Court Opinion

ID: 9546960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:38:33.380748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:05.398324
License: Public Domain

Justice QUINN
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
While I agree with the court’s resolution of the Voting Rights Act issues, I join Justice Mullarkey’s dissent from the court’s approval of the reapportionment plan for Senate Districts 32 and 35 in Denver. Justice Mullarkey’s detailed description of the circumstances surrounding the Commission’s final decision to redraw these districts convinces me that the sole motivating factor for the configuration was the preservation of incumbency — a factor that is nowhere mentioned in the Colorado Constitution and is offensive to the spirit of the Commission’s constitutional mandate.
I write separately to dissent from the court’s opinion insofar as it approves the fragmentation of the City of Westminster *205into seven house districts (House Districts 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, and 62) and insofar as it sanctions the splitting of Montezuma County into two house districts (House Districts 58 and 59).
I.
I agree with the proposition that the most important criteria for evaluating a reapportionment plan are the United States Constitution, particularly the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This court’s role in evaluating a claim under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act, however, is extremely limited due to the nature of the record before us. That record was not developed in an adversarial proceeding, nor was the factual basis for the reapportionment plan subjected to sworn testimony or the crucible of cross-examination. Because a Voting Rights Act claim requires a fact-specific record that can only be adequately developed in the procedural and evidentiary framework of an adversarial proceeding, see Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 46, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2764, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986), I do not consider this court’s resolution of those claims preclusive of a challenge to the reapportionment plan in a formal adversarial proceeding initiated under the Voting Rights Act. Because I do not read the court’s opinion to preclude such a challenge, I join Part II of the opinion.
With that said, I turn to the issues relating to the City of Westminster and Montezuma County.
II.
Sections 46 and 47 of Article V of the Colorado Constitution establish a hierarchy of criteria applicable to a reapportionment plan. Foremost among those criteria is the requirement of substantial equality of population among senate and house districts. CoIo.Const., Art. V, § 46. This equality-of-population requirement is designed to ensure the one person-one vote principle of federal constitutional jurisprudence originating in the United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). Section 47 of Article V sets forth three additional criteria for a constitutionally viable reapportionment plan. These criteria, listed in the order of importance, are: first, the proscription against dividing counties and cities among districts except when necessary to satisfy the equal population mandate, Art. V, § 47(2); second, the requirement of compactness, pursuant to which “each district shall be as compact as possible and the aggregate linear distance of all district boundaries shall be as short as possible,” Art. V, § 47(1); and third, the mandate for preserving communities of interest within a single district on the basis of “ethnic, cultural, economic, trade area, geographic, and demographic factors,” Art. V, § 47(3).
Although the equality-of-population requirement is the centerpiece of the reapportionment criteria, it is by no means the exclusive requirement and is certainly not intended as a warrant to ignore or evade the other constitutional requirements. Justice Lohr cogently made that point when he dissented to this court’s opinion approving the 1982 reapportionment plan:
What I would make explicit is that our task is not fully satisfied by assuring that districts are of substantially equal population. Our state constitution imposes additional constraints upon the reapportionment process in Colo. Const. Art. V, § 47. Full discharge of our obligation requires that we also assure that these requirements are met. Further, as the majority recognizes, the standards prescribed by Colo. Const. Art. V, §§ 46 and 47 do not constitute an undifferentiated set of constraints that the Commission may freely balance against each other. Rather, a clear, if not rigid, hierarchy of precedence is contemplated. Thus, where it is not possible to satisfy all of the criteria prescribed by Art. V, §§ 46 and 47, our task is to insure that the Commission has resolved these conflicts in a manner which protects this constitutionally mandated hierarchy of precedence.
*206In re Apportionment of Colorado General Assembly, 647 P.2d 191, 200 (Colo.1982) (Lohr, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted). Furthermore, the Commission’s decision in choosing among competing alternatives is entitled to some deference, but as Justice Lohr again explained, that deference is limited:
In this connection, I note that the findings of the Commission are entitled to deference. The complex task facing the Commission requires no less. However, when an objector demonstrates to the court, by alternative plan or otherwise, (1) that the Commission could have complied with all the reapportionment requirements where it did not, or (2) that the Commission unnecessarily failed to respect the constitutional hierarchy of precedence, deference to Commission expertise is no longer appropriate. At that point we would be remiss in our responsibility if we did not disapprove the noncomplying feature of the plan or, at a minimum, require a further explanation of the Commission's choice.
Id. at 200.
The Commission, therefore, cannot legitimize a significant deviation from constitutional criteria by nothing more than an ipse dixit proclamation that the deviation was necessary either to comply with federal standards or to equalize the population among districts. The Commission’s burden, in my view, is to provide an adequate factual showing that the deviation was constitutionally necessary. Only in this way will the constitutional criteria retain vitality and will meaningful judicial review be possible.
The Commission’s plan fails to demonstrate the constitutional necessity of significant deviations from controlling constitutional criteria in the following two instances.
A. Westminster House Districts
The City of Westminster, which has a population of approximately 75,000, is divided between Jefferson and Adams Counties. The reapportionment plan divides the city among House Districts 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, and 62, with the Jefferson County portion of Westminster being subdivided among three house districts and the Adams County portion of the city being subdivided among four house districts. Westminster objects to the plan as violative of the prohibition against dividing cities among districts except when necessary to equalize the population, Colo. Const. Art. V, § 47(2), the requirement of compactness, Colo. Const. Art. V, § 47(1), and the need to preserve communities of interest, Colo. Const. Art. V, § 47(3). Westminster’s objections, in my view, are well taken.
Because Westminster exceeds the ideal population of 50,683 for a house district, and because the city is located in two counties, some splitting of the city is necessary if for no other reason than to comply with the constitutional prohibition against crossing county lines in forming districts. Colo. Const. Art. V, § 47(2). To say as much, however, falls far short of justifying the fragmentation that has occurred here. As Justice Lohr points out in his dissent, none of the seven Westminster districts contains a majority of Westminster citizens. I would hold that where, as here, a city with a population in excess of the ideal population for a district is divided into seven districts, one of the districts, at the very least, should contain a majority of city residents. Without that requirement, there is a substantial risk of dissipating existing communities of interest attributable to the city’s identity as a political entity.
The Commission attempts to justify its treatment of Westminster by emphasizing that it started house-district reapportionment in the San Luis Valley in order to ensure adequate minority representation in House District 60 and eventually proceeded north to achieve the same goal in House Districts 7 and 8 in Denver. The Commission’s concern in ensuring minority representation in other districts, necessary and laudable as that concern is, does not convince me that the need to absorb the so-called “ripple effects” generated by compliance with the Voting Rights Act justifies the Commission’s decision to divide a city of approximately 75,000 into seven different districts. If absorption of “ripple ef*207fects” is to be a palliative for deviating from the constitutional hierarchy of precedence established by the Colorado Constitution, then cities with substantially larger populations than 75,000 would seem to be better able to contain the ripples.
Section 47(2) of Article V expressly prohibits, except where necessary to meet the equal population requirement, the splitting of cities whose territory lies in more than one district of the same house in cases where the county in which the city is located is split into more than one district. If the number of “split cities” within a “split county” is to be minimized, it is axiomatic that a city within a “split county” must not be unnecessarily split among different districts. This court’s approval of a similar fragmentation of Westminster ten years ago, In re Reapportionment, 647 P.2d at 197, does not constitute a judicial writ for the perpetual dismemberment of Westminster.
In addition to violating § 47(2) of Article Y, the Commission’s plan evades the compactness requirement of § 47(1) of Article V. House District 62, of which Westminster is a part, is a long, narrow district that is bisected by Interstate Highway 70 and stretches from north-central Westminster on the east to Frisco on the west. Although the Commission contends that it subordinated the compactness requirement to the paramount equal population requirement, I see nothing in the Commission’s report adequately establishing that the unusual configuration of House District 62 was essential to achieve equality of population.
I am also at a loss to reconcile the boundaries of House District 62 with the constitutional requirement that “communities of interest” be preserved within a single district wherever possible. Colo. Const. Art. V, § 47(3). House District 62 consists primarily of mountain towns whose primary economic interests are linked to the tourist industry. Westminster is basically an urban “bedroom” community of the Denver metropolitan area. Any representative from House District 62 must expect to encounter considerable difficulty in reconciling the interests of such a geographically varied area. I have a similar difficulty in reconciling the fragmented city with the requirements of the Colorado Constitution.
B. Montezuma County House Districts
The reapportionment plan splits Montezuma County in half between House Districts 58 and 59. House District 58 includes the counties of Dolores, Montrose, San Miguel, and Ouray, and the northern portion of Montezuma County. House District 59 lies south of House District 58 and includes the counties of Archuleta, La Pla-ta, and San Juan, together with the southern portion of Montezuma County. The Commission justifies the splitting of Montezuma County on the basis that, once the boundaries of House District 60 in the San Luis Valley were fixed, the split of Montezuma County was necessary to achieve equality of population in both House Districts 58 and 59. According to the Commission, it could not combine Montezuma County (population 18,672) with La Plata and Archuleta counties (total population 37,629) because the total population of that district would be 56,300 and thus greater than the population level of 50,683 applicable to an ideal house district.
The Bipartisan Committee to Keep Montezuma County Whole objects to the plan as violative of the constitutional prohibition against splitting counties except to achieve equality of population and submits an alternative plan, pursuant to which District 59 would be comprised of Montezuma, La Pla-ta, and Dolores Counties, and District 58 would consist of San Juan, Ouray, San Miguel, Montrose, Delta, and the southernmost tip of Mesa County. The Commission dismisses the alternative plan by stating that it might have adverse effects on minority representation in front range districts and would not totally eliminate the splitting of counties.
In my view, the alternate plan illustrates that there is an alternative to splitting a sparsely populated rural county such as Montezuma County in order to avoid the so-called “ripple effects” of compliance with the Voting Rights Act. It bears re*208peating here that the absorption of “ripple effects” can best be achieved by utilizing densely populated cities for that purpose rather than rural counties where the community of interest is often robust and where the county frequently is the primary provider of governmental services. To be sure, the preservation of communities of interest is the lowest constitutional priority, but that priority nonetheless has a role to play in the constitutional scheme. I am not satisfied that the Commission has made an adequate showing that splitting Montezuma County was necessary to achieve the more important and superseding constitutional requirement of equality of population.
I accordingly join Justice Mullarkey’s dissent from the court’s approval of the Commission’s plan for Senate Districts 32 and 35 in Denver, and I further dissent from the court’s approval of the Commission’s plan for House Districts 27, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, and 62 in Westminster and House Districts 58 and 59 in Montezuma County.
MULLARKEY, J., joins Parts I and IIA of this concurrence and dissent.