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).
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I needed a laugh today, thought maybe you did too.
Gessler’s office “can’t provide” the 2010 election data yet? I find that more than a bit hard to believe.
If Republicans had any more points left in my book to take away, this petty chicanery would surely have deducted a few. But, other than this new method of pettiness, I’m not surprised. Kumbaya my shiny metal a**!
pull one huge political boner every month have greatly underestimated this man.
SG is rapidly becoming my favorite Repblican in this state.
My money was on Stapleton or no one. It is kind of fun.
Unfortunately, what BC says as well.
if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s in charge of our elections. How much more obvious can it be that Gessler has no intention of serving all the people of Colorado, not just Rs, as SOS, the state wide position in which nothing is more important than a perception of even-handedness and non-partisan commitment to the fairest possible elections? He doesn’t care who knows he has no intention of guaranteeing fair elections. He doesn’t care who knows that he fully intends to use the SOS position to skate as close to illegality as possible to promote only the interests of Colorado Rs. And no, Beej, that’s not what an SOS of either party is supposed to do.
What are the rules for recalling an SOS? I’d love to see a recall, even one doomed to failure, start as soon as possible to keep attention focused on the fact that this guy is a strictly partisan, integrity and ethics free sleaze who should not only never be in charge of any election but who should be watched like a hawk, even as a private citizen, during any election to make sure he isn’t pulling any criminal dirty tricks.
And hats off to the paper in question for a very good examination of Gessler’s evidence free claims about illegal voters pointing out he never offers nothing to demonstrate that those who obtained their drivers licenses legally, proving legal residence as non-citizens in 2006 (that’s where the data is from) could not have become citizens and voted legitimately in 2010.
I strikes me as much more likely that people who followed proper procedure in getting green cards and drivers licenses would go on to become citizens as soon as possible than that illegals would risk drawing attention to themselves by attempting to vote illegally.
It doesn’t matter whether you use the 11K figure, the 5K figure or the 100 and change figure. Gessler offers no proof for any figure.
He has only been in office for 3 months so that is saying a lot.
I have offered to run a recall campaign if anyone comes up with the dough.
The County Clerks are in charge of our elections.
Gessler just wants to be.
In any case, a recall effort would keep the pot boiling and be a great excuse for bringing public attention to any and every sleazy thing the guy has ever done, is doing, or threatens to do. It would also make him very very aware that he’s being too closely watched to get away with anything. Besides, Wisconsin is making me jealous!
will still run their own elections, unless Gessler get his way.
If you can get a recall on the ballot, you have my vote.
purging voter rolls, etc. the kind of thing Gessler is trying so hard to do.
While the ditzy Katherine Harris didn’t deserve quite as much credit as she claimed for throwing Florida to Bush (no doubt much bigger fish than Katherine were involved), she herself claiming later that a full state recount would have gone to Gore, she certainly felt the party owed her big time and her reward was a congressional seat. SOS Blackwell in Ohio was up to his ears in controversy over various shenanigans when that state went to Bush in the 2004 elections.
Thanks for the thought but somebody with better connections, especially to big donors, than little ol’ me would have to do the honors, where getting a recall kicked off is concerned. I’d be in line to volunteer.
..every step they make is dictated by the SOS’s office and rules, especially for any kind of state election.
Municipalities have some discretion over their city election procedures, but not tons.
You don’t have any idea what’s going on in the SoS office, so put down your pom poms.
Instead of paying attention to his job, he is wasting taxpayer money on self aggrandizing junkets to DC.
Get home,do your job and try not to get disbarred in the process.
Produced:
Data to disenfranchise people with brown skin.
Not produced:
Election data required for constitutionally mandated redistricting.
makes goals and priorities crystal clear.
If Mr. Gessler really has evidence that illegal aliens are voting in Colorado, why hasn’t he referred those infividuals to the local district attorneys for prosecution. He can certainly turn over their identities to the DA’s since he believes they’ve violated Colorado criminal statutes. Rep. Levy called Mr. Gessler’s bluff and the rest of us, including the news outlests, should do the same.
The SOS publicly states that he has knowledge of specific crimes and our AG can’t be bothered to ask for specifics?
Lame.
Anyone paying attention could see this coming. You could also give the Dems and Mr. Buescher an assist for putting themselves in position to get beat by such an unqualified (counter-qualified?) person. Representative govt is a pretty blunt instrument sometimes.
55,000 votes of Democrats that wanted to teach the rest of us a lesson.
I thought that redistricting was based on census data:
– Even population districts
– No Cramming or Splitting of Minorities
– Keep Counties together
– Keep like communities together.
So, why do you need election data?
First, because they’re already looking at the election data whether they do it in public or not – it’s readily available for 2008 and should be available for 2010 but for the SOS’s delay. But as the diary points out, the 2008 data is skewed in favor of Democrats; the 2010 data provides a good and recent counterpoint to that election.
Second, because in some sense voting patterns can reveal communities of interest that may otherwise be hidden.
It’s not necessary to look at voting patterns – Dan certainly didn’t when drawing his map (until after he was done) – but it’s not illegal, and it is being done. Best to use the most accurate data, no?
In other words, the redistricting process does not require nor need voting data.
I’m not sure I buy the idea that “voting patterns can reveal communities of interest”. What communities might those be? A lot of Libertarians in Colorado Springs? Aspen has some rich Democrats?
I don’t think that in the law, but I’m not an expert?
AFAIK, the only reason for looking at political voting data is so we can figure out whether a district is strong Democrat, slightly Republican, swing or whatever. I agree that is interesting, and perhaps important to political party strategy, but not necessary.
of any of the qualifiers you’ve listed. I think you mean that “legally” the numbers are not necessarily needed, not irrelevant.
The fact of the matter is that the official committee asked the guy to provide the information, in accordance with his job, and he couldn’t be bothered.
Hence the title of the diary.
The data is being looked at – from 2008, at least. And since that data is being looked at, don’t you think we should have the new data from the SOS who’s job it is to compile those kinds of things?
As to revealing communities of interest, let’s use an example of Jefferson County. JeffCo is currently split into a number of Congressional districts, and in some odd way those splits make sense. One of the easiest ways to see that sense is by looking at the election results for the county; to a large degree, the portions of JeffCo in CO-06 vote more Republican than the portions in CO-07 or CO-02. I’m not saying it’s right to split up JeffCo, but the election maps do reveal something of the character of regions and can be helpful.
In an ideal world, perhaps we would be blind to the election results when redistricting, but even Iowa with it’s model non-partisan redistricting commission is subject to partisanship when the Legislature looks at the resulting maps to approve them.