A federal court has dismissed the last case stemming from Republicans’ 2003 attempt to change Colorado’s congressional boundaries to favor their party.
Lawyers for the mostly Republican plaintiffs said they would appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
State Republican Party chairman Bob Martinez said the GOP is seeking to reinstate the redistricting plan, which was drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature in the final days of the 2003 session. Democrats successfully challenged the plan, which was intended to replace a 2002 map that had been drawn by the courts.
“It really is the way our system works … that a majority vote of whoever controls the legislature is the ones that draw the lines,” he said. “We’d hope to uphold that and not have it decided by the courts, but by the people.”
In Lance vs. Davidson, the last of three cases stemming from that dispute, a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in Denver rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments that their First Amendment rights were violated by the court-imposed plan.
Attorney General John Suthers’ office defended Secretary of State Donetta Davidson in the case. As secretary of state, Davidson is in charge of the state’s elections.
“Overall, we were pleased,” said Suthers spokeswoman Kristen Hubbell. “(The court) accepted virtually all our arguments. It appears this is the end of the line.”
In 2003, the GOP-controlled legislature approved a new congressional map in the final three days of the session. It replaced a plan drawn by a Denver District Court judge after the legislature failed to agree on district boundary lines in time for the 2002 elections.
Brett Lilly, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said the court’s map violated his clients’ First Amendment rights to petition government for changes to the map. If legislators are powerless to change the map, Lilly argued, then citizen petitions are moot and their constitutional rights have been violated.
The court disagreed.
“Such an interpretation is not only unsupported by precedent, it would lead to absurd results,” the judges wrote.
Under the plaintiffs’ argument, the judges wrote, someone who did not get a law passed – because, for example, it would be unconstitutional – could claim their constitutional rights were violated. The judges used as an example someone who lobbied for a law to bar minorities from gaining state employment.
Lilly also argued that the U.S. Constitution requires the legislature to set the time, place and manner of elections. The judges dismissed that argument because it had been settled in an earlier, related case.
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at 303-820-1633 or cfrates@denverpost.com.
