Court Opinion

ID: 9546921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:38:00.014831+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:02.045752
License: Public Domain

Justice QUINN
dissenting:
I dissent from the court’s approval of Plan VIA because, in my view, it not only sacrifices the more important constitutional requirement of compactness to the less important standard of preserving communities of interest but also results in a greater disruption of communities of interest than would result under the alternative Plan VII rejected by the Commission.
I.
This court’s opinion on March 13, 1992, disapproved that part of the Commission’s plan which divided Pitkin County and the City of Aspen into House Districts 57 and 61. Our disapproval was based primarily on the fact that “the Commission’s explanation for dividing Pitkin County and the City of Aspen, and for the further division of Snowmass Village from Aspen, does 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.” In re Reapportionment, 828 P.2d 185, 196 (Colo.1992). In response to our direction that the Commission modify or revise House Districts 57 and 61, the Commission considered eight alternative plans. From these eight alternatives, the Commission selected Plan VIA. The majority today approves Plan VIA notwithstanding the fact that the only significant change in Plan VIA from the Commission’s original plan for House Districts 57 and 61 is to place the entire city of Aspen, including the Aspen Grove subdivision which was split from the City of Aspen in the Commission’s former plan, into one district, House District 61. In all other respects, Plan VIA is identical to the plan disapproved by this court in its former opinion.
II.
Plan VIA splits Pitkin County and places the greater part of the county, including the City of Snowmass Village, in House District 57, and places the remainder of Pitkin County, including the entire City of Aspen, in House District 61. Under Plan VIA, House District 61 includes the entire City of Aspen and a small section of the eastern portion of Pitkin County and the whole counties of Gunnison, Hinsdale, Chaffee, Lake, and Park. Under Plan VIA, the City of Aspen lies to the north and west of all of the counties and communities of House District 61 and remains separated from the remainder of House District 61 by Independence Pass, which is closed a substantial part of the year. No similar barrier, however, separates the City of Aspen from Snowmass Village, from the remainder of Pitkin County not placed in House District 61, or from the City of Glenwood Springs, all of which are placed in House District 57 under Plan VIA. House District 57 includes portions of Garfield and Pitkin County and the whole counties of Moffat and Rio Blanco.
It is undisputed that the most important constitutional requirement under Article V, section 47 of the Colorado Constitution is equality of population. In re Reapportionment, 828 P.2d at 193. Next in order of importance is compactness, and last is the preservation of the communities of interest. Id. Notwithstanding the superior status accorded by the Colorado Constitution to compactness, it appears to me that the Commission simply appropriated the City of Aspen, the population center and county seat of Pitkin County, from the remainder of Pitkin County in order to meet the population requirements of House District 61 without regard for either constitutional compactness or preserving communities of interest between the City of Aspen and the remainder of Pitkin County from which Aspen has been severed. While I concede that the constitutional requirement of compactness must to some extent be *218weighed with other constitutional criteria, including the preservation of communities of interest, I am nonetheless convinced that Plan VII, which was rejected by the Commission in favor of Plan VIA, achieves not only a substantially greater measure of compactness than Plan VIA but also results in less disruption of communities of interest than the disruption caused by Plan VIA.
III.
In contrast to Plan VIA, Plan VII places all of Pitkin County in House District 61 and includes within that district Gunnison, Chaffee, and Park Counties. Plan VII places Garfield, Rio Blanco, and Moffat Counties in House District 57, along with a small part of the southwestern portion of Eagle County encompassing the towns of Basalt and El Jebel, both of which are part of the Roaring Fork Valley community and thus have a close community of interest with the greater part of that community located in Garfield County.
Plan VII also would configure House District 56 to include Lake County with the northern counties of Eagle, Grand, Routt, and Jackson and the northern part of Summit County. The Commission, in its revised final plan, states that Plan VII does not offer a net improvement in county splits over the original plan but concedes that it improves compactness in House Districts 57 and 61 while resulting in less compactness in House District 56. Obviously, the net result óf Plan VII is the achievement of constitutional compactness in one more house district than is achieved under Plan VIA. The Commission nonetheless rejects Plan VII on the ground that Lake County, which Plan VII places in House District 61 with its neighboring counties to the north, has closer ties to southern counties. While Lake County’s community of interest with its southern neighbors is undoubtedly of constitutional significance, that interest should yield to the constitutional requirement of compactness under the circumstances of this case. Severing the City of Aspen, which is the county seat and population center of Pitkin County, from the rest of Pitkin County, including the City of Snowmass Village, all of which would be integrated in the same district under Plan VII, is much more destructive to the values of the constitutional criteria than is the movement of Lake County as a whole from one house district to another.
Moreover, Plan VII, in contrast to Plan VIA, would preserve the communities of interest between the lower Roaring Fork Valley towns of Basalt and El Jebel with the greater part of that community located in Garfield County. Plan VIA severs these communities from the remainder of Garfield County and places them in House District 56 with Eagle, Routt, Jackson, and Grand Counties. A similar disruption of communities of interest is caused under Plan VIA by separating the City of Carbon-dale from Glenwood Springs, both of which would be placed in House District 57 under Plan VII.
Although some disruption of preexisting communities of interest will result under either Plan VIA or Plan VII, there would be a greater degree of compactness among House Districts under Plan VII than under Plan VIA and there would be less disruption of preexisting communities of interest under Plan VII than under the plan selected by the Commission and approved by this court. I therefore dissent from this court’s approval of Plan VIA.
MULLARKEY, J., joins in this dissent.