After months and months of meetings and discussions, Colorado’s Independent Congressional Redistricting Committee approved a new Congressional map late Tuesday night. Now we just need the State Supreme Court to approve the new boundaries…
Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Commission agreed on a congressional map at its final meeting Tuesday, just minutes before a midnight deadline. It will now go to the Colorado Supreme Court for approval.
The new map is largely modeled after Colorado’s current congressional boundaries, while making room for the state’s new 8th congressional district which will sit along the I-25 corridor north of Denver.
Politically, the map creates four Democratic seats, three Republican ones and a swing district — the new eighth — that leans slightly to the left. The boundaries give all of Colorado’s current members of Congress a strong chance of holding on to their seats.
This final map was a Democratic amendment to a plan drawn by nonpartisan staff based on public feedback. In the end, it was supported by eleven of the panel’s twelve commissioners, with just Democrat Simon Tafoya voting against it.
► Business groups and Republican leaders are working to secure GOP votes in the House of Representatives for an infrastructure vote scheduled to take place on Thursday. From The New York Times:
Although the measure is the product of a compromise among moderates in both parties, House Republican leaders are leaning on their members to reject the $1 trillion infrastructure bill by disparaging its contents and arguing that it will only pave the way for Democrats to push through their far larger climate change and social policy bill.
Their opposition has ratcheted up pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has the more progressive members of her Democratic caucus threatening to withhold their support for the infrastructure package until Congress acts on that broader bill. If Republicans unite in opposition, Ms. Pelosi can afford to lose as few as three Democrats on the bill.
But some Republican senators who helped write the bill, along with influential business groups who support it — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — have started a countereffort to try to persuade House Republicans to back the legislation.
Across the aisle, Democrats are still working to secure support for President Biden’s economic agenda. From a separate New York Times story:
President Biden and his aides mounted an all-out effort on Wednesday to salvage Mr. Biden’s economic agenda in Congress, attempting to forge even the beginnings of a compromise between moderates and progressives on a pair of bills that would spend trillions to rebuild infrastructure, expand access to education, fight climate change and more.
Mr. Biden canceled a scheduled trip to Chicago, where he was planning to promote Covid-19 vaccinations, in order to continue talking with lawmakers during a critical week of deadlines in the House. One crucial holdout vote in the Senate, Kyrsten Sinema, a centrist from Arizona, was set to visit the White House on Wednesday morning, a person familiar with the meeting said.
Ms. Sinema was one of the Democratic champions of a bipartisan bill, brokered by Mr. Biden, to spend more than $1 trillion over the next several years on physical infrastructure like water pipes, roads, bridges, electric vehicle charging stations and broadband internet. That bill passed the Senate this summer. It is set for a vote this week in the House. But progressive Democrats have threatened to block it unless it is coupled with a more expansive bill that contains much of the rest of Mr. Biden’s domestic agenda, like universal prekindergarten and free community college, a host of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tax breaks for workers and families that are meant to fight poverty and boost labor force participation.
New polling from Colorado shows that voters in our state remain overwhelmingly supportive of President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. Biden’s plan has the support of 80% of Democrats and 60% of Unaffiliated voters; 27% of Republican voters agree with the proposal.
► Colorado will use $500 million in federal COVID relief funding to boost child care resources throughout the state. Money from the American Rescue Plan amounts to more than double what Colorado’s Office of Early Childhood is normally able to spend in a given year.
► Republicans such as Rep. Lauren “Q*Bert” Boebert aren’t even pretending to couch their beliefs about “replacement theory” in a less-overtly racist tone.
►POLITICO reports on early legal maneuvering by the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection as part of an effort to ensure cooperation from former Trump administration officials.
► Colorado Public Radio touches on several subjects in an interview with Gov. Jared Polis.
►A new state commission will work on improving the manner in which law enforcement officers engage with Colorado’s disabled residents.
► Gina Ozols will head up a new “Electoral Action Project” driven by the Colorado AFL-CIO, the labor union SEIU, and the Colorado Education Association.
► Charles Ashby of The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has the latest on an investigation into a security breach in the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s office:
A review hearing on felony and misdemeanor charges against Mesa County Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley that had been set for Thursday has been delayed.
That happened because Knisley, 66, was in a traffic accident earlier this month and shattered her right leg, causing her to have at least two surgeries on her shin bone, her attorney, Shannon Roy, wrote in a motion asking for the delay.
“Ms. Knisley has been in the hospital since Sept. 12, 2021, and will remain there as she goes through the rehabilitation process,” Roy wrote to District Judge Matthew Barrett in her motion to continue the hearing to another day…
…Because Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, who is prosecuting the case, did not oppose Roy’s motion, Barrett granted the request, setting Nov. 15 for a new hearing.
Knisley is facing a class 4 felony charge of second-degree burglary, and a class 2 misdemeanor charge of cybercrime.
Knisely’s boss, Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, is currently under investigation by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, the Mesa County DA, the FBI, and the Colorado Attorney General’s office. ►Westword reports on new data on breakthrough COVID-19 cases in Colorado.
► Dana Milbank of The Washington Post notes the latest target for Republican complaints: The U.S. Military.
Perhaps nothing Republican lawmakers do anymore should come as a surprise, but their treatment of Gen. Mark A. Milley on Tuesday opened a new front in the war against civilized norms.
Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee didn’t just give a dressing down to the nation’s top soldier about the Afghanistan pullout; they assassinated his character and impugned his patriotism, accusing him of aiding the enemy and of placing his own vanity before the lives of the men and women serving under him.
And this is the man President Donald Trump nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who donned fatigues and stood with Trump during his infamous Bible photo op after the gassing and removal of peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square.
There is no bus that Republicans won’t toss even former allies underneath.
Say What, Now?
Yeah, let’s just let parents — and not actual experts — write the curriculum for our schools.
► We’re continually amazed that Republicans still support Donald Trump despite the fact that he will always — ALWAYS — turn on his allies. Chris Cillizza of CNN examines Trump’s latest dickhead remarks following reports on a new book from Stephanie Grisham, former White House Press Secretary and confidant to Melania Trump:
“Stephanie didn’t have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning. She became very angry and bitter after her break up and as time went on she was seldom relied upon, or even thought about. She had big problems and we felt that she should work out those problems for herself. Now, like everyone else, she gets paid by a radical left-leaning publisher to say bad and untrue things.”
Yes, you read that right. The former President of the United States said that Grisham’s book shouldn’t be taken seriously because she was “very angry and bitter” after a breakup.
What a spectacular asshole.
ICYMI
► David Leonhardt of The New York Times suggests a new moniker for the pandemic in the United States:
► This week on The Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii discuss the worst campaign kickoff in modern Colorado history and the return to Colorado of embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters.
Don’t forget to give Colorado Pols a thumbs up on Facebook and Twitter.
15 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Sept. 29)”
As some of us were screaming at the time, the entire redistricting commission was a bad idea because of the equal representation for a state that has become pretty uneven politically, so it was always going to be driven to a 4-4 state when voters are 5-3 at a minimum.
It’s embarrassing, and once again unilateral disarmament by Democrats prizing “fairness” when the other side has zero interest in it in any other states.
Competitive districts are now a criteria in the redistricting rules thanks to the initiative language, so we get what voters voted on. The 8th is only going to trend bluer over the decade, though; the current D+1.3 will probably be D+2.5 by the time of the election and moving away from Republicans after that.
What we need is a good first candidate for the district.
Gotta agree, Sparky. We shoulda shoved 5-3 down their throats. At least I'm still in Neguse's CD2, which is more than I can say for a lot of my neighbors.
Great. Just great. They took us out of Neguse's district and extended D7 north to include us. Jesus H. Horse-Fucking Christ. lol "communities of interest."
Ah well, at least they didn't find a way to put Broomfield in Sloebert's district.
I was in that boat back on draft #2. They had Gilpin in with Teller and Park, plus Jeffco. Mining/gambling, drowned out by Jeffco. But now we're back to being drowned out by Boulder, which I think I like better – the community feels closer.
I take it you’re in northern DougCo? I tried really hard to get them to either put that area in Jason Crow’s district, or put District 8 there with no incumbent. But they were too set on having D8 in the northern suburbs. That made it very hard to draw a sensible map around it.
Ah, well, you know — “communities of interest” . . .
. . . everyone I know around this essentially suburban Denver community here is extremely interested in, and hardly talks about anything other than, little Elmer Fudd Brophy’s watermelon killing fields and hard red winter wheat futures!
“Donald has used this type of vexatious litigation to intimidate, harass and bully for years,” Ms. Manigault Newman said in a statement. “Finally the bully has met his match!”
The decision, dated on Friday and handed down on Monday, calls for her to collect legal fees from the Trump campaign.
CHICAGO — United Airlines said on Tuesday nearly 600 U.S.-based employees faced termination after failing to comply with the carrier’s vaccination policy.
September 29, 2021 09:56 AM UTC
15 Comments
Today is “National Coffee Day,” which means you 
As some of us were screaming at the time, the entire redistricting commission was a bad idea because of the equal representation for a state that has become pretty uneven politically, so it was always going to be driven to a 4-4 state when voters are 5-3 at a minimum.
It’s embarrassing, and once again unilateral disarmament by Democrats prizing “fairness” when the other side has zero interest in it in any other states.
Competitive districts are now a criteria in the redistricting rules thanks to the initiative language, so we get what voters voted on. The 8th is only going to trend bluer over the decade, though; the current D+1.3 will probably be D+2.5 by the time of the election and moving away from Republicans after that.
What we need is a good first candidate for the district.
Gotta agree, Sparky. We shoulda shoved 5-3 down their throats. At least I'm still in Neguse's CD2, which is more than I can say for a lot of my neighbors.
Great. Just great. They took us out of Neguse's district and extended D7 north to include us. Jesus H. Horse-Fucking Christ. lol "communities of interest."
Ah well, at least they didn't find a way to put Broomfield in Sloebert's district.
I was in that boat back on draft #2. They had Gilpin in with Teller and Park, plus Jeffco. Mining/gambling, drowned out by Jeffco. But now we're back to being drowned out by Boulder, which I think I like better – the community feels closer.
My home has been in Hefley's district, then Tancredo's, then Coffman's, then Buck's, and now again Buck's . . .
. . . whine all you want, no one here is getting a bit of sympathy from me.
Damn, that is ROUGH.
I take it you’re in northern DougCo? I tried really hard to get them to either put that area in Jason Crow’s district, or put District 8 there with no incumbent. But they were too set on having D8 in the northern suburbs. That made it very hard to draw a sensible map around it.
Ah, well, you know — “communities of interest” . . .
. . . everyone I know around this essentially suburban Denver community here is extremely interested in, and hardly talks about anything other than, little Elmer Fudd Brophy’s watermelon killing fields and hard red winter wheat futures!
I don't remember which map(s) Elmer Fudd was peddling – how does this one compare to his?
Yeah, I don’t either. But, given my Congressional district history, I can’t honestly say I ever bother with paying any attention to this stuff . . .
I nominatae *you* to break the news to MAH: (FAR better scenario than a drive to Fort Collins).
Trump Loses Case to Enforce Omarosa Manigault Newman’s N.D.A.
Nearly 600 United Airlines employees face termination for defying vaccine mandate
Rural coronavirus vaccination grows at fastest rate since June, but the rural-urban vaccination gap also grows