Colorado’s Reapportionment Commission (charged with drawing our state legislative districts) continues the summer schedule of meetings and hearing of public testimony this week in Denver.

Last week’s meeting introduced the first preliminary district maps, for state House and Senate districts in southern Colorado (public testimony on districts in that region actually occurred a week earlier, on 31 May).  As reported in Friday’s Colorado Statesman political news weekly (”Reapportionment Commission already approves first map“),

The commission, on a 9-2 vote, drew new boundaries for two Senate districts in southern Colorado and on a 7-4 vote approved new maps for three House districts in the same region.

Noteworthy in this initial map is the fact that two state senators just voted into office in 2010 (Senate District 5’s Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass & Senate District 2’s first-term Kevin Grantham) were drawn out of their respective districts.  The commission’s action would leave each of them representing a district in which they no longer live and for which they could not seek re-election (irrelevant to the term-limited Schwartz, but problematic for Grantham, who many observers have tagged as a rising GOP star in the state senate).  The 9-2 vote (4 of the 9 “yes” votes were appointed to the commission by Chief Justice Michael Bender) may indicate why the commission chose to ignore both informal tradition regarding incumbent districts and statutory guidelines to preserve existing district boundaries “to the extent possible.”

Click link to view the Region One (Southern Colorado) preliminary Senate district maps and preliminary House district maps.

This week’s meeting may introduce new maps for Colorado’s mostly rural Eastern Plains districts (public testimony on those districts took place last week, on 6 June).  The commission is also scheduled to hear public testimony on Colorado’s Western slope districts beginning at 2PM in the Legislative Services Building (Hearing Room A) on 200 East 14th Avenue, Denver CO 80203 (located just across the street to the south of the Colorado state Capitol building) and is set to be broadcast over the Internet for those unable to attend in person.  (View meeting agenda here)

Click here for the full schedule of upcoming hearings on state legislative districts.
Additional information is also available on the Reapportionment Commission website.

Additional references:

• Constitutional Provisions Controlling Reapportionment/Redistricting (state government website which collates relevant constitutional language on Congressional redistricting and state legislative reapportionment)

Clear The Bench Colorado will, with your support, continue to promote transparency and accountability in the Colorado judiciary, informing the public to increase awareness of the substantial public policy implications of an unrestrained activism and political agendas in the courts.  We will continue to work to educate voters and provide information of relevance related to the judicial branch, and to provide useful and substantive evaluations of judicial performance.

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Tags: Colorado Constitution, Colorado Courts, Colorado General Assembly, Colorado Judges, Colorado legislative reapportionment, Colorado Legislature, Colorado Reapportionment Commission, Colorado redistricting, Colorado Statesman, Colorado Supreme Court, Gail Schwartz, judical activism, judicial accountability, judicial evaluation, judicial performance, judicial retention, judicial usurpation, Kevin Grantham, Know Your Judge, legislative reapportionment, legislative redistricting, reapportionment, Reapportionment Commission, redistricting, unjust justices