The Colorado Supreme Court has officially rejected the map submitted by the Reapportionment Commission in September, sending it back to the Commission to correct by December 6. The Court claimed the map submitted did not do enough to respect county boundaries, instead relying on the constitutionally frivolous claim of "competitiveness."

We predicted this might happen last week.

The Court emphasized that in reviewing the constitutionality of the reapportionment maps drawn by Commission Chairman Mario Carrera they had to actually look at what was in the constitution first. All other considerations, like "competitiveness," could not supersede constitutional mandates like reducing county splits. 

From the majority opinion:

Other non-constitutional considerations, such as the competitiveness of a district, are not per se illegal or improper; however, such factors may be considered only after all constitutional criteria have been met.

Reapportionment is the decennial process of redrawing all 65 state House and 35 state Senate district lines to reflect population changes identified in the US Census. A Commission of five Democrats, five Republicans and one nominal "Unaffiliated" voter was appointed to draw the maps to submit to the Supreme Court for review. 

The problem with the Reapportionment Commission, as we reported back in September, was that so-called "Unaffiliated" Chairman Mario Carrera was anything but unaffiliated with any political party, having donated nearly $8,500 to Colorado Democrats in the last few years, including a $250 donation to the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee while acting as the supposed "Unaffiliated" Chairman.

He is not "Super Mario" as Denver Post editorial board head Curtis Hubbard deemed him without so much as Googling Carrera's political past, he is "Super Partisan Mario" as we dubbed him. He is a fraud and a political hack that thought he could get by on lazy journalists lack of research on him, reveling in the Post's praise of him as unbiased for political cover. 

Well, now Super Partisan Mario and his consulting team of Democrat operatives will have to go back to the drawing board and find another way to gerrymander state House and Senate lines to benefit the state's Democrats. 

Who knows, maybe the justices read this blog and were aware that arguments of "competitiveness" were not only constitutionally garbage, but stemmed from a desire to improve state Democrats' competitiveness, not elections in general. 

Whatever their ultimate impetus for chucking Carrera's map, it is a big blow to Democrats, and Carrera personally as he was the author of the maps submitted to the court.

It also kicks some dirt on liberal lapdog Judge Hyatt's reasoning on redistricting, when he seemed to hold up "competitiveness" as a guiding ethos, rather than subservient to actual constitutional criteria. It certainly is not an endorsement of his position, that's for sure.