DENVER Democrats won a final victory Monday morning in the year-long battle to draw new lines for congressional districts.
The immediate victim is Republican Rep. Mike Coffman, whose suburban 6th Congressional District goes from being a GOP bastion to a competitive battleground.
The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Democrat-drawn map picked by a Denver district judge after a two-week trial this fall.
In a hearing last Thursday, Republicans faced a skeptical panel of high court justices, who took less than two business days to rule against the appeal.
Mondays terse, three-paragraph ruling did not say how the seven justices voted. A full written opinion will be issued later.
Obviously, Im very disappointed in the result, but Id like to see the rationale the court used (before saying more), said Richard Westfall, the lawyer who argued the Republican case.
For Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, the ruling had little effect. His Western Slope district will remain largely the same. He loses Las Animas and Otero counties on his districts eastern edge and picks up Lake and part of Eagle counties.
His Democratic challenger, Sal Pace of Pueblo, will remain in the district.
Apart from the Western Slope, though, the Democratic map creates wholesale changes for the rest of the state.
Boulder and Fort Collins will now be in the same district. The Denver suburbs now have two competitive districts, instead of one safe GOP district and one Democratic-leaning one.
And the Eastern Plains become an even safer prospect for the GOP, thanks to the inclusion of much of conservative Douglas County.
Republicans had pushed a minimum disruption strategy, arguing for as few changes as possible to current boundaries. But Supreme Court justices questioned the value of minimum disruption in a hearing last week, saying it was just one of many elements in the law the courts had to consider.
Westfall, the GOP lawyer, said he sensed that at least a few justices were unwilling to overturn the lower court. But he still thinks the boundaries should have stayed as close as possible to their current ones, because Colorado did not add a district, like it did in 2001.
Its highly inappropriate to start anew. Thats what the Democrats did, and the court bought it, Westfall said.
Democrats said their new districts better reflect changes in Colorado the last 10 years an argument the courts embraced.
These congressional districts reflect the Colorado of today, including our states political competitiveness, state Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio said in a news release.
The courts drew the map because the Legislature divided on partisan lines could not produce a map last spring, as it is required to do every 10 years after the U.S. Census.
The Supreme Court also is expected to rule soon on new lines for state legislative districts, including a Democratic plan to pair Durango and Gunnison in the same state House district.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.
