If this decision stands it could have major implications for the 2004 elections. I’ve always viewed these non decennial attempts at redistricting with a suspicious eye, evidently for good reason.
In a decision with national implications, the Colorado Supreme Court threw out the state’s new congressional districts Monday saying the GOP-led Legislature redrew the maps in violation of the state constitution.
The General Assembly is required to redraw the maps only after each Census and before the ensuing general election — not at any other time, the court said in a closely watched 5-2 decision that followed party lines. A similar court battle is being waged in Texas.
Under the ruling, Colorado’s seven congressional districts revert to boundaries drawn up by a Denver judge last year after lawmakers failed to agree.
The issue before the court was whether the redistricting map pushed through the Legislature by Republicans this year was illegal. Colorado’s constitution calls for redistricting only once a decade and Democrats contended that task was completed by the judge.
Read the whole San Francisco Chronicle article.
So what, now we also allow the judiciary to determine voting districts?
Apparently, the Colorado constitution presumes that the legislature is the proper body to address such matters yet now the court seems to think they are the chosen ones. This simply carries the current trend of lawmaking and rewriting the Constitution by activist courts a bit further and makes the possibility of a judicial oligarchy all the more real.
That part of the decision does suck. I’ve not followed the Texas case closely enough to know if their effort was made under the same circumstances. My impression was that it did not.
<Sam Kinnison>
Listen up, Judgie. Just because the state constitution only requires redistricting once every ten years, it doesn’t mean all other redistricting is prohibited! MORON!!!
</Sam Kinison>
The premise on the Texas redistricting is that the Constitution requires the legislature to perform redistricting once per decade. Because the last map was generated by the judiciary, the constitution had not been followed and therefore the legislature tried to perform its constitutional duty, albeit 2 years late.
We will see where the judicial objections go. The Colorado precident may cause some issues although it seems that state judiciary precidents should not really cross borders.