that characterizes Illinois:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It also makes intuitive sense that cities and towns should have the same Congressional representation, where possible.\u00a0 In fact, they are merely a subset of (IV): communities of interest.\u00a0 It makes sense that interests, rather than parties, should be represented is legislatures.\u00a0 Citizens have interests.\u00a0 They may be economic, ethnic, cultural, or social, but citizens are far more likely to think about them on a daily basis than they are to think about their party affiliation, if any.\u00a0 Political parties may or may not be an expression of those interests, but are, at best, a secondary overlay on top of them.\u00a0 If this weren’t true, “Unaffiliated” wouldn’t be our largest party non-identification in Colorado.<\/p>\n

This may be a perfectly logical choice, for a party that sees interests as tools of political power, rather than parties as expressions of coalitions of interests, but I doubt that most people think that way.<\/p>\n

But aside from the philosophy involved, it’s important not to lose sight of the mechanics.\u00a0 Redistricting in Colorado is done by a tripartate commission<\/a> from each of the branches of the government.\u00a0 Two each (one from each party) from the House and Senate, three appointed by the Governor, and the last four appointed by Supreme Court’s Chief Justice.\u00a0 If the commission can’t reach agreement, the District Court can impose a solution, as happened in 2002, when it adopted the Democratic plan for Colorado’s new 7th Congressional district.\u00a0 Interestingly, the court specifically included “competitiveness” in its ruling, despite a specific statutory injunction against using party registration as a criterion. <\/em>This <\/em>bill <\/em>aims to remove even that potential legal obstacle.
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HB-1408 is directed to the courts, not the commission, implicitly anticipating gridlock there.\u00a0 If this weren’t the case, the bill would remove any guidelines from the commission, as well.\u00a0 I don’t think it goes too far to suggest that the strategy here is to repeat 2002, obstructing a solution and then getting the courts to adopt a partisan plan.<\/p>\n

CORRECTION:\u00a0 I am reminded by Matt Arnold that the reapportionment commission only applies to state legislative districts.\u00a0 Congressional districts are redrawn by the General Assembly alone, without the governor or the courts.\u00a0 Of course, this increases the chances for gridlock, but it also means that the composition of the Supreme Court will be less important in this regard, should this pass.\u00a0 Similarly, it means that the composition of the legislature will be far, far more important<\/a>.
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