US House Redistricting: Colorado

[dpmapper]

Here's what I think makes most sense from a court/neutral perspective:




First issue is what to do with the Denver district, which must expand.  Currently the only parts outside Denver it contains are to the south, between Denver's two legs.  If the goal is geographic compactness, then it doesn't make sense to add a protrusion into Littleton, not to mention that Littleton doesn't really belong.  Given Denver's arm to the northeast, the most logical thing to do would be either to add parts of Aurora or the suburbs to the north.  Splitting Aurora probably won't make anyone happy, so I went north.  

After that, I cleaned up the boundaries between the Denver suburban districts.  There's no reason for the 7th to take in parts of all three counties (Adams, Arapahoe, Jefferson) so I limited it to the first two.  The two eastern tails of Adams and Arapahoe belong together so that's why I gave them both to the 7th.  CD-02 no longer enters ArapahoeAdams or Weld.  Instead, I gave it more of Jefferson.  It really doesn't make sense to have the western half of CD-02 be ski areas but not include Aspen, so I tossed that in CD-02 as well.  

After that the map basically draws itself.  Longmont's desire to be paired with Fort Collins is kept (for the most part) and so there are basically minimal changes needed elsewhere.  

Not counting parts attached to the Denver district, ArapahoeAdams is now in one piece (compared to two previously), Jefferson is in two pieces (three previously) and AdamsArapahoe in two (like before).  Weld County is now intact.  It's rather elegant, if I say so myself.

Democrats will not like it much, though.  Districts 3 and 4 are at 56 and 57% Republican, so they'll still be at least lean R, but District 7 is down to 50.5% Democratic.  CD-4 is currently at 57% so that's no change (it loses some plains counties but gains SW Weld, which is fairly red as well), CD-3 is up from 54.7% (it has to gain population and there's not really any non-red areas to grab if you keep the ski resorts in CD-2), CD-7 is down from 52.2% Democrat.  

NB: Colorado as a whole is 52.7% Republican, according to DRA, but voted 53.5% Obama.  So given the trends, CD-7 is probably still D+2 or 3.  

ETA: I seem to have drawn Coffman (Aurora) and Perlmutter (Golden) out of their districts.  I'm guessing a court won't care.  Surely if any Denver suburb belongs with Boulder and the mountain slopes, it's Golden...

[dpmapper]

It doesn't make sense to split the mountain counties, Garfield, Grand, Chaffee.

So instead have CD-4 come down in the lower Arkansas, let CO-7 go up into Weld County which is commuter suburbs.  There is no justification for a 3-way split of Arapahoe County, so CO-1 should switch entirely to the north (and Holly Hills and Glendale decreed to be contiguous and placed in CD-7).

This makes CD-7 more of an Aurora/east metro district like it should be.

Some splits are necessary for population equality.  I could give the rest of Grand to CD-3 and give CD-2 more of Garfield to get rid of one of them, I suppose.  

For the Denver district, I just kept its current territory (which happened to be on the Arapahoe side) and then added what made most geographic sense (which happened to be on the Adams side).  Incidentally I realize now that I got these two names mixed up in my previous post. 

@krazen: I wasn't trying, honest!  

[dpmapper]

Muon, the problem with that seems to be that Douglas County gets stranded in between the 3 Denver districts that you've drawn and the Colorado Springs district and has nowhere to go.  There's really no reason to draw a stark dividing line between Denver/Adams/Arapahoe/Jefferson and Douglas just because the first four happen to add up to 3 districts.