September 08, 2011 12:02 AM UTC

Interesting Redistricting Map Proposed By Latino Advocates

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Let a hundred flowers bloom, reports the Durango Herald’s Joe Hanel today:

Under the Hispanic groups’ plan, the Western Slope’s Congressman, Republican Scott Tipton of Cortez, would be drawn into the same district as Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a popular Democratic incumbent from Golden.

Meanwhile, the heavily Hispanic and Democratic areas of Pueblo and the San Luis Valley would leave the 3rd District and join the Eastern Plains.

That would mean trouble for state Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, who plans to challenge Tipton in the 3rd District…

Because of their high Hispanic populations, Pueblo and the San Luis Valley figure heavily in how the districts must be drawn. The federal Voting Rights Act does not allow map drawers to dilute the strength of minority voters.

State law and court precedents also call on Hyatt to make districts as compact as possible, preserve city and county lines if he can and keep intact “communities of interest” – a term whose meaning has been at the center of long debates this year.

The map proposal from the Colorado Latino Forum and the Colorado Hispanic Bar Association seems to be drawing more anger from Republicans than Democrats–speaking to the Lynn Bartels of the Denver paper, Sen. Greg Brophy, heavily involved in the GOP redistricting case, dissed the Latino map as not “serious.” It makes sense that Brophy doesn’t like this: the Latino map does make big changes to the status quo. And as you know, perhaps the most important breakthrough Democrats need to make in court is to defeat the obstinant GOP talking point that maps from 10 years ago should be subjected to “minimum change.”

The Latino map also, like Democratic proposals, places Rep. Mike Coffman in a very competitive district. Without speaking out of turn, we think it’s instructive to note Rep. Coffman’s bizarre Tom Tancredo-style campaign against bilingual ballots–not to mention Coffman’s more recent on-air nonsense about illegal immigrants being “rushed through” the citizenship process.

Safe to say, Coffman has not earned himself many friends in this community.

With all of this in mind, there are some issues with the Latino map that have been identified, most obviously the pairing of suburban Golden with the Western Slope in CD-3 described by Hanel above. In practical terms, taking Pueblo out of CD-3 removes a large Latino community from the only congressional district won by a Latino in the past decade.

Overall, though, we think this proposal will be useful food for judiciary thought–and an important voice added to the redistricting process. As with other signs that Latino political power in this state is growing, casually diss these maps at your peril, Sen. Brophy.