Colorado Supreme Court Halts Democrats' Redistricting Bid

Colorado's highest court on Monday slammed the brakes on a Democratic effort to rewrite the state's congressional map in time for the 2028 election. In three unanimous opinions, the Colorado Supreme Court tossed out a trio of proposed ballot measures, ruling they violated the state constitution's "single subject" requirement for citizen initiatives, NBC News reports. The measures sought to temporarily suspend the voter-approved independent redistricting commission and install a new congressional map for the 2028 and 2030 cycles—one that analysts said could give Democrats control of seven of Colorado's eight House seats, up from the current four.

Chief Justice Monica Márquez wrote that changing how often redistricting occurs, even briefly, would be a "seismic shift" to the process that voters enshrined in the state constitution. A constitutional amendment would be needed to draw different districts before the next census, per the AP. The decisions mark another setback for Democrats' attempts to counter Republican-led mapmaking efforts in other states, and echo an episode in Virginia in which that state's high court blocked a Democratic-backed bid to sideline its own redistricting commission.