Ballot Proposal To End Gerrymandering In Colorado

[senorsheep]

This is some pretty exciting news. I've always believed that this would be one small-but-possibly-very-effective step towards returning to more representative government, vs. entrenching and protecting major party extremists who are there to advance their voting blocs' agendas at the expense of the other guys' voting blocs. I doubted it could ever actually happen, but there are some very well-respected and influential representatives from both sides of the aisle getting behind this initiative.

Bipartisan group proposes major change to how Colorado election districts are drawn

A bipartisan group that includes two former governors, three former secretaries of state and two former speakers of the state House of Representatives have filed ballot language seeking a constitutional amendment to change congressional redistricting in Colorado.

The amendment would take redistricting responsibilities for redistricting and legislative district reapportionment out of the Legislature’s hands and give it to a bipartisan commission and professional staff to draw election district boundaries.

...

Among the proposed reforms:

* Turn over congressional redistricting and legislative reapportionment to an independent commission and staff.
* The 12-member commission would have four Republicans, four Democrats and four unaffiliated members.
* Require open, public hearings.
* Remove map-drawing from political operatives and give it to a nonpartisan, professional staff.
* Require a supermajority of eight of the 12 commissioners to pass a map, so no single political party can hijack the map-drawing process.

Perhaps the most significant change is a requirement that the district map drawers create politically competitive districts.

Just thought I'd post it here, since this is a rare issue where (I think) there is widespread agreement. I would love to see Colorado to pass this and do it right, and inspire similar movements in other states, much as we did with marijuana legalization.

There's obviously a long way to go, but I just wanted to offer a little hope to those like me who doubted that real, positive change to our poisoned political process could ever come.

Cheers!

[dslaw]

Agree it is good in theory but I'm not sure it will work. "unaffiliated members" always have a leaning one way or another and lawsuits would probably be filed by one party or the other. But if they want an example of what not do they just need to look one state west and check out Utah.

[baldgriff]

Another thing to add to my list of reasons to move to Colorado.

[heyelander]

I'm curious how the mandate to make competitive districts would work. In some cases, like urban areas,it makes complete sense for there to be a strong blocs of like minded individuals with the same needs. How do you break that up into smaller groups and pull in suburbs into each to make them all competitive? Doesn't that dilute the voice of people? I'm very against gerrymandering, but a mandate to make competitive districts seems like it could at times require even odder districts.