December 01, 2011 05:46 AM UTC

Claims of GOP Reapportionment "Screwing" Rapidly Disintegrate

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• by: Colorado Pols

THURSDAY UPDATE #2: Republicans on the warpath for reapportionment commission chair Mario Carrera’s head are going to probably want to explain why, as Tim Hoover of the Denver paper updates today, none other than Colorado GOP chairman Ryan Call recommended Carrera’s appointment. Hilariously, a reminder of that persuades Call to denounce fellow Republican Mario Nicolais’ frothing characterization of Carrera as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” after Tuesday’s vote as neither “accurate, or frankly, very helpful.”

We’re thinking this little tantrum has just about run its course, folks.

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THURSDAY UPDATE: Sources tell us that Republicans on the commission in fact attempted to submit revised maps on Monday, even later than has been specifically reported. And these were reportedly not small “changes to existing maps,” with one such late proposal making major shifts among federally-sensitive Hispanic populations in the San Luis Valley.

The fact that Republicans were still making submissions to the commission as late as Monday underscores the problem with the case they are making that they “didn’t have as much time” as Democrats did to draw maps–or consider them. Obviously, if Republicans were still submitting maps on Monday, they knew they could still do so on Sunday (when they turned in maps as well). And more importantly, they eliminated their grounds to complain about less time.

It seems that the only thing left for Republicans to complain about is the unremarkable fact that unaffiliated commission chairman Mario Carrera has made political donations to Democrats, including during his time serving on the commission. It’s been noted several times that one such donation was to a congressional candidate, as though that has some bearing on his role in state legislative reapportionment. The fact is, Carrera’s political donations are a matter of record, and Republicans knew about most of them long ago. It seems like they were ready to pull the trigger on accusing him of favoritism the moment he didn’t vote their way all along.

Carrera responds that he has dealt fairly with both sides on the commission, and as for his political giving, he’s tended to give to Democrats for the same reason Hispanic voters tend to gravitate towards that party in elections. We haven’t tuned in, but it’s our guess that’s how the story of Carerra’s donations is being told on Noticias Colorado.

We’re already not sure what Republicans hope to gain from throwing what amounts to a baseless tantrum, supportable only by very serious accusations against nonpartisan staffers we don’t think they’re willing to make (see below), but another round of bad press in the Hispanic community is certainly something more they could lose. Original post follows.

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Recapping from yesterday, the Pueblo Chieftain’s Patrick Malone reports:

Robert Loevy, a Colorado Springs Republican who served on the reapportionment commission, said he believes the Supreme Court will uphold the Democratic map the commission adopted, despite Republican objections that it pits many Republican incumbents against each other in the same districts and ignored public comments about pairing communities in districts.

“The things that concern me about the Democrats’ plans are simply things that the court is not allowed to consider,” he said. “I think a remand is unlikely just for that reason. The plan adopted has gone out of its way to meet the court’s requirements.”

And the result, Loevy said, is that Democrats are likely to regain the majority in the House and hold it for a good part of the next decade.

In the aftermath of the 6-5 vote yesterday sending revised state House and Senate district maps back to the Supreme Court for approval, Republicans flew into a rage of accusations–that the process has been rigged to favor Democrats, and that unaffiliated commission chairman Mario Carrera had violated some kind of principle by voting with Democrats. A right-wing advocacy group even called for Carrera to resign from his executive position with Spanish-language media corporation Entravision. Safe to say that Republicans are very, very upset.

Unfortunately, their victimized narrative seems to be coming apart as fast as it took shape: in a story now up on the Denver newspaper’s website, reporter Tim Hoover basically demolishes the case that Republicans were not treated fairly in the commission’s latest round of mapmaking.

To summarize, Hoover reports that both Republicans and Democrats on the commission were communicating with nonpartisan commission staff regarding deadlines, not Carrera or members of opposing parties. Even noted GOP operative/commissioner Mario Nicolais, who yesterday led the accusations of unfair treatment in media coverage, praises the integrity of the nonpartisan staff on the commission, and today says the whole issue of “differing deadlines” for the maps may have been a “miscommunication.” Since the only way Republicans could make their charges logically stick was to accuse nonpartisan staff of malfeasance, which is a very big deal, we’d say Nicolais is making a wise decision to backpedal.

But it’s possible that it doesn’t matter, since Hoover also reports that Republicans submitted new maps themselves on Sunday–just like Democrats did! Republicans say they were just “amended versions of existing maps,” but if you’re not stupid (and Hoover thankfully is not), you already know that can mean anything they want it to mean. Now, if that’s right, then all of the arguments about having sufficient time to review the proposals are moot. And if Democrats were not hiding anything about the deadlines as feverishly suggested for the last 24 hours, which would obviously be correct if Republicans submitted new maps on Sunday too…

It’s as silly as it appears to be, folks. It looks like both sides were simply working on their maps up to the last minute, and Republicans are really upset about ending up on the losing side of a close vote. The rest of this is just noise, perhaps with an aim of persuading those Republican voters paying attention to forget about the original legislative reapportionment maps. You know, the ones that passed with bipartisan support, possibly gave the GOP a better shot at holding their slim House majority, and that Frank McNulty and Ryan Call chose to appeal.

Perhaps instead of angry words to eat later, some introspection about overreaching is in order.