UPDATE: The Peak’s not the only one who thinks Mario the Corrupt’s reapportionment bargain conjures images of the midnight gerrymander….
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Today the Colorado Supreme Court, dominated by a Democrat-appointee majority, sided with Democrats over legislative reapportionment, locking in new state House and Senate legislative district lines for the next decade. The decision upholds the maps drawn by Democrats for the 65 state House and 35 state Senate districts, maps that came to fruition through corrupt self-dealing and backroom deals.
Liberals may scoff at the idea that the reapportionment process was anything but a win for them, but of course they'd be forgetting how they got to where they are today.
In the book The Blueprint, which covers the rise to power of Colorado's liberals, Democrat state Senator Mike Feeley talks about how the Republican's "Midnight Gerrymander" was a call to arms for Colorado's Democrats.
"It became a rallying point for Democrats and was used to point out the meanness of the Republican leadership," Feeley says in the book.
Symbolic moments matter. Seemingly small "inside baseball" moments can take on transcendent value.
Mario-gate and the Democrats "politically vindictive" maps may come back to bite Democrats in the same way the "Midnight Gerrymander" harmed Republicans.
The corrupt bargain between "wolf in sheep's clothing" Chairman Mario Carrera and the Democrat machine could quickly rise to that level.
Democrats did not fairly redraw the state's legislative lines in the best interests of all Coloradans through a transparent and open process. They did so cynically, vindictively, behind closed doors and with the aid of a fraud in the supposed "Unaffiliated" Chairman.
Conservatives have long decried the liberal activism present in the courts, and today's court decision will likely do nothing to diminish that concern. More importantly, though, is that conservatives are hopefully now under no illusion that the Democrats will fight fair. They will gladly stack the deck to their advantage if necessary.
But like Republicans a decade ago, the Democrats will learn that such cynicism comes at a high price. Conservatives, already buoyed by the smell of Obama’s electoral demise, now have one more giant reason to take out their check books, to knock on that last door, to finish the job of undercutting the liberal machine that was started in 2010. The Supreme Court may have allowed the Democrats’ corrupt self-dealing to stand, but that doesn’t mean the voters will.
Just ask Mike Feeley.
Mario Carrera was recommended for this job by Ryan Call, the leader of your own party:
http://blogs.denverpost.com/th…
Are you alleging that Mr. Call is a co-conspiritor in this supposed grand conspiracy that you adolescent right-wing nutjobs are calling “Mario-Gate”?
Why don’t you be good little boys and go back to playing your video games and let the grown-ups handle all the grown-up stuff.
Can Republicans go to a higher court, and appeal, or is this the end of the line?
Since it’s a matter of state constitutional criteria, the Colorado Supreme Court is, unfortunately, the end of the line.
Given the constitutional deficiencies remaining in the Colorado Reapportionment Commission’s re-submitted maps, the procedural travesty by which the maps were adopted, and the availability of a more constitutionally-consistent set of maps submitted as part of the ‘Minority Report’ appeal (which the majority commissioners had attempted to suppress), rejection of the commission’s maps – particularly given the court’s rejection of the commission’s previous set – appeared to be the only outcome consistent with constitutional and statutory criteria.
http://www.clearthebenchcolora…
It will be interesting to analyze the reasoning by which a majority on the Colorado Supreme Court reached the conclusion that these maps were constitutionally valid once the court issues its full written opinion….