Public Comments

I was shocked and appalled to learn what you plan to do to Commerce City by splitting us in half with part of the city being included with district 4. We are a diverse, urban community and literally have nothing in common with the rest of that district which is very rural and mostly white. I cannot see any reasonable justification for this. It makes district 4 weirdly shaped with a little off shoot coming into Commerce City so it undermines the compactness criteria. It splits multiple communities of interest (Latino community, urban community). And it doesn't follow existing boundaries. It frankly seems designed to reduce the electoral voting power of Latinos in the Denver suburbs, which is a flagrant violation of the Voting Rights Act and completely unacceptable. I think it is critical that all of Commerce City be included in a single, predominantly urban and heavily Latino district. If district 4 needs more population, it should absorb more rural communities in Southern Colorado rather than diverse urban communities in the Denver area. Shame on you for trying to do this to our community! We deserve better than this from a commission we elected to put in place. -Leandra

To who it concerns. My name is David DeMott I am the Mayor Pro Tem of Westminster but today I am writing on my own behalf and speaking only for myself as a resident. I am a native of Westminster. I have grown up in Westminster and really look at the community of Arvada as a part of the same community. I encourage you to keep Westminster and Arvada together as in the current proposed layout of CD8. I believe there is a great benefit to having us both represented by the same person as we share many things and issues. Thank you for your work, David DeMott

Southeast Colorado House Preliminary Plan Colorado Independent Congressional & Legislative Redistricting Commission Public Hearing – Lamar, CO July 9th, 2021 [Via Zoom] Good evening – my name is Jack Johnston. I’m proud to be the CEO of Southeast Colorado Power Association and its broadband subsidiary, SECOM. Southeast is an electric cooperative with the largest certificated territory in Colorado – over 13K sq. miles in all or parts of 11 counties. SECOM serves almost 9000 customers who wouldn’t otherwise have high-speed Internet access. Between our electric and broadband consumers, Southeast and SECOM understand, well, communities of interest and their differing needs throughout Colorado. I also understand that concept from a personal perspective as my family and I happily reside on a rural property in unincorporated Crowley County. While I like the preliminary plan and applaud the efforts to get to this point, I think I speak for many residents of southeast Colorado that we are not fond of the split to the Lower Arkansas Valley. I recreated the southeast House Districts in the Dave’s Redistricting website and would like to suggest a simple amendment to improve the maps for the southeast and northeast plains’ districts Please see the handouts being passed around by some neighbors and friends. This amendment involves swapping territory between districts 40, 41, and 65. There are very small consequences to a couple of other districts but given the state constitution allows for a +/- 2.5% variance between the largest and smallest district, there shouldn’t be a problem adjusting a couple surrounding districts. Principally, you could place Crowley and the remainder of Otero County into HD 40. This creates a clean, population-balanced HD 40 consisting of the southeastern plains. This area is simply like a single piece of knitted fabric. The communities of southeastern Colorado have similar needs and challenges. To accomplish this request, you could remove Washington County and the El Paso County precincts from HD 40. This allows Washington County to go with the northeastern plains seat, where it has a more natural commonality. You could then balance out HD 41 in El Paso County, from the territory removed from HD 40. Lastly, by adding Washington County to HD 65, it should help eliminate a small split to the City of Aurora. HD 65 is the most easily adjusted because it contains multiple precincts/districts. Thank you for your time and commitment to achieving the best possible legislative districting. Link to the map with suggested amendment https://davesredistricting.org/join/7af327ce-e15b-4216-8587-8389f4d450cd

It's ridiculous that Denver - Population 750k has the same number of meetings to comment as tiny suburbs like Highland's Ranch. You aren't going to get an equitable result trying to rest your laurels on arbitrary city boundaries. Many South Metro communities were created in the 1970s in large part to preserve segregation in schools. Meetings should be based on population size and communities of interest, not checking boxes for different towns.

My primary concern with the proposed federal congressional district map is that it does not result in representation the mirrors the voters of Colorado. Making a district that is more dedicated to Latinx interests is a great idea. But the proposed map actually gives the extra seat to the GOP, the current incarnation of which has a platform that is explicitly against both ethnic and social minorities. Colorado's representation in the House of Representatives should be proportional to the manner in which our state votes as a whole. That means 5 seats should be Democrat or Independent, and 3 seats Republican. I myself am white, upper middle class, no particular demographic group. I'm politically moderate and registered independent. My strongest interest is that our legislative process be fair, and that we move towards true equality for all groups, including LGBTQ, ethnic minorities, etc. I'd like to focus on other issues, but while one political party wants to restrict basic social rights of some people, then fighting that has to be the priority.

Dear Commissioners, Thank you for your work on this independent commission. I appreciate your valuable time and energy to create a fair redistricted map. My concerns are as follows for the Colorado House map: Rio Blanco, Moffat, and Routt counties have less in common than Eagle, Vail, and Routt counties. While Routt County does have shared features with Moffat and Rio Blanco, like ranching and coal, the county's largest driver of economic activity is the Steamboat Ski Area. Many people commute to work in Steamboat Springs because of the number of tourists that sustain our county's economy. The ski area remained a vital source of income and revenue during the last year of covid19. Aligning our congressional representation with Vail and Eagle will more accurately reflect our major economic driver, ski areas, as well as combine the ranching interests in Routt with the similar ranching interests in Eagle. Additionally, the Routt-Eagle-Vail map shares multiple community interests; we all have similar education levels, public health decisions, transportation needs, and the especially crucial issue of workforce housing. Rio Blanco and Moffat have vastly different policy concerns as relates to the aforementioned community needs. In regards to the congressional map, I ask that you reconsider removing Pueblo county from the third district, and voice support of including Summit county. Colorado's third district covers 8 hours of driving and many diverse economies, including coal, natural gas, ranching, and recreational outdoor activities: rafting, skiing and snowboarding, and more. To put it on one issue: putting together communities that rely on solutions to climate change to maintain our local ski area and recreational economies with communities that rely on coal and natural gas who are less open to alternative fuels make it impossible for candidates to support the entire 3rd district in Washington D.C. I recommend that you redraw the 3rd District to make it as competitive as possible. In doing so, I anticipate congressional candidates could not rely on one party of interest over the other (as outlined above) and must be thoughtful, creative thinkers to represent a district as diverse as ours, doing their best to address the many needs in our communities. That would make all residents of the 3rd feel heard. Thank you for your consideration and time. Kathryn Carroll

Stop your BS VOTER rights need to be made easier not harder.

Stop racial gerrymandering! Many of the new maps completely ignore the Colorado Constitution and the will of the voters expressed through Amendments Y and Z -- by putting communities of color at major risk of racial gerrymandering. Across the state, communities of color were split and fractured in such a way that the number of districts they can meaningfully influence has been more than cut in half -- which is especially shameful given that our state is already majorly out of compliance with the Voting Rights Act. Just one example of how this redistricting proposal would rob communities of color of their right to fair representation: our current General Assembly House map has 7 majority-minority districts. We can, and should, have more. The current map includes 3. Similarly, the Congressional map doesn't prioritize BIPOC communities. No matter what we look like or where we come from, when it comes to our democracy, most of us want similar things: a chance to form a government that reflects the many diverse viewpoints of our state, through a transparent process we can trust, and prioritizes the needs and welfare of our people over our political parties. We can only achieve this by allowing all of us to participate in this process.

Would be great to have explainers with each leg district about why it’s drawn that way. Also feel free to disregard county boundaries in the Denver Metro. It’s all one city a the end of the day.

Gerrymandering is a sickness that needs to be cured! Politicians need to stop rigging the game!