A new way of redistricting
With the opening of the legislative session, Thomas E. Cronin and Robert D. Loevy’s column promoting Initiative 55 — which would create a new, less partisan method of drawing political district lines in Colorado — was both timely and welcome.
Unfortunately, with their emphasis on the measure’s benefit to unaffiliated voters, they missed one of the main features of the proposed initiative — namely, that redistricting maps would be drawn by nonpartisan legislative support staff rather than by the political parties.
The central idea here is that competition in political contests fosters a healthy democracy. This principle addresses a root problem with American democracy at both the national and state levels: The plethora of gerrymandered, “safe” seats has led directly to political stalemate with too many officeholders talking past one another instead of to one another.
As for former Colorado House Speaker Ruben E. Valdez’s concern regarding minority representation (“A flawed amendment to Colorado redistricting rules,” Jan. 10 letter to the editor), that is a non-issue. “Communities of interest” will continue to be acknowledged. Language from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is incorporated in the proposal.
The next question is: Will anyone in the legislature have the courage to introduce and carry this proposal forward, or must it be done by initiative?
J. Allan Ferguson, Denver
I believe than an additional measure to limit gerrymandering is to require legislative districts to have a minimum ratio of area to perimeter.
To illustrate, a compact district might be a square with 10-mile sides. The area is 100 square miles and the perimeter is 40 miles. Dividing 100 by 40 gives a ratio of 2.5. However, a gerrymandered district might be the same 100 square mile area that is 100 miles long and 1 mile wide, giving a perimeter of 202 miles, resulting in a ratio of 0.495. If the 100 square mile district were 20 miles long and 5 miles wide, the ratio would be 2. Perhaps this is about what the limit should be.
I realize that legislative districts are not likely to be neat rectangles, but I believe the imposition of the described ratio will help make districts more compact.
Louis Seaverson, Westminster