DENVER Colorado Republicans are furious at the chairman of a commission that voted Tuesday to draw state legislative districts in a way that greatly benefits Democrats.
Mario Carrera, the lone unaffiliated voter on the 11-person Colorado Reapportionment Commission, sided with Democrats on a series of 6-5 votes Tuesday to accept their plan and shut down all GOP attempts to amend it.
The map hurts Ignacio Republican Rep. J. Paul Brown by extending his district north to Gunnison and removing conservative Montezuma County.
Worse yet for Republicans, it puts several party leaders and promising junior legislators into primaries against each other in Colorado Springs and Loveland.
Speaker of the House Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, released a blistering letter to Carrera on Thursday, citing your failure as chairman to conduct fair hearings and allow all members of your commission to be heard and their amendments offered.
He continued: You failed in your most important task: to oversee and chair a fair and open process.
Carrera replied Friday and noted a Supreme Court decision that told the commission to avoid splitting counties.
I recognize that you are upset that I did not vote for the map introduced by Republican Commissioners, he wrote. Simply put, the Republican Commissioners maps had many more County and City splits that were not in accordance with the mandate from the Court. ... I do not regret a single vote, even if the result of my vote caused less than satisfactory results for you as the leader of your political caucus.
Criticism from other conservative quarters has been even more severe.
Tyler Houlton, president of the political group Compass Colorado, called for Carrera to resign as chairman of Entravision Communications Corp., owner of 53 Spanish-language television stations.
The blog Colorado Peak Politics said Carrera allowed Democrats to pass misogynistic maps because they put Republican women into primary fights.
Republicans back up their charges by pointing to a string of emails among the commissioners and the commissions staff to set deadlines and schedules for adopting the final maps.
In the emails, Carrera sets a deadline of Wednesday, Nov. 23, to submit maps for consideration at the commissions Nov. 28 meeting.
But when Democratic commissioner Morgan Carroll wrote to the director of the nonpartisan staff, Jeremiah Barry, she was told she could submit plans over the weekend.
When is the deadline past which no more changes can be made? Carroll wrote in a Nov. 23 email.
The reply from Barry: Noon is the deadline for plans to be sent out before Mondays meeting. Amendments and new plans can be sent to us over the weekend and we will try to have them ready for Mondays meeting, but depending on how many we get, we may have trouble getting them ready for Mondays meeting.
Republicans said they werent extended the same invitation to submit late plans.
However, commission staffer Amanda King emailed GOP map expert Cameron Lynch on Friday, Nov. 25, to ask about late plans.
If you do end up submitting any additional plans after 5 p.m. today would you please send me a text ... so we can come in this weekend to process it. Thanks, King wrote.
Absolutely, Lynch replied.
Republicans did indeed submit a different plan Sunday, combining La Plata, Montezuma and Dolores counties into Browns House District 59, and drawing a district that stretched from Montrose to Silverton to Pagosa Springs for House District 58.
But Republicans defended that map as a mere amendment to an existing plan, not an entirely new plan, like the Democrats put in Sunday.
Because of the state Supreme Court ruling that required as few county splits as possible, Democrats took the advantage of moving last and submitting a plan with fewer county splits than the Republicans.
Carrera sided with the Democrats on Monday to forbid any new plans.
Earlier this year, Carrera voted for both Republican and Democratic plans. He later drafted his own plan using elements of both maps, and the commission adopted his plan on a bipartisan vote.
However, Republicans led a successful drive to get the maps overturned at the state Supreme Court, so the commission had to try again. Democrats seized the court ruling as an opportunity to draw a map that threatens Republican political fortunes in Colorado for the next decade.
The state Supreme Court still has to approve the final plan, but many Republicans say they have little hope of the court overturning it.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.
