Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Politics – January 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Now it’s official, more or less: Chaffee and Lake counties are in the 5th Congressional District, thanks to a Dec. 1 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court.
The court upheld the boundaries which had been in place for the 2002 election — boundaries that put Chaffee and Lake in the 5th with Colorado Springs. These boundaries had been drawn by a judge in Denver after the legislature could not agree on new boundaries in its 2001-02 session.
Thus the court denied new boundaries, passed in the last days of the 2003 session, which would have put Chaffee and Lake in the 3rd District, which stretches from Pueblo to Grand Junction. In our view, and that of State Rep. Carl Miller, a Leadville Democrat, the 3rd is a better fit.
In essence, the 5-2 ruling by the State Supreme Court held that congressional-district boundaries can be drawn only once every decade, during the 11 months between the completion of the census and the start of the next election cycle.
The legislature didn’t manage to agree on boundaries in 2001 and ’02 because Republicans controlled the House and Democrats held the Senate — and parties understandably wanted boundaries that favored their candidates.
So a court drew the boundaries. One result was that Colorado’s new 7th district was quite competitive: The Republican candidate won by only 121 votes. And on paper anyway, the 3rd looked competitive, especially after incumbent Republican Scott McInnis announced he would not seek another term.
In 2003, both houses of the legislature were controlled by Republicans. Just three days before the session ended in May, with no time for any real debate, the GOP introduced and pushed through its own congressional map, one that gave Republicans a greater advantage in the 3rd and 7th districts.
Attorney General Ken Salazar, a Democrat, sued to block the new districts, and the case went straight to the state supreme court. That may not be the final word, since State Sen. John Andrews, a Centennial Republican, has talked about appealing to a federal court, on the grounds that it is the legislature’s responsibility to draw congressional districts.
–Ed Quillen
