Colorado Re-Districting by Republicans . . .

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Aegion

Member
Nov 13, 1999
154
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0
Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
No - I'd rather have the Legislature retain it's authority in regards to these matters. Does the ends justify the means?;) Allowing the Judiciary to set districts is pretty far from a Democracy(even a Republic).
Again - there needs to be guidelines for resolving such matters instead of allowing the judiciary to trump the process.

CkG
So are you saying the Texas consitution is unconstitutional???:confused: I don't see how you possibly can have a valid mechanism for always resolving legislative deadlocks that always solves the issue while keeping power with the state legislature. At best, you would be giving the party with the rough majority an additional advantage which would encourage them to create a situation in which a deadlock occurs in the first place. You could resort to randomly selecting a group of registered voters to form a panel to decide the election boundaries, but I don't see how this is an improvement over the judicial branch determening this. I certainly have a much greater problem with a state's representation being eliminated entirely rather than having the judicial branch resolve the deadlock with a plan that is still subject to scrutiny from both the higher state courts and the federal ones.
 

DealMonkey

Lifer
Nov 25, 2001
13,136
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Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
It wasn't the COSC that drew it up;) Seek and you shall find. You are correct though - the Districts are reverting to pre-Republican redistricting maps.

CkG

Right. The only info I can find is that Colorado's seven congressional boundaries were originally set by a court last year after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on how the lines should be drawn. I believe it was a lower court in CO. I don't see why the COSC wouldn't be the final artibiter of the State Constitution. If there's an issue with the redistricting and it violates the state's constitution, the COSC would be the go-to court.

It sounds like the legislature had its chance to handle any redistricting, but did not do so within the constitutional window, therefore the lower court handled it.
 

Aegion

Member
Nov 13, 1999
154
0
0
Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Right. The only info I can find is that Colorado's seven congressional boundaries were originally set by a court last year after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on how the lines should be drawn. I believe it was a lower court in CO. I don't see why the COSC wouldn't be the final artibiter of the State Constitution. If there's an issue with the redistricting and it violates the state's constitution, the COSC would be the go-to court.
As a Colorado resident, I'm extremely confident that it was a lower court, and not the COSC. I'll try to find out more info, if the justice who established the boundaries is known to be a Republican, this could undercut certain arguments being made in this thread even further.

Edit: The Judge's name was Denver District Judge John W. Coughlin.

It looks like he has pissed off the ACLU in the past by upholding a state obscenity law, this strikes me as relatively conservative behavoir.
 

CADsortaGUY

Lifer
Oct 19, 2001
25,162
1
76
www.ShawCAD.com
Originally posted by: Aegion
Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY
No - I'd rather have the Legislature retain it's authority in regards to these matters. Does the ends justify the means?;) Allowing the Judiciary to set districts is pretty far from a Democracy(even a Republic).
Again - there needs to be guidelines for resolving such matters instead of allowing the judiciary to trump the process.

CkG
So are you saying the Texas consitution is unconstitutional???:confused: I don't see how you possibly can have a valid mechanism for always resolving legislative deadlocks that always solves the issue while keeping power with the state legislature. At best, you would be giving the party with the rough majority an additional advantage which would encourage them to create a situation in which a deadlock occurs in the first place. You could resort to randomly selecting a group of registered voters to form a panel to decide the election boundaries, but I don't see how this is an improvement over the judicial branch determening this. I certainly have a much greater problem with a state's representation being eliminated entirely rather than having the judicial branch resolve the deadlock with a plan that is still subject to scrutiny from both the higher state courts and the federal ones.

No, I'm not saying that:p I was talking about Colorado - where they have no Constitutional guidelines for resolving the deadlock issue.;)

Again - whining about the majority will get you no where -that is just the way our system is set up. It is a majority rule type political system.

Texas is a different beast - as they seem to have some sort of remedy to a deadlock - but they also don't seem to have anything that stops a legislature from redistricting but once every 10 years.

CkG
 

CADsortaGUY

Lifer
Oct 19, 2001
25,162
1
76
www.ShawCAD.com
Originally posted by: Aegion
Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Right. The only info I can find is that Colorado's seven congressional boundaries were originally set by a court last year after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on how the lines should be drawn. I believe it was a lower court in CO. I don't see why the COSC wouldn't be the final artibiter of the State Constitution. If there's an issue with the redistricting and it violates the state's constitution, the COSC would be the go-to court.
As a Colorado resident, I'm extremely confident that it was a lower court, and not the COSC. I'll try to find out more info, if the justice who established the boundaries is known to be a Republican, this could undercut certain arguments being made in this thread even further.

Exactly - it was a lower judge. And DM - I didn't say the Court couldn't rule on the constitutionality of it all - I said the courts can't legislate and trump the legislation(ie inserting their solution as law).
Yes - the COSC would be the place to decide Constitutionality of legislation...but again...it isn't the place to MAKE legislation.
I also fail to see what difference the political leaning of the redistricting judge was - because there is no constitutional provision for ANY judge to make the maps in Colorado.

CkG
 

Aegion

Member
Nov 13, 1999
154
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Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Is found to be UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Next on the list of 'Un-Constitutional Re-Districting by Republicans' will be Texas.
It's also headed to a Supreme Court decision, State fisrt, then Federal.

You have to play fair, not change the Constitution to support only your Party Agenda
It looks like its extremely unlikely to get overturned if the Republicans try to appeal the decision.
If they do, they will be challenging more than two centuries of legal precedent that holds that state courts are the final arbiters of state constitutions, as long as those documents don't violate any rights enshrined in the federal charter. That reflects the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

An equally clear ruling came from the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1993 Growe v. Emison decision, when it ruled that states have the primary duty and responsibility to redraw the legislative and congressional districts after the decennial census - and that federal courts must defer their action when a state, through its legislative or judicial branch, has begun in timely fashion to address the issue. The opinion was written by Antonin Scalia, the high court's most conservative member.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~417~1802725,00.html