July 30, 2025 09:34 AM UTC

Wouldn't That Be Nice, Ditching The Redistricting Commission Edition

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• by: Colorado Pols

With the state of Texas diving into a mid-decade redistricting exercise intended to boost Republicans in Congress by as many as five seats or more during a special session ostensibly convening to address devastating floods in the state, Democrats with a mind to stop bringing knives to gun fights are considering retaliatory redistricting efforts of their own–most notably in California where a redistricting to favor Democrats could erase Republican gains in Texas and then some.

Yesterday evening, CO-08 Democratic congressional candidate and former Rep. Yadira Caraveo weighed in on this contentious question, calling for Colorado to “throw out” the independent redistricting commissions established in 2018 by Colorado voters with the passage of Amendments Y and Z:

So first of all, it’s a bit unseemly for a candidate running in one of the nation’s most closely divided congressional districts to call for lines to be redrawn that would have the effect of helping her personally. But the bigger problem with what Caraveo is breezily proposing here is that it can’t be done–at least not as easily as she makes it sound. In order for Colorado to join the rush to gain partisan advantage via redistricting, voters would need to undo the constitutional amendments they passed in 2018. Then, you’d need to contend with the 2003 Salazar v. Davidson Colorado Supreme Court decision that constitutionally ruled out mid-decade redistricting.

As frustrating as this naked ploy to gerrymander the state of Texas mid-decade to reduce Republican losses in what’s expected to be a midterm bloodbath understandably is, it doesn’t help anything to propose the impossible in response. The only effect of this is to demoralize less-informed voters, and hurt responsible candidates who are honest about the situation.

If anything, next time Kent Thiry comes along proposing that Colorado Democrats unilaterally surrender power out of “fairness,” remember that Republicans never do the same.