April 07, 2011 07:49 PM UTC

Scott Gessler Is Wasting Your Time, Part II

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Pueblo Chieftain’s Patrick Malone reports, there will be no food for thought from the Joint Select Committee on Redistricting this week in map form–there’s been a bit of a holdup.

A joint committee of the General Assembly charged with crafting a bipartisan compromise on congressional redistricting on Tuesday announced it has delayed the self-imposed deadline to develop a map…

House Minority Leader Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, expressed suspicion about the delay in Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican, providing 2010 election figures to the redistricting committee.

He said Republicans have suggested relying on the 2008 election figures in the absence of the 2010 election numbers…

“If you work off of 2008 data, you can draw districts that look competitive, when in reality, it was a good year for Democrats to turn out,” Pace said. “The data would be skewed in the Republicans’ favor. If you average out 2010 and 2008, you probably get to a realistic point.

…Coolidge said Pace’s insinuation that partisan politics motivated the slow release of the 2010 election data by Gessler’s office is off the mark.

What we’ve heard about this delay over 2010 election data backs up Minority Leader Sal Pace’s account, including the dubious suggestion to use 2008 data instead. The unconfirmed gist of what we’ve heard involves the committee just about to go public against the Secretary of State, some quick footwork from Republicans on the committee, followed by the sudden appearance of the 2010 data they had been waiting for. You can interpret all of this as you will.

In any event, Scott Gessler testified to the House Administration Committee in Washington last week what his staff has been working on, which is of course the effort to uncover tens of thousands thousands a hundred maybe not a single illegal immigrant voter.

So, you know, that could also explain the delay (see title).