Opinion ID: 2638703
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Provisions of the Colorado Constitution

Text: The Colorado Constitution as adopted in 1876 provided for twenty-six senate members and forty-nine house members until 1890, at which time the General Assembly could increase that number, not to exceed an aggregate of one hundred, with the ratio of senate to house seats being preserved as near as possible. Colo. Const. art. V, § 46 (amended 1950). The constitution allowed the General Assembly to alter district boundaries to include two or more counties but prohibited any county divisions: No county shall be divided in the formation of a senatorial or representative district. Colo. Const. art. V, § 47 (amended 1962). The constitution provided for the apportionment of senators and representatives on the basis of federal and state census data according to ratios to be fixed by law. Colo. Const. art. V, § 45 (amended 1962). The ratios did not include an equal population basis. In Armstrong v. Mitten, 95 Colo. 425, 37 P.2d 757 (1934), we upheld a reapportionment statute the voters enacted after the General Assembly failed to adopt a reapportionment bill after the 1930 census. This act provided for thirty-five senate members and sixty-five house members, set the boundaries for the districts, and determined the number of senators and house members assigned to the districts. We rejected the argument that the people could not initiate a reapportionment statute. Id. at 430, 37 P.2d at 759. In 1950, the voters approved a General Assembly-referred measure amending the constitution to limit the number of senators to thirty-five and the house to sixty-five members. Colo. Const. art. V, § 46 (amended 1962); 1951 Colo. Sess. Laws 553. Section 47 continued to provide that: Senatorial and representative districts may be altered from time to time, as public convenience may require. When a senatorial or representative district shall be composed of two or more counties, they shall be contiguous, and the district as compact as may be. No county shall be divided in the formation of a senatorial or representative district. (Emphasis added.) In 1962, through a General Assembly-referred measure, the voters amended the constitution to fix the General Assembly's membership at thirty-nine senate members and sixty-five house members, one to be elected for each senate and house district. [1] Colo. Const. art. V, § 45 (amended 1966); ch. 312, 1963 Colo. Sess. Laws 1045. The prohibition on dividing counties continued, with its wording slightly revised: Districts of the same house shall not overlap. All districts shall be as compact as may be and shall consist of contiguous whole general election precincts. No part of one county shall be added to another county or part of another county in forming a district. When a district includes two or more counties they shall be contiguous. Id. The voters amended Section 46 to provide that the sixty-five house districts shall be as nearly equal in population as may be. Colo. Const. art. V, § 46 (amended 1966); ch. 312, 1963 Colo. Sess. Laws 1045. Section 47 added an additional senator to Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder and Jefferson Counties and provided that the population in districts apportioned more than one senator shall be as nearly equal in population as may be, but did not provide for equal population in the bulk of Colorado's senate districts. Colo. Const. art. V, § 47 (amended 1966); ch. 312, 1963 Colo. Sess. Laws 1045-46. In 1964, the United States Supreme Court invalidated Colorado's reapportionment law for its allowance of an unequal population basis for senate districts, requiring instead that both houses reflect representation on a substantially equal population basis. [2] See Lucas v. Forty-Fourth Gen. Assembly of Colo., 377 U.S. 713, 84 S.Ct. 1459, 12 L.Ed.2d 632 (1964). The Court held that Colorado's overall apportionment scheme was not sufficiently grounded on population to be constitutionally sustainable under the Equal Protection Clause. Id. at 735, 84 S.Ct. 1459. The Court observed that adherence to a strict population basis was not a federal constitutional requirement; some deviation from a strict population basis is allowable, but Colorado's variation in population between districts was too substantial. Id. at 734-75, 84 S.Ct. 1459. The General Assembly in 1964 attempted to comply with one person/one vote federal constitutional requirements. It adopted an act that divided counties into multiple senate and house districts. We held that Section 47 prohibited county divisions thus triggering the necessity of changing the Colorado Constitution for compliance with federal equal population requirements. `No county' cannot be construed as meaning that one county, or two counties, or three counties may be divided; it plainly directs that there is not one county in the state of Colorado that may be divided in the formation of a senatorial or representative district. White v. Anderson, 155 Colo. 291, 297-98, 394 P.2d 333, 336 (1964). For the first time in Colorado, the 1966 citizen-initiated amendments to the constitution introduced: (1) a requirement of single member districts; and (2) allowed the General Assembly to add part of one county to all or part of another county in the formation of senate and house districts, if necessary to meet equal population requirements. See An Analysis of 1966 Ballot Proposals, Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly, Research Publication No. 110 at 9-10 (1966). By the 1966 initiative, voters amended Section 45 to provide for not more than thirty-five senate members and sixty-five house members, one to be elected for each senatorial and each representative district. Colo. Const. art. V, § 45; ch. 456, 1967 Colo. Sess. Laws 11. The voters amended Section 46 to provide that each district in each house shall have a population as nearly equal as may be, as required by the constitution of the United States. Colo. Const. art. V, § 46 (amended 1974); ch. 456, 1967 Colo. Sess. Laws 11. The voters reworded Section 47 to provide that the General Assembly could add one part of a county to all or part of another county in forming districts when declared by the General Assembly to be necessary to meet the equal population requirements of Section 46: Each district shall be as compact in area as possible and shall consist of contiguous whole general election precincts. Districts of the same house shall not overlap. Except when declared by the general assembly to be 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. When county boundaries are changed, adjustments, if any, in legislative districts, shall be as prescribed by law. Colo. Const. art. V, § 47 (amended 1974)(emphasis added). Objectives of the 1966 amendments included making the members of the General Assembly more directly responsible to local constituencies. [3] 4. A single-member district system will enable a legislator to be aware of the sentiments of his constituents much more than a multi-member district system. In the urban areas, it will also mean that legislative candidates can concentrate their campaigns within a specific district area and can devote their time and attention to the people living within their district. 5. The single-member district system will mean that voters within a given area will have more effective control over the actions of their senator and representative. In other words, legislators may be held more directly accountable to their constituents under the single-member district system. 6. Under the provisions of Amendment No. 4, minority groups living in concentrated population areas should be better able to obtain representation in the General Assembly commensurate with their population. Under the system of at-large elections in multi-member counties, it is possible for many or all of the members to be elected, for example, from merely a few areas within a district or from generally the same economic strata. An Analysis of 1966 Ballot Proposals, Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly, Research Publication No. 110 at 18 (1966). Though reworded to comply with equal population criteria, Section 47 continued Colorado's historic preference for county-based local constituencies; counties were to remain whole except as necessary for compliance with equal population requirements. The Constitution just as strongly expressly prohibits a part of one county being added to all or part of another county except when necessary to meet the equal population requirements of Article V, Section 46 of the Colorado Constitution. [4] In re Interrogatories H.R. 1020, 178 Colo. 311, 313, 497 P.2d 1024, 1025 (1972). In 1972, we also held that inclusion of enclaves in a district is a direct violation of the constitutional requirements of contiguity and compactness. See In re Interrogatory H.J.R. 1011, 177 Colo. 215, 217-18, 493 P.2d 346, 347 (1972)(prohibiting inclusion of Glendale and Holly Hills-portions of Arapahoe County surrounded by the City and County of Denver-into the Arapahoe County senate district). In 1974, the voters approved a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment creating the Reapportionment Commission to perform the work of reapportionment the constitution had formerly consigned to the General Assembly. The basic purpose of the initiative was to accomplish reapportionment through the work of an independent body of Colorado citizens appointed by leaders of Colorado's legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The initiative designed a process for the Commission's work, criteria for carrying out that work, and review by this court of the Commission's product. The Legislative Council Analysis of this proposal stated that it would accomplish the following, if adopted: 1. Remove from the General Assembly the power to reapportion itself or to revise legislative district boundaries. After each federal census (presently conducted every ten years), an eleven member commission would assume responsibility for establishing district boundaries for the General Assembly. The commission would consist of: (a) the Speaker and Minority Leader of the state House of Representatives and the Majority and Minority Leaders of the state Senate (or the designees of these legislative leaders); (b) three appointees of the Governor; and (c) four appointees of the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. 2. Allow no more than a five percent deviation between the most populous districts in each house of the General Assembly. 3. Require that ... the aggregate linear distance of all district boundaries shall be as short as possible. 4. Encourage the preservation of communities of interest (including ethnic, cultural, economic, trade area, geographic, and demographic factors) within a single district whenever possible, and discourage the splitting of cities and towns between districts. 5. Require publication of a preliminary reapportionment plan and public hearings on this plan in several areas of the state. 6. Provide for automatic review and ultimate approval of the reapportionment plan by the Colorado Supreme Court. Concerning Amendment No. 9, Legislative Council of the Colorado General Assembly, An Analysis of 1974 Ballot Proposals, Research Publication No. 206 (1974) at 26-27. Arguments for the Proposal explained the amendment's provision for a maximum allowable five-percent deviation between the district with the greatest population and the least population in each house. It would (1) allow greater flexibility in the location of small cities and towns within single legislative districts and ... make it easier to avoid splitting counties between legislative districts, and (2) permit more consideration of the ethnic, cultural, economic, and other aspects of reapportionment.... Id. at 29. The maximum population deviation of five percent between districts is a reasonable standard which will allow greater flexibility in the location of small cities and towns within single legislative districts and which will make it easier to avoid splitting counties between legislative districts. The use of a five percent deviation would also permit more consideration of the ethnic, cultural, economic, and other aspects of reapportionment called for in the proposal. Id. at 29 (emphasis added). Objectives of the proposed constitutional amendment included reducing both partisan politics and gerrymandering: The proposal would reduce the impact that partisan politics can have on the drawing of legislative district boundaries, through the placement of the commission outside the legislative branch and through the requirements for appointment of commission members by all three branches of state government. The proposal's more stringent requirements for consideration of communities of interest, for compact districts, and for minimization of the splitting of cities and towns, and the public visibility of the activities of the reapportionment commission would tend to reduce the gerrymandering of legislative districts. Id. at 29-30 (emphasis added). The Colorado voters approved the citizen proposal, and we upheld it over a competing General Assembly-referred measure that received a lesser number of votes in the 1974 election. See In re Interrogatories Propounded by the Senate Concerning House Bill 1078, 189 Colo. 1, 536 P.2d 308 (1975). The 1974 constitutional amendments built on prior Colorado reapportionment law, most particularly on the 1966 citizen-initiated constitutional amendments. The 1974 amendments carried forth the prohibition in Section 47 against addition of parts of one county to another in establishing districts, except as necessary to meet the equal population requirements of Section 46. The current constitutional requirements applicable to the Commission's work, Adopted Plan, and our review of it, are set forth in Sections 46 and 47 of Article V as follows: Section 46. Senatorial and representative districts. The state shall be divided into as many senatorial and representative districts as there are members of the senate and house of representatives respectively, each district in each house having a population as nearly equal as may be, as required by the constitution of the United States, but in no event shall there be more than five percent deviation between the most populous and the least populous district in each house. Section 47. Composition of districts. (1) Each district shall be as compact in area as possible and the aggregate linear distance of all district boundaries shall be as short as possible. Each district shall consist of contiguous whole general election precincts. Districts of the same house shall not overlap. (2) 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. (3) Consistent with the provisions of this section and section 46 of this article, communities of interest, including ethnic, cultural, economic, trade area, geographic, and demographic factors, shall be preserved within a single district wherever possible. (Emphasis added.) Since the adoption of the 1974 initiative, we have reviewed the Commission's 1982 and 1992 reapportionment plans. See In re Reapportionment 82, 647 P.2d at 198 (returning plan to Commission based upon unconstitutional sequencing of elections in two senate districts, because one senate district encompassed residences of two incumbent state senators while a second senate district lacked a state senator); In re Reapportionment of the Colo. Gen. Assembly, 647 P.2d 209 (Colo.1982)(rejecting resubmitted plan as less consistent with the hierarchy of constitutional criteria than the previously submitted plan and ordering the Commission to submit the original plan with the court-ordered election sequencing modifications); In re Reapportionment 92-I, 828 P.2d at 185 (returning plan to Commission because it divided Pitkin County and the City of Aspen, and the Commission's explanation did not rise to the level of an adequate factual showing that less drastic alternatives could not have satisfied the equal population requirement of the Colorado Constitution. The court also disapproved the Commission's division of the Perry Park community and its failure to incorporate requested technical changes to Larimer and Boulder County districts); In re Reapportionment of the Colo. Gen. Assembly, 828 P.2d 213 (Colo.1992)(approving the resubmitted plan because it incorporated all of the court's requested changes except for the division of Pitkin County, which was found constitutional because the Commission provided the court with a sufficient basis for judicial review of its actions and reasons for the necessity that Pitkin County be divided.). On both occasions, in applying the constitutional criteria, we found a significant deficiency in the Commission's action that required remand for plan modification, factual demonstration, and articulated rationale. Upon revision and resubmission, we approved both reapportionment plans and they became final. In 1996, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ordered the adoption of a remedial plan to redraw the boundaries of a House District for the San Luis Valley, in order to provide its substantial Hispanic population with a fair opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. See Sanchez v. Colorado, 97 F.3d 1303 (10th Cir. 1996). In 1998, the General Assembly approved the redrawing of house districts in the south central portion of the State to comply with Sanchez. See § 2-2-208, 1 C.R.S. (2001). These legal developments in the course of Colorado's growth have shaped the Commission's 2002 reapportionment responsibilities, as well as our own.