Opinion ID: 2638703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: County Considerations

Text: Article V, Section 47(2) of the Colorado Constitution favors matching districts to county boundaries and not crossing county boundaries unless necessary to comply with Section 46. The most important concern under section 47 is whether the Final Plan unnecessarily divides counties or cities within counties. In re Reapportionment 92-I, 828 P.2d at 194. Colorado's apportionment law since 1876 has been consistent in this regard. Counties are a basic structural unit of local government for carrying out state purposes. Counties and the cities within their boundaries are already established as communities of interest in their own right, with a functioning legal and physical local government identity on behalf of citizens that is ongoing. Counties have a preferential status under Section 47 over those communities of interest the Commission postulates during its decennial reapportionment process when it must divide a county and join a part of it to another county, or part of another county, to form a district in order to comply with the equal population criteria of Section 46. A direct line of accountability between citizens, their elected city councils and county commissioners, and their elected state representatives is at the heart of responsive government in Colorado and is built into the county-oriented design of the Constitution's reapportionment provisions. The constitution allows the Commission to divide a county only if necessary to meet the equal population requirement. In re Reapportionment 82, 647 P.2d at 197 (emphasis added). By its express language, section 47(2) subordinates the importance of not dividing counties to the substantial equality of population mandate of section 46. Id. at 193-94. Article V, Section 47(2) states as follows: Except when necessary to meet the equal population requirements of section 46, no part of one county shall be added to all or part of another county in forming districts. Within counties whose territory is contained in more than one district of the same house, the number of cities and towns whose territory is contained in more than one district of the same house shall be as small as possible. When county, city, or town boundaries are changed, adjustments, if any, in legislative districts shall be as prescribed by law. Colo. Const. art. V, § 47(2)(emphasis added). These provisions contemplate that the integrity of county constituent representation in the General Assembly will be respected whenever possible. We therefore construe Section 47(2) as requiring the Commission to assign whole districts to counties whose population qualifies for them based on the decennial census population and the Commission's ideal district population projection. The Commission's Adopted Plan must be: (1) sufficiently attentive to county boundaries to meet the requirement of section 47(2), In re Reapportionment 82, 647 P.2d at 195; and (2) accompanied by an adequate factual showing that less drastic alternatives could not have satisfied the equal population requirement of the Colorado Constitution, In re Reapportionment 92-I, 828 P.2d at 195-96. The requirement of a factual showing guards against creating unnecessary county divisions. In complying with the Section 46 criteria, the Commission projects an ideal equal population figure for Colorado house and senate districts. The Commission divides Colorado's total population by the number of legally allotted districts to be created: sixty-five house districts and thirty-five senate districts. Colo. Const. art. V, § 45 (The general assembly shall consist of not more than thirty-five members of the senate and of not more than sixty-five members of the house of representatives....). In formulating the apportionment map, the Commission's actions thus include: (1) determining the ideal population for Senate and House districts; (2) identifying those counties that qualify for whole Senate or House districts based upon their population; and (3) preserving to them their number of whole districts throughout the process unless this is not possible. In regard to the other counties and portions of counties that do not qualify for a whole district, the Commission then employs the further criteria of Article V, Section 47 in making county divisions to form districts: keeping divisions of cities and towns between districts to a minimum, compactness, contiguity and preservation of communities of interest, in that order. In Re Apportionment 92-I, 828 P.2d at 190. Because of the necessity to meet federal equal population requirements, we have recognized that perfection is not obtainable in regard to the Final Plan for reapportionment; [a]n addition or deletion in one area of the state necessarily causes alteration in another. In re Interrogatories H.R. 1020, 178 Colo. at 313, 497 P.2d at 1025 (commenting on the General Assembly's 1972 apportionment plan that contained county divisions). The if necessary exception of Section 47(2) permits the Commission to add a portion of a county to another county or portion of another county to form a district upon an adequate factual showing that less drastic alternatives could not have satisfied the equal population requirement of the Colorado Constitution. In re Reapportionment 92-I, 828 P.2d at 195-96; see also In re Interrogatories H.R. 1020, 178 Colo. at 313, 497 P.2d at 1025 (observing, [T]he General Assembly made findings when it was necessary to cross county lines to meet the command of Section 46 in forming the districts.). [5] Guided by the constitutional criteria, we now turn to the Commission's Adopted Plan. Our review focuses on the senate portion of the Adopted Plan, for it presents issues of constitutional compliance that either are not present in the house portion of the plan or will be addressed in rectifying the non-complying county divisions.