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Colorado Redistricting Moves to
Public Hearings
Public hearings begin in Eastern Colorado towns. This area is the 4th Congressional District, and yes, there are proposed changes.
The first meeting is tonight, July 9th, in Lamar and will be held at the Lamar Community College Wellness Center located at 2401 S. Main Street. The start time is 7 pm.
On Saturday there are two meetings, one morning and one in the evening.
The morning meeting is in Burlington and will be held at the Burlington High School in the auditorium. The school, located at 380 Mike Lounge Drive, start time is 11 am.
The evening meeting moves to Sterling and will be held at the Northeastern Jr. College, Hays Student Center Ballroom. The location is 100 College Avenue, and the meeting begins at 7 pm.
Unfortunately, the closest scheduled meeting for Elbert County Residents is Burlington near the Kansas border. Good news, with today’s technology, you will be able to participate if you choose by going to https://redistricting.colorado.gov/. There are links to the Comment Form, the Public Hearing Schedule, and a Sign Up to Testify on this webpage. As you may expect, the website has many links, so we have included the Public Comments link here- https://redistricting.colorado.gov/public_comments/new.
Still in the preliminary phase, the 4th Congressional District would become the largest in the State, as measured by land, adding Pueblo County and the San Luis Valley. Other additions to the 4th District include the southeastern portion of El Paso County.
However, the towns of Castle Rock and Parker would no longer be a part of the 4th District. Instead, Castle Rock would become a part of the 7th District and Parker a part of the 6th District.
All of this re-organization is due to the mandates of the commission. One of the criteria is to allocate the total voter count evenly, Precise Mathematical Population Equality; the current tabulation is approximately 721,714 per District as recorded in the plan summary document dated June 23rd, 2021. The criteria for the redistricting is outlined in a memorandum dated June 23rd, 2021, to the Members of the Colorado Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission.
Additional criteria includes preserving “communities of interest.” So, agricultural, rural, urban, and issues of demonstratable regional significance are also considered in the redistricting.
An interesting figure that has come out of the process relates to political parties and the registered numbers by affiliation. Without a doubt, the Unaffiliated win, except for District 1, a Democrat stronghold, but not as much as you may guess. The reported numbers show the registered democrats are only 21,321 above the Unaffiliated numbers as of the most recent update of June 23rd, 2021. For the remaining districts, two through eight, the unaffiliated numbers are much higher.
Politically, the commentary is that the new redistricting favors the Colorado Republican Party. The numbers presented may appear to make that statement true. However, in the current political climate combined with the number of citizens registered as unaffiliated, it is unclear at this time if there is a clear leader in any political party.
What is clear is that the citizens of the state still have time to comment.
