I commend Rep. Coffman for doing what he thinks and feels he needs to do, within reason, to succeed, even though I would disagree with some of his new positions. He’s the one holding the seat.
Colorado uses a “Politician Independent Commission” to do its redistricting, which is in between the State Legislature doing the redistricting and a Non-Politician Independent Commission doing the redistricting. The Democrats on the last Politician Commission must have been pretty strong as they were able to succeed in efforts to try to marginalize Coffman by slicing away blocs of white voters.
Nope. "Strong" is not the correct word. Unless we define Cheating == Strong. Or define "embracing Alinsky while your opponents shun him" as = "Strong".
They cheated & lied their way to complete victory in each of the last two Re-Districtings.
After the 2000 Census, Re-D responsibility was jointly in the hands of the Guv (GOP Bill Owens), the State House (solid GOP control) & the State Senate (barely Dem controlled by 1 vote). The Sen Majority leader was an ultra slimy Loveland tort-trial lawyer-shark named Stan Matsunaka. State house GOP did their job, working w/ their Dem minority to produce a plan they considered a fair compromise, and if anything was a little TOO fair to the Dems.
But "Taxunaka" (as he was endearingly called by Republicans), used every trick in the book to stall and stall and obfuscate and stall, while hiding his true intentions. Owens even invoked a special legislative session in the summer to address just the Re-D, as the deadline was fast approaching.
It turned out that the Dems never had any intention of coming up with a plan before the deadline.
The law had a failsafe clause that gave responsibility to a judge if the legislature and Governor failed to agree on time. And our Judiciary was completely corrupted by ultra leftist appointments from decades of democratic governors - Lamm, Romer, etc. It was patently obvious - but no proof of course - that there was collusion between Senate Dems & judiciary. Because Matsunaka knew exactly which judge would be selected by the Judiciocracy to produce a Re-Districting plan.
The GOP statehouse submitted their compromise plan. Guv Owens added his endorsement. But whatta ya know? Surprise, surprise!! A ridiculously partisan plan suddenly showed up out of left field, and I do mean left field. It was a plan from senate Dems to gerrymander the state to squeeze out every last possible advantage for the Rats. The judge enthusiastically adopted the Rat plan 100% while totally ignoring any others.
NEXT EPIC FAIL: POST-2010 CENSUS:
So the GOP cried, "Learned our lesson! Won't get fooled again! Just wait 10 yrs!" And they set up the laughingly named "Nonpartisan" Commission as if that word actually defines any living human being in the US anymore.
This Pie in the Sky Fantasy means you create a panel with an odd number of members, such that each party gets (N-1)/2 slots, and the last remaining slot goes to somebody who both sides can agree on. Somebody who both sides think they can reason with. Somebody who both sides hope will give them a fair shake.
In other words, a process just BEGGING to be Alinskyized.
The only truly crucial piece of the entire process is, "How does the sole non-partisan member get selected?" And the way it worked out is that the then- GOP State party chairman, a proud member of the eGOP, got a call from a judge (and remember what I said about Colorado judges), who was the go-between twixt the Dems & GOP for this crucial selection.
And the judge wanted to highly recommend to the GOP chair a certain upstanding citizen, who although he was technically a registered Democrat, had once in recent years donated $$ to the campaign of a West Slope GOP Congressman. Incredibly, this was sufficient proof to our chairman that a truly nonpartisan citizen was being recommended to us by the fine, completely trustworthy, non-partisan Democrats who reside just a short handshake across the aisle from us.
But then again, this is the same State GOP chair, who, if memory serves correctly, also "vetted" Dan Maes for the Governor race - the most disastrous candidate we've ever had in Colo at any level.
So ...... any guesses as to what kind of a Re-Districting Plan came out of the 2010-2011 "Nonpartisan" Commission?