July 22, 2011 08:45 PM UTC

Reapportionment (Finally) Heats Up

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• by: Colorado Pols

There’s been an interesting turn of events in the up-to-now uncontroversial state legislative reapportionment committee process, as reported by a number of outlets in the previous few days. The last of seven regional House and Senate maps were initially approved this week.

The state legislative reapportionment process has drawn much less interest than the court-bound congressional redistricting battle, mostly because it hasn’t been much of a battle until the GOP’s preferred House map was approved by a narrow 6-5 vote this week–and of course, they are obligated by law to reach a decision without the courts. The commission’s makeup evenly balances partisan representation with five Democrats, five Republicans, and one unaffiliated chairman. The same basic concepts we debated during congressional redistricting, like competitiveness, minority representation, and communities of interest, apply on the smaller scale of legislative districts.

Like we said, a lot of this process has proceeded without major issue: while the Senate’s proposed map necessarily shifts districts to balance population in a few ways that could be problematic for an incumbent or two, our broad understanding of this map is that makes a number of districts demonstrably more competitive. For example, the addition of a new Southern Colorado Senate district expected to be very hotly contested. The beet-red Eastern Plains lost population relative to other areas of the state, but there remain scenarios where either party could win the Senate.

Not so in the GOP-favored House map, which straightforwardly locks in partisan control of the House for the next 10 years according to every analysis we have seen and heard. The two regions approved this week in metro Denver have emerged as the center of controversy for the decisive advantage they appear to give Republicans–the full reasoning behind this isn’t clear yet, but this is in marked difference to other areas of the state where there was not the same sense of partisan shift. As the Aurora Sentinel reports, not even the Republicans are really trying to defend the situation:

The way the House map is drawn, Republicans will have the majority of the seats in the state House for the next 10 years, [Rep. Rhonda] Fields said.

“It’s really about making sure we have competitive districts so we have the opportunity for people to vote and select the best candidate,” Fields said. “The way they’re trying to slice it is leaning very Republican.”

State Rep. David Balmer, R-Centennial said the Democrats were mostly surprised because the unaffiliated chairman of the Reapportionment Commission, Mario Carrera, voted for the Republican House map. But he said the public input process over the next month could change the maps yet again. [Pols emphasis]

Bottom line: a significant gap between the competitiveness of the two chambers of the Assembly, or one chamber drawn to a permanent majority for either party, represents its own considerable problem in terms of effective government. It’s worse than just a narrowly divided legislature like we have today. A chamber of the Assembly packed with safe seats, beyond what’s required to fulfill minority representation or represent indelibly whole communities, essentially creates a situation where little can be accomplished by either party–unless that party is the GOP, and they’ve captured the Senate and the Governor’s Mansion too.

Sure it’s a possible set of circumstances, but it’s not an alignment of the stars that independent voters should count on. At least, not if they hope to see anything get done.

This week’s votes aren’t the end of the line for reapportionment. The next step will be a tour around the state by the commission, to get feedback from people who didn’t make it to Denver for all of the previous “regional hearings” in downtown Denver–this is, of course, everyone except for usual suspects already at the Capitol. Once those hearings conclude, they’ll have another round of deliberation before their final and legally binding vote.

This process has proceeded without much controversy, and as a result not much blogging or even news coverage, right up to the approval of the maps this week. With bones of contention now clear to see, we expect to be talking about reapportionment a lot more through the fall.