March 29, 2016 02:04 PM UTC

Redistrictpalooza: The Faces Tell The Story

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• by: Colorado Pols

Updating our occasional track of the growing number of proposals and counterproposals for “reform” of the state’s congressional redistricting and legislative reapportionment process that have piled up at the Colorado Secretary of State’s office since last year’s disastrous effort spearheaded by former GOP House Speaker Frank McNulty. As of Friday’s deadline for ballot initiatives there are a total of seven–seven–proposals under consideration not including last year’s.

Rather than trying to explain all the technical details of these different proposals, what we can tell you is that four of them originate from a single source–McNulty’s coalition of lawmakers and former elected officials. What hasn’t been widely discussed is the much less-known political hack working behind the scenes:

Proud to be part of @MendTheLines effort. Be sure to follow. Let’s end gerrymandering in Colorado!

— Alan P. Philp (@AlanPPhilp) February 23, 2016

Alan Philp is a longtime conservative operative in Colorado politics. Philp is an employee of the Koch network through Aegis Strategies along with Jeff Crank and Dustin Zvonek–both with their own longtime associations with right-wing Koch ubergroup Americans for Prosperity. Philp’s ties to Colorado Republican political strategies go back many years before AFP set up shop in Colorado–just as one example, Philp helped run the failed Trailhead Group, set up in 2006 to “synchronize electioneering efforts” for Republicans.

Philp was also a major player in the last redistricting and reapportionment cycle in 2011, which witnessed innumerable attempts by Republicans to skew the process toward maps more favorable to their incumbents and long-term strategy. Philp’s firm also appears to have been paid by the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which has played a big role in redistricting fights through their Redistricting Majority Project.

In short, there’s a straightforward reason why Philp and McNulty have relied on surrogates–including some token Democrats. It’s very difficult to trust “nonpartisan” motives for anything Alan Philp is involved with.

And that means anyone looking at these proposals, no matter who the public face may be, needs to be very skeptical.