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The courts have better things to do than be our better angels but once again they found themselves playing that special role. Colorado鈥檚 highest court recently nullified efforts by special interests to gerrymander the state鈥檚 congressional seats in favor of their political party. The judges did what everyone should feel called to do 鈥� safeguard the right of their fellow Americans to fair elections.

Colorado鈥檚 current congressional district map was drawn up by the Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission and approved by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2021. The 12-member bipartisan commission, created in 2018 by a majority (71%) of Colorado voters, is obligated by the state Constitution to maximize the number of competitive districts and may not protect a political party or an incumbent. The commission created four Democratic-majority seats, three Republican-majority seats, and one competitive district.

Responding to President Donald Trump鈥檚 putsch, I mean push, to eradicate opponents鈥� representation in Congress, Colorado Democrats proposed ballot initiatives for November that would circumvent the bipartisan commission, initiate mid-decade redistricting, and approve gerrymandered maps for the 2028 and 2030 elections that would eradicate all but one Republican-majority district. Republicans counterpunched by proposing initiatives to favor their party in all but three districts.

In each case, sidestepping the voter-approved commission would require multiple actions. Since the Colorado Constitution forbids piling multiple subjects into a ballot initiative, advocates broke the steps into different proposals and added language stating each must pass for all to take effect. So while they appeared to be separate single-subject initiatives, they acted as a single multi-subject proposal. The Supreme Court, however, saw through this clever ruse and ruled all five proposals violated the state constitution鈥檚 single subject rule.

Supreme courts in Utah and Virginia have done likewise by abrogating attempts by legislators to gerrymander maps to gain seats for their respective parties. But pro-democracy Republican state lawmakers in Indiana, Kansas, and South Carolina didn鈥檛 need the courts to do the right thing, they joined Democratic lawmakers and stopped efforts by Republican colleagues to eradicate the small number of Democratic congressional seats in those states.

Since then, Trump has retaliated against the Indiana senators who opposed gerrymandering by recruiting opponents to run against them in the primary. Five of these principled Republican senators lost to MAGA challengers.

Of course, gerrymandering is not new. The term 鈥済errymandering鈥� goes back to 1812, but the pernicious practice has been around since representatives discovered they didn鈥檛 need good ideas and good character to win if they could manipulate district boundary lines.

Back in the 2021-2022 round of redistricting, long before Trump鈥檚 recent gerrymander push, New Mexico, Illinois, Oklahoma and other states gerrymandered their maps to eliminate districts winnable by the minority party.

Last year, the unethical practice gained steam when Republicans realized Trump鈥檚 rising unpopularity could cost them control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. Since then, eight Republican-majority states and one Democratic-majority state have succeeded in redrawing district lines in the majority鈥檚 favor.

Perhaps these politicians sleep at night by telling themselves that the ends justify the means. They didn鈥檛 start the fight; the other party did. They didn鈥檛 really disenfranchise their fellow Americans, who can still vote for a losing candidate and get an 鈥淚 voted鈥� sticker. Might makes right, doesn鈥檛 it?

To paraphrase my hero former Rep. Liz Cheney, 鈥淭here will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but聽your聽dishonor聽will聽remain.鈥�

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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