Colorado 2020 U.S. House Redistricting Discussion

[Minnesota Mike]

Given that the CO Supreme Court is unanimous Dem appointees, I do wonder if they will order some modifications to CO-08 and/or CO-03.  The legal justification would likely involve maximizing Hispanic opportunity districts.

Oh FFS let it go. Just because Democrats do not like the map is not a reason for the Courts to overturn the commission on very tenuous grounds. Democrats will have to work a bit harder but this is still a 5-3 map.

Of course not, the court won't tell reject the commission. They legally have three months to accept the commissions findings or find the product in places unsatisfactory and recommend changes that they would accept in accordance with the law. I think it's very likely they do this - not because of partisanship - but because it's very hard to justify a few of the COIs - which is part of the commissions legal mandate. The Hispanic seat has white parts of Weld that could be dropped to increase minority access, CD7 is a Rurban seat, and the strict language of Colorado constitutional minority opportunity could require massive changes to the Denver area if so desired.

Like I said many times, last night was not the end of things. It's legally prescribed that the court and the commission can bounce maps back if the court finds it unsatisfactory, similar to the Iowa legislature and it's commission only approaching it from a nonpartisan direction.

Like I said, courts are not going to overturn a commission map unless there are major major problems with it and this did not come close to that.

[lfromnj]

Ugh, would have preferred a less weird map, w/e I guess.

Blame for the weirdness can't be hoisted on any party, individual, or even the commission I feel. Blame goes to CLLARO.

CLLARO kept producing their own maps, which rightly sought to improve Hispanic access. However, the one sticking point they kept seemingly insisting on was that that Pueblo needed to be in a Dem seat, and they therefore produces some wild 'not-gerrymanders' to achieve that goal. I guess the reasoning was that it wasn't good eno0ugh for Pueblo Hispanic opportunity, they needed to be favored. Cuts in Colorado Springs, the Western Slope divided between two seats, these were things that were proposed. But they should have learned from the first Draft Map that the commission and respondents were unwilling to walk that path. If they had learned that lesson then other parts of the map would have more flexibility. Their seeming insistence on this point, despite commission opposition forced the commission into narrower and narrower selections of viable alternatives, forcing oddities to try and compromise between the desire to mess with CO-03 and the desire to maintain a recognizable district.

Atleast CLLARO tried to make it seem legitimate.  LULAC was even worse. Their most hispanic district was 31% !

[lfromnj]

Overall it seems like the Colorado supreme court decided to interpret the minority voting stuff as just the VRA and not anything further.

[lfromnj]

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/redistricting-colorado-map-perlmutter-495830

I still remember this article where Democrats whined about having to win a Biden +10 district to get 5/8 districts.

CO03 was a bit more D as well but western Boulder county voters demanded they remained packed. Although that Boulder split  may have been illegal due to lack of road connections so it wasn't really demanding self packing but probably just legitimate COI concerns or being afraid of Boebert.

https://twitter.com/Elections_Daily/status/1407793091990462469

I think based on COI grounds the preliminary map was much better, Pueblo should go East and not just west because Donald Valdez/Sol Sandoval are salty they can't grift off Boebert. Denver area is mostly nested within 4 districts rather than going up to Greeley and Douglas being with the plains and most of Weld is in the East. Also the Boulder Larimer district doesn't go west.  Sure Douglass and Jefferson are a bit iffy in areas but its hardly the end of the world.

It was a bit more D friendly here as the actual partisanship was masked behind the massive Biden swing in the South Denver district.

I think the main issue is that because it was it was the preliminary map and  critic lobbying is usually heavier than supporters.

The actual map forces Pueblo/San Luis Valley to go west instead of east while screwing over Kerry Donovan. Along with that the Denver metro is much less nested in 4 districts with Greeley being added but all of Douglas county being removed. Weld is a kind of weird mix of counties being a bit exurban or rural but also has its own cities so it is probably the best fit with the Eastern plains unlike Douglass which is about 60% suburban with the Northern part, 35% Exurban with areas like Castle rock and 5% rural?. So overall it is pretty much a fine fit with the Denver metro but this map didn't do that. Along with that CO07 just going down south to Fremont county whack. The only good COI decisions are El Paso/Denver along with atleast the farthest Western part of Colorado being kept whole.


I will say the GOP did actually get really lucky with regards to 2 things. The idea that the swingiest district would be the Hispanic district and the fact Lori Schell wanted at least 1 competitive district. The hispanic district had friendly downballot results for years such as 2018 AG or 2018 Gov compared to a South Denver district. Although a proper South Denver district would still be relatively similar in 2020 partisanship with regards to presidential and maybe a bit more R in 2020 senatorial it would be a lot more R in the remaining races. Therefore the commission to make it more competitive would have to remove parts of Douglas and place more of more inner ring suburbs to make it more D in an attempt to make it "more competitive" while actually making it less so.

A hispanic district meanwhile was pretty close to 51 D/49R in almost all elections so there was no need to do anything to it. Infact Tafoya I think tried to force Longmont into it but Schell didn't want it as on a COI ground it didn't have a great argument to the actual CO08 and it definitely made the district way less competitive while not increasing the Hispanic percentage.

With regards to the decade/2022

I think in 2022 D's got a slightly better map. I think a Biden/Gardner/Stapleton etc South Denver district would be a very hard district to win for D's in 2022 while a Biden/Gardner/Polis but also Trump 2016 district would be a bit more possible for D's in 2022. However for the decade R's have the bonus of CO08 likely staying swing for the decade rather than shifting Dem.

Boebert has a fairly similar story but that district is a bit too red so a minor R victory there. However if she actually does start to underperform maybe it might be better for the D primary base to be more moderate Hispanos than ski liberals.

A slight R bonus as well in that Perlmutter district is on the edge of competitiveness at Clinton +3/Biden +12 although it should be safe even in 2022 as long as Perlmutter decides not to retire. After that it is safe for the rest of the decade.