GOP remap challenged
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Denver Post
- In a rare move, state Attorney General Ken Salazar asked the Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday to block a new law that redraws boundaries for the state's congressional districts.
Salazar wants the state's high court to rule quickly on whether the law is constitutional - well before next year's presidential elections. He believes a suit filed in state court will take years to run its course, possibly too late to have an impact this decade.
Salazar said lawmakers did not have the right to redraw congressional lines established last year by a district judge. He is seeking a court order to prohibit the secretary of state from recognizing the new political map and is asking for a ruling on the law's constitutionality.
Before the court rules on anything, justices must decide if Salazar has standing to go directly to the high court to file what is known as an "original proceeding," said Karen Salaz, public education coordinator for the State Court Administrator's Office.
Salazar believes he has standing. Republican lawyers say he does not.
"It's my view that one of the responsibilities that I have as attorney general is to represent the people of the state of Colorado and to represent the integrity of the election process in our state," Salazar said at a news conference at his office near downtown Denver.
Republicans immediately responded by accusing Salazar, a Democrat, of showing his "partisan stripes."
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The legislature merely "took advantage of its constitutional obligation to draw boundaries as mandated," said Rep. Rob Fairbank, R-Littleton, one of the chief sponsors of the redistricting legislation, which was passed by Republicans in the final 72 hours of the legislative session and signed into law by Gov. Bill Owens on Friday.
Attorney Richard Westphal, a former deputy attorney general who was advising Republican legislators Wednesday, accused Salazar of overstepping his bounds. Westphal said that while the attorney general has the right not to represent the state in the redistricting case, that is as far as he can go.
"He can't take a position contrary to an existing law or an existing state agency," Westphal said.
Salazar acknowledged that while his action is rare, it is not unprecedented.
In 1905, the attorney general sued the state on behalf of the people of Colorado to prevent an alleged election fraud, Salazar said.
"It is a rare action to take," Salazar said. "But in my view it is one that is necessary to take because of the issue that faces the state of Colorado today."
If the state's high court acts on Salazar's request, it would make moot a lawsuit filed in state court last week by Democrats challenging the redistricting plan as unfair and designed to solidify Republican congressional candidates' advantage in five of seven districts. Colorado now has five Republicans and two Democrats in the U.S. House. Before last week's remapping, the 7th District was considered a swing district, with nearly equal numbers of registered Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters.
The Republican-sponsored plan undid the map drawn by a state judge last year and gave the GOP a 28,000-vote advantage in the 7th.
The judge ordered the plan after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a congressional map of their own and to enable the 2002 election process to proceed. Lawmakers typically redraw congressional district boundaries after the release of the federal census once a decade to ensure each district is equal in population.
Salazar contends the judge's redistricting plan, upheld by the state Supreme Court, is the valid plan that Colorado should abide by until the next census. He said state law limits redistricting to once every 10 years to prevent lawmakers from changing boundaries every time the political balance in the legislature changes.
Salazar said he filed Wednesday's lawsuit on behalf of the citizens of the state in his capacity as an independently elected official and not as a Democrat on behalf of other Democrats.
"This is, I think, the best way of getting a final answer from the Supreme Court on this very fundamental constitutional question," Salazar said.
The lawsuit names Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, whose office is in charge of enforcing election boundaries, and asks the court to prevent her from enforcing the new districts established in the law, which took effect Friday when the governor signed it.
Davidson's spokeswoman, Lisa Doran, said Davidson received a call from Salazar on Wednesday morning advising her of his action.
"She certainly doesn't take it personally," Doran said. "We look forward to a speedy decision one way or the other to help our local elections officials do what needs to be done to get their elections going. If the law stands, we will have to redraw some precincts before the caucuses next March or April," she said.
Doran said the secretary of state, who is also named in the lawsuit in state district court, has not yet hired a lawyer to represent her.
