A Democratic bill to change rules on congressional redistricting is setting up a nasty partisan fight in the final weeks of the legislative session.
In 2003, Democrats lamented a “midnight gerrymander” by the legislature then controlled by Republicans, a plan courts threw out. Now Republicans — in the minority in both houses — are complaining that Democrats are trying to ram through a plan to “rig” future elections by marginalizing voters in predominantly Republican rural areas of Colorado.
“I would guess it’s going to be the most contentious battle we’ve had this year, even more than the tax pieces,” said House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, referring to a partisan standoff over eliminating $100 million in tax exemptions for businesses.
Introduced late last week, House Bill 1408, sponsored by Majority Leader Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, eliminates a law Republicans passed in 2003 dictating factors that a court considers if the legislature fails to create a redistricting plan.
The bill has its first hearing in a House committee today. The session ends no later than May 12.
Redistricting happens across America every 10 years to adjust for population changes. In Colorado, the legislature draws congressional districts, and a specially appointed redistricting commission composed of lawmakers and citizens redraws legislative lines.
The actual redistricting process won’t occur until 2011, after this year’s census.
Efforts to take some of the politics out of the process by allowing a redistricting commission, rather than lawmakers, to redraw congressional districts have failed under Democrats and Republicans.
Weissmann’s bill would eliminate language in the law that says courts, in determining whether congressional districts have been drawn fairly, cannot consider “non-neutral” factors that include “political party registration, political party election performance and other factors that invite the court to speculate about the outcome of an election.”
The bill also would eliminate requirements that a redistricting plan avoid splitting cities or counties or “communities of interest” that can include ethnic, economic or geographic groups.
Finally, the bill also would clip language that calls for district lines to be as compact as possible.
Weissmann said the guidelines have never been used by a court, and he said courts should simply rely on the same criteria they’ve always used: federal and state law and court cases. The state shouldn’t tell courts how to interpret the law, he said.
Weissmann rejected Republican criticism that the bill, by removing “communities of interest” language, would result in districts on the Western Slope and Eastern Plains being carved up to favor Democrats.
“From 1876 to 2000, have rural districts been marginalized?” Weissmann asked. “I don’t think so. This just takes it back to the way it’s always been.”
Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and a national expert on redistricting, said the 2003 rules generally appeared to be favorable to Republicans.
Rules that frown on dividing cities and counties tend to favor Republicans because Democrats are usually clustered in cities, McDonald said.
He added, “This strikes me as (Democrats) are a little worried.”
So who crafted the language for the 2010 bill? Weissmann said it was a collaboration of many people.
May said he suspects the bill’s authors “came from much higher up than here in the Capitol.”
“When I was a freshman (in 2003) and we were doing redistricting, I got a call from the White House,” May said.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
