Letter from T. L. Livermore
Politics – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors,
I thought you might be interested in this message, which I recently sent to Colorado’s Republicans:
I am dismayed to read and hear about the congressional redistricting passed by our legislature in early May, during the last three days of the session. Colorado’s Republicans have subverted (or do I want perverted?) the political process as it was intended, simply in an effort to garner yourselves more votes. Are you all so insecure as to believe you can’t win on issues alone?
I understand the process, or lack thereof, of gerrymandering has caused non-partisan staff members of the Senate to resign, some of them in tears. I understand Democrats attempting to speak were shouted down, and that members of the public who arrived to testify were granted little or no courtesy, and frequently left unheard.
The Denver Post has called this a “scabrous power grab,” and you should be ashamed to be a party to a body afraid to follow standard decorum. More importantly, you should be deeply ashamed at wasting more taxpayer money, as I understand this will be headed immediately for the courts, at a probable cost of tens of thousands of dollars to Colorado taxpayers. Where’s our bill of rights in that?
It’s mortifying enough to live in a state that currently is so concerned about saving taxpayers money that we’re willing to become illiterate, undereducated, uncultured and unenlightened, but add to that political pandering that will cost us directly in terms of litigation and indirectly in any number of other ways, including, perhaps, lost federal funds, and it becomes very close to unbearable.
This leaves me with two options, I guess, and the first is nearly untenable, since I am a Colorado native and would very much like to continue living here. The second option would be to keep this all in mind come election time. Even if you would not bother to listen to me if I came to the capitol, I do vote — and I have a long memory.
T.L. Livermore
Gunnison