Opinion ID: 2638703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Requiring the Commission to Proceed in a Particular Manner and Rejecting Build-Out Justifications Violates Our Precedent

Text: The majority posits a bright-line rule that the Commission must first allocate districts to those counties that have a population greater than an ideal house or senate district. Maj. op. at 1249. If the county population will support, for instance, 2.5 districts, then the Commission is only permitted to allocate that county's population among three districts  two districts contained entirely within county borders and one district which combines part of the population of the relevant county with neighboring counties. A Commission decision that creates, for example, one whole district within county borders and two partial districts, or two whole districts within county borders and two partial districts, will almost always be considered, under the majority's analysis, unconstitutional. The majority's approach demands that districts be drawn in a specific way, as detailed above, because anything less would purportedly fail to comply with the constitution. The majority asserts, in essence, that the Colorado Constitution sets forth a rigid hierarchy of apportionment criteria, under which the constitutionality of a redistricting plan can be judged predominantly, if not solely, by counting the number of divisions for the most populous counties. Based on this new rule, the majority rejects the Commission's divisions of Boulder, Douglas, Pueblo, and Jefferson Counties because these populous counties did not receive the number of entire senate districts for which they qualify. [3] Maj. op. at 1241 & 1246. The result reached by the majority is mandated neither by the language of the Colorado Constitution nor by our precedent. The constitution does not state that the redistricting authority must begin by drawing immovable lines that protect the more populous counties to the detriment of the less populous counties. Nor have previous cases decided by this court ever made such a suggestion, despite numerous opportunities to do so. Our precedent reveals just the opposite. There are numerous state constitutional considerations that weigh upon the redistricting process. These include that: (1) each district should have equal populations, Colo. Const. art. V, § 46; (2) counties should not be divided or combined with other counties [e]xcept when necessary to meet the equal population requirements of section 46, Colo. Const. art. V, § 47(2), and if counties must be split, the number of cities and towns within those split counties should be as small as possible, Colo. Const. art. V., § 47(2); (3) each district should be as compact in area as possible and should consist of contiguous whole general election precincts, Colo. Const. art. V, § 47(1); and (4) communities of interest ... shall be preserved within a single district whenever possible, Colo. Const. art. V, § 47(3). In re Reapportionment 1992, 828 P.2d at 190. This court has, however, cautioned against a formulaic, inflexible application of these criteria. [4] In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 194 ([T]he criteria of sections 46 and 47 are to be viewed as a whole, as a set of firm but general guidelines which allow the Commission some discretion in application.). We have never held that there is only one acceptable approach to the drawing of general assembly districts. In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 196 (recognizing that a county's population may be dense enough to allow the lines to be drawn in a number of ways without offending section 47(2)). Nor have we ever imposed strict instructions on how to formulate a redistricting plan. In fact, we have historically afforded the Commission a degree of discretion as to how it proceeds when it draws district boundaries. In re Reapportionment 1992, 828 P.2d at 197 (approving the Commission's decision to draw districts for regions of the state in a predetermined order chosen by the Commission). We afforded the Commission such discretion in 1982. The 1982 senate redistricting plan split eight counties (Arapahoe, Boulder, Delta, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, Pueblo, and Weld). In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 195-96. Seven of the split counties (all but Delta) were large counties with populations sufficient to support more than one senate district. Id. at 196. Contrary to the majority's assertion, we approved the 1982 plan. [5] In doing so, we deferred to the Commission's choice of which counties to divide and, importantly, where and how to divide them: [S]ubstantial equality of population and avoidance of splitting counties cannot always be met simultaneously. When they cannot, the avoidance of split counties must yield. The area of the state in which these conflicts occur is subject to adjustment, and the Commission must have the discretion to choose where the necessary and constitutionally permissible compromises are made. In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 197; see also In re Interrogatories by the Gen. Assembly, 178 Colo. at 313, 497 P.2d at 1025 (While the addition to or deletion from a particular district might be said to be ill-advised by some, the decision is ... one to be upheld provided a constitutional violation is not shown.). Notably, we did not state that the Commission is required to begin its mapping attentive to the needs of the populous counties, while only secondarily moving to the consideration of less populous counties. Nor did we ever hint that there is only one constitutionally acceptable order in which the Commission must proceed. To the contrary, we specifically recognized that the Commission was not required to draw lines in the way the majority now suggests. The 1980 census revealed that El Paso County's population was large enough that three districts could have been drawn entirely within county boundaries and a fourth partial district could have been created with neighboring counties. In re Reapportionment 1982, 647 P.2d at 196. Under the plan submitted, however, only one district was drawn entirely within county borders and three other partial districts, containing portions of El Paso County and portions of neighboring counties, were also created. Id. Thus, El Paso County presented the precise situation to which the majority now objects, and which would be unconstitutional under the majority's approach. Nevertheless, we approved the Commission's 1982 plan because it had been drawn to achieve equal population and did not constitute a clear constitutional violation. Id. Similarly, we sanctioned splits in the cities of Boulder and Grand Junction, even though each city was populous enough to support its own district. Id. at 197. This numerical fact did not convince us that constitutional standards had not been satisfied. In In re Reapportionment 1992, we reiterated many of these points when we rejected several section 47(2) challenges to the proposed house plan. [6] In re Reapportionment 1992, 828 P.2d at 193-98. The plan submitted reflected the Commission's decision to begin drawing districts in particular areas of the state and then proceed to other areas of the state. Id. at 196-97. When we considered the 1992 plan, in In re Reapportionment 1992, we did not simply conclude that, as a matter of arithmetic, there was a right or wrong number of split counties. Nor did we begin our analysis by focusing only on the most populous counties. Instead, we considered all the criteria of section 47, including avoidance of split counties, compactness, and preservation of communities of interest. In re Reapportionment 1992, 828 P.2d at 196 (analyzing a split of Pitkin County). Ultimately, we approved splits of Arapahoe, Baca, and Montezuma Counties. In re Reapportionment 1992, 828 P.2d at 196 & 197-98. Further, and inconsistently with the majority's bright-line rule, we concluded that the division of the City of Westminster into seven house districts did not violate the constitution, despite the fact that it could have been contained in far fewer districts. Id. at 196-97. We reasoned that since Westminster's population exceeds that of an ideal house district, at least one split was required. Id. We explained the remainder of the splits as being due, in large part, to the order in which the Commission had drawn its districts: [T]he Commission initially fixed the boundaries of two districts in the eastern part of Adams County and worked west. Simultaneously, the Commission was moving east out of the mountains in creating District 62. Id. at 197. In light of the practical reality that the drafting of a redistricting plan must begin somewhere, and that some areas of the state will be subject to multiple splits in order to minimize splits in other areas of the state, we held that these numerous splits were not per se unconstitutional. Id. We recognized that the Commission's decision about the order in which lines were drawn meant that there would be more splits to areas considered last: Because of the Commission's choices of where to begin drawing house districts, and in order to bring closure to the Final Plan and preserve equality of population, Westminster was split into more parts than if the Commission had proceeded differently. Id. Nevertheless, we approved the seven splits reflected in the reapportionment plan. Ignoring our earlier holdings, the majority now finds that it was improper for the Commission to proceed in the manner that it did in this case. Specifically, the majority states: It ... appears from the Commission's rationale that it considered itself at liberty to start the cartography of reapportionment at any point of Colorado geography it might choose.... [T]he constitutional criteria instead contemplate the Commission taking an overview of Colorado's population by county, then generating a map that respects the state's legal preference for county integrity, then applying minimization of city divisions, compactness, contiguity, and community of interest criteria to add portions of counties to other counties in forming districts, when necessary. Maj. op. at 1251-1252. The majority thus eliminates the discretion that this court has historically afforded the Commission and announces a rule that requires the Commission to tak[e] an overview of the state in an attempt to minimize overall county splits. Based on this new overview rule, in combination with its other new rule, that the Commission must begin the reapportionment process by allocating districts to the most populous counties, the majority concludes that splits of Boulder, Douglas, Pueblo, and Jefferson Counties are unconstitutional. [7] The rules announced by the majority represent an extraordinary departure from precedent and upset decades of settled expectations about the application of constitutional criteria. In my view, the majority's approach is both unwarranted and ill-advised.