Opinion ID: 2638703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Commission's Explanations for Splits of Adams, Arapahoe, and Mesa Counties and the Cities of Boulder and Pueblo Are Persuasive

Text: Even if I was to agree with the two-prong test that the majority adopts, I do not believe that the majority correctly applied the second prong in this case. Specifically, the majority suggests that the explanations advanced to justify the splits of Adams, Arapahoe, and Mesa Counties, and the Cities of Boulder and Pueblo, are inadequate. I disagree because I would accept the Commission's explanations as satisfying the substantial compliance standard that applies when we evaluate whether the Commission's work comports with constitutional criteria. I would hold that the Commission's decision to draw districts in a predetermined order and the Commission's explanations for county splits are entitled to deference. See In re Reapportionment 1992, 828 P.2d at 197; In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 197. Various Commission explanations of splits have been approved by this court in the past. As discussed above, build-out justifications were explicitly deemed acceptable in In re Reapportionment 1992. [9] Additionally, in In re Reapportionment 1992-II, after initially remanding the case so that the Commission could reconsider its split of Pitkin County, we accepted as sufficient the Commission's explanation for why that county split was retained. In re Reapportionment 1992-II, 828 P.2d at 216. The Commission described the various alternatives it considered and explained how constitutional criteria applied to each alternative. Based on its reasoning that retaining the Pitkin County split would help effectuate all of the constitutional criteria, including the preservation of communities of interest, we approved it. Id. In this case, the Commission should be held to the same standard. In explaining why counties and cities are split, either when the Proposed Plan is originally submitted or upon resubmittal, the Commission should not be required to make a more strenuous showing than was required ten years ago. The Commission's Proposed Plan splits Adams County into two whole districts (Districts 24 and 26) and two partial districts (Districts 23 and 25). When the Commission drew districts in the southwestern metropolitan area, it completed three whole districts in Jefferson County. It then used some of Jefferson County's leftover population to create a district containing a portion of Jefferson County and a portion of Adams County. This accounts for one of the partial districts. The Commission then created the two whole districts in Adams County. Because the population in the remaining part of Adams County was less than necessary to form its own district, it was combined with the Arapahoe County portion of the City of Aurora. [10] This was a logical combination since the City of Aurora spans more than one county. Under the rationale of In re Reapportionment 1992, I do not believe that this build-out justification is inadequate. Additionally, I note that the plans to which the majority compares the Commission's Proposed Plan for Adams County do not, in fact offer any significant advantage over the Proposed Plan. Specifically, both the Rodriguez 5 Plan and the Wells 37 Plan create two whole districts and two partial districts in Adams County, just like the Commission's Proposed Plan. Similar build-out justifications drove the creation of three, instead of four, whole senate districts within Arapahoe County. The initial decision to split Arapahoe County was made because Denver County's population could accommodate four whole senate districts and one partial district (District 32). The Commission elected to complete District 32 by combining the remaining Denver County population with population from similar communities to the south of Denver in Arapahoe County. Notably, the choice to push south out of Denver into Arapahoe County was a decision the Commission made early in the process and one that minority commissioners repeatedly embraced in subsequent plans. While the Proposed Plan may have more partial districts in Arapahoe County than other plans, this alone does not render it unconstitutional. Substantial compliance, not perfection, is the standard to which the Proposed Plan should be held. In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 197. Mesa County has sufficient population to support 0.95 senate districts. Thus, its population is slightly less than the ideal population for one whole senate district. Therefore, it requires additional population to form a district. Unfortunately, as the Commission explains, every adjacent county has a population that, when added to Mesa County's population, is too large for an ideal district. This means that either Mesa County must be split and joined with other counties, or that some other county (such as Delta County) must be split and joined with Mesa County. Either way, a county must be split. In my view, our state constitution does not require the splitting of a smaller county merely because its size is less than that of an ideal senate district. Therefore, I disagree with the majority's conclusion that the Commission has not advanced an adequate explanation to justify the splitting of Mesa County. The Commission has explained that it split the City of Boulder in order to preserve the integrity of the City and County of Broomfield. [11] Broomfield's population was insufficient to complete a district, so the Commission had to cross into some other county. One possible source was the area of Boulder County north of Broomfield, including Longmont, Louisville, Erie, and Lafayette. However, the Commission determined, based on almost uniform public comment, to keep those similar communities together in their own district (District 17), contained wholly within Boulder County. The option of going south into Jefferson County was foreclosed because that area had already been used to complete District 23. As the Commission described in its argument to this court, that left them with two options: (1) pushing into Adams County to the east; or (2) pushing to the northwest into the City of Boulder. The Commission, based on the perceived community of interest existing between Broomfield and Boulder along the Highway 36 transportation corridor, decided to combine part of the City of Boulder with Broomfield to create District 18. The population then remaining in Boulder County was insufficient to comprise an entire district. The remainder of Boulder's population was, therefore, placed in District 19. While these are not necessarily the best choices that the Commission could have made, I believe that they are constitutionally permissible choices. Finally, the majority finds inadequate the explanation of the Commission's decision to split the City of Pueblo. Pueblo County, which contains the City of Pueblo, has population sufficient to support 1.15 districts. Thus, the county must be split somewhere. The Commission justified its decision to split the City of Pueblo by noting that this was the only place that the split could happen such that Pueblo County could be combined with eastern plains counties. I again note that when counties must be split, the Commission is afforded the discretion to determine where to make difficult, though constitutionally permissible, splits. I do not believe that the splitting of the City of Pueblo offends constitutional principles.