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The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday tossed out two cases involving new redistricting ballot measures that would have favored Democrats.
One ruling said the redistricting measure violated the state constitution’s “single subject” requirement that calls for measures proposed by petition to focus on one issue for inclusion on the ballot.
The Democratic aligned group, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, were seeking ballot initiatives that approved mid-decade redistricting and new congressional district maps for the 2028 and 2030 election cycles.
The group argued that without approval for redistricting, the second measure could not stand, but the court rejected their reasoning.
“We conclude that these are distinct and separate subjects,” Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez wrote in one opinion.
“Temporarily allowing mid-decade redistricting is not merely the means to implement or effectuate the Initiatives’ central purpose of adopting a specific new congressional district map for the 2028 and 2030 election cycles,” she added.
Coloradans for a Level Playing Field originally submitted four different versions of a ballot initiative for voters to consider in November.
One of the submissions would have thwarted the state’s independent redistricting commission to allow for mid-decade changes and establish temporary new congressional maps in a singular swoop.
Two of the other initiatives submitted would have broken the effort into two parts.
Justice Richard Gabriel authored the Colorado Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion rejecting those two measures under the same “single-subject” requirement in the state’s constitution.
“Accordingly, we conclude that Initiative #241, Initiative #242, and Initiative #328 all contain multiple subjects and, thus, the Title Board lacked jurisdiction to set titles for any of them,” Gabriel wrote.
“To conclude otherwise and to allow initiative proponents to proceed with interlocking measures like those at issue here would allow proponents to achieve indirectly what they could not achieve directly and would endorse an end run around the single subject requirement. This we cannot do,” he added.
New maps would have favored Democrats to pick up three additional seats in the House. Democrats and Republicans have been scrambling to give their party’s advantages in the race for the House, an effort originally sparked by Republicans in Texas that was quickly answered by Democrats in California.
The court’s decision to strike down the measure in Colorado follows another Virginia ruling that blocked Democrats’ attempt to redistrict in that state.
Redistricting efforts in California passed last November.
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