I don’t like whatap coming out of Washington. If the breakdown of Colorado’s presidential vote wanting Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump is any guide, neither do most of you.
On environmental protection and workplace safety, financial safeguards and public education, on the preservation of amiable alliances and the separation of church and state, maybe on racial justice, maybe even peace over war, we’ve pretty much lost the edge on these issues, thanks to the anachronistic perversion of the majority’s will known as the Electoral College.
And assuming Coloradan Neil Gorsuch is confirmed, it also moves the Supreme Court further to the right. Gorsuch seems decent and honest, and unquestionably qualified, but he’ll only get to impose his Antonin Scalia-like stamp on our future because some bandits in Washington shamelessly stole Barack Obama’s constitutional right to seat a justice himself.
But here’s the thing: itap a done deal. Maybe, by paying more attention to state and local politics, we can mitigate the damage. Which means, the majority of us who fear the nation’s radical new direction shouldn’t just give up and go quiet and wait for the tide to turn. Especially since much, and maybe most, of what affects us on a daily basis doesn’t come out of Washington at all. It comes out of the legislature in Denver, and from local bodies across the state.
This year in our Colorado legislature, for example, they’re debating the scale and shape of health care. And how to fund road repair. And the cost and quality of education. They’re also debating less inclusive issues that still mean something to somebody, like larger fines for texting while driving, and insurance relief to encourage condominium development, and if bikes need to observe the same rules as cars, and whether itap time to repeal a decades-old ban on switchblade knives. (The Denver Post reported that legislators are hearing from “knife rights advocates.” Who knew? Is the NRA losing ground to an NKA?!)
We rarely pay nearly as much attention to our choices for local offices on Election Day as we do for Congress and the White House. Yet we should. It could make all the difference, today for one party, probably in the future for the other. Right now Democrats control the Colorado House by a majority of nine (37-28). But by a majority of just one, the Colorado Senate is controlled by Republicans (18-17). Imagine if in just one more legislative district, the Democrat had beaten the Republican. Or if you’re a Republican, imagine victories in five more House districts, which would have turned that tide.
For better or worse, the outlines of legislation on health care and roads and education and everything else would be fairly clear. It would sure beat gridlock. Yet thatap not even the key reason to invest our money and our minds more heavily into local races. The key reason is apportionment, a.k.a. the gerrymander, meaning, how congressional and legislative districts are drawn.
It would take a month of columns to explain the fine points of reapportionment and the efforts to make it fair (and it is fairer in Colorado than in most states), but take it from me after reporting many stories and an hour-long documentary about the process, the reality still is that whichever party controls the statehouse each decade ultimately controls the composition of the districts. Which then usually determines the makeup of the House of Representatives in Washington, and both sides of the legislature in Denver.
With elections almost two years off, at the moment this might seem irrelevant. Itap not. The parties already are preparing. Some candidates already are testing the waters. Pay attention to what your state and local elected officials are doing. Who they’re aligning with. What they’re supporting. Who’s supporting them. It can’t make Trump’s imprint go away, but it could put your imprint on some issues that matter the most.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen is an author, public speaker, and former foreign correspondent for ABC News.
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