Colorado voters reject initiative making it harder to redraw congressional districts outside the normal process

Voters rejected a ballot measure brought by Colorado conservatives and backed by national Republicans that sought to make it more difficult to redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts outside of the process laid out in the state constitution.  

The Associated Press called the race at 10:09 a.m. Friday, when 53.11% of tabulated votes were in favor of the measure and 46.89% were opposed. The initiative required the support of 55% of voters to pass because it would have added language to the state constitution.

Amendment 86 would have amended the state constitution to require that Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Commission reconvene, hold public hearings to review and ultimately approve any Colorado congressional map redrawn outside of the normal 10-year process, next scheduled to happen in 2031. 

The commission was created through ballot measures passed by voters in 2018 and is charged with carrying out the state’s once-a-decade redistricting process.

The commission and court would be forced to reject any map that fails to keep “communities of interest” whole, as well as any map drawn to favor one political party.

Amendment 86 was Republicans’ response to a Democratic redistricting effort in Colorado that sought to put a measure on the November ballot asking voters to amend the state constitution and redraw the state’s congressional districts for the 2028 and 2030 elections. 

The initiative would have overridden Colorado’s normal, census-driven redistricting process, which last took place in 2021 and resulted in a new congressional map for the state that went into effect for the 2022 election.

The new districts drawn by the Democratic proposal would have given Democrats an outsized chance at flipping three seats held by Republicans, leaving the GOP with only one of the state’s eight seats. It was brought as part of a nationwide push by both parties to gain an edge through mid-cycle gerrymandering. Those efforts, set off at the urging of President Donald Trump, have benefited Republicans overall.

But the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously ruled in June that the Democrats’ ballot measure violated the “single subject” requirement in the state constitution, which requires that ballot initiatives have only one central purpose.

The timing of the Supreme Court’s decision meant that Democrats didn’t have enough time to put forth a different ballot measure this year. So their plans, and the $4.7 million they spent on the redistricting effort, went up in smoke. 

But Republicans were far enough along with Amendment 86 that they decided to continue with their measure as a proactive step against future mid-cycle Democratic redistricting efforts. 

Advance Colorado, a conservative political nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors, was behind Amendment 86 and five other statewide ballot measures this year.

The Fair Redistricting Colorado issue committee backed the measure. It received $250,000 in August from the American Revival PAC, which was created by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.

There didn’t appear to be any organized opposition to Amendment 86.