April 20, 2011 03:59 PM UTC

Kumbaya Committee Closer than they think

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• by: Dan Willis

(An interesting perspective on redistricting from a longtime Polster. – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Last night the Redisitricting Committee seemed to, publically at least, try to be working their way back to being a bipartisan group working together. I hope that direction continues.

There was a fair amount of discussion about what they thought some important points were and listening to them I realized they really were not all that far apart on a resolution.

If fact, I have drawn a new map to try to incorporate much of what I heard. You can see it here.

The political reality of this map is CD’s 1 and 2 will be safe Dem seats, CD’s 4 and 5 will be safe GOP seats and 3, 6, and 7 will be competitive.

No cities are split. Counties are only split to accommodate equal population.

Western Slope is whole except ski communities which are included in CD2 (as is currently).

Eastern Plains are whole.

Per the requests made in public testimony around the state: Longmont is in CD4, El Paso is not split up, Lake is included in ski counties, Aurora is whole, Jeffco is whole, Chaffee is in CD3.

Two requests that could not be accommodated:

Douglas had to be split to make Aurora whole.

Greenwood Village was added to CD1 as it was the only practical way to get to the right population. Any other scenario would have split a city, either Centennial, Aurora, or Lakewood.

Population equality: my map as drawn is a little off (within +/- 400 people). It will require the Committee’s more sophisticated software to bring them down to equal numbers, but each district has areas where that can be done easily without changing the overall map.

If you like this map, please feel free to call the Redsitricting committee membes and let them know so it brings it more to their attention. As you might imagine they are being bombarded with emails so it would be easiy for them to overlook mine.