February 27, 2012 09:03 PM UTC

How Will City Council Redistricting Affect Sitting Council Members?

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• by: Colorado Pols

One of the benefits (or drawbacks, depending on your perspective) of the Denver City Council’s in-house management of redistricting is the limited probability that a sitting council member will draw him or herself out of a seat. It only stands to reason — with direct oversight of the redistricting process, each of the 11 district-elected councilors can ensure that their current home remains in their current district, thereby avoiding any messy elections pitting two incumbents against each other.

The city council will host its first public meeting on redistricting later this week. The first topic of discussion at that meeting, we suspect, will be the status of the three draft maps already drawn up by the Redistricting Committee.

If the state-level reapportionment process is any indicator, it’s highly likely that each of those three draft maps will evolve into any number of wild permutations. With the proposals as they stand now, however, there isn’t even the remote possibility that two current council members may end up in the same district.

Redistricting won’t have any impact on either Robin Kniech or Debbie Ortega – both were elected at-large in 2011 and are eligible to continue serving no matter where they live in Denver.

Council Members Jeanne Fatz, Peggy Lehmann, Charlie Brown, Judy Montero, and Jeanne Robb were each elected to their third terms in 2011. They’ll be ineligible to run again in 2015 because of term limits.

That means that the only sitting council members whose political futures could theoretically be affected by redistricting are Susan Shepherd in District 1, Paul Lopez in District 3, Mary Beth Susman in District 5, Chris Nevitt in District 7, Albus Brooks in District 8, and Chris Herndon in District 11.

Shepherd’s residence will stay in District 1 in each of the current maps, so barring any major changes in future proposals, she can continue serving without issue. The same is true for Paul Lopez in District 3, as the southwest Denver district didn’t experience any major population shift since the last Census. Neither do Susman or Nevitt have any cause to worry based off the current proposals – their respective homes will stay put in their respective districts.

That leaves Albus Brooks and Chris Herndon. Brooks will remain squarely within District 8 in two of the current proposals, but in the Redistricting Committee’s “Map B”, he’ll be moving to District 9. Still, Brooks has no reason to fret given that incumbent District 9 Council Member Jeanne Robb won’t be able to run again in 2015; Brooks will have the new district all to himself.

Things get a little complex when you turn to Chris Herndon because his District 11 has nearly doubled in population in the past ten years. Under the council’s first proposal, Herndon will stay in District 11, but the district itself will split in half and a “new” district will be created and labeled District 10 – the current District 10 will be incorporated into Districts 9 and 5. No current council member resides within that new district, so under “Map A,” the city council will be getting a brand new member. In “Map B,” Herndon will be moved to District 8, but under that proposal, current District 8 Council Member Albus Brooks will be moved into District 9, so there’s no conflict. In that map, the new northeast Denver district will be deemed District 11. In the third proposal, Herndon stays in District 11 and the new, empty district gets the District 9 moniker. The current District 9 will be divvied up into Districts 1, 3, 7, and 8.

At first glance, the plans to redistrict the divisions of the Denver City Council seem incredibly complex. Yet because so many sitting council members won’t be able to run again in 2015, all potential conflicts pitting one incumbent against another are more or less resolved.  

Still, you’ve got to wonder: if the current homes of current council members weren’t even casually considered as part of the redistricting process, what would the maps, especially at this initial stage, look like?