File Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
DENVER | Colorado’s strong voter protection laws and independent redistricting process will likely safeguard the state from major consequences of the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision weakening the federal Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday in the Louisiana v. Callais case will have the most drastic consequences for voters in Southern states. But it represents the exact kind of concern Colorado legislators had in mind when they passed the Colorado Voting Rights Act last year.
The court’s right-wing majority significantly curtailed the consideration of race when states draw electoral district maps. Previously, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act broadly limited states from using maps that dilute the voting power of minority citizens. It’s the latest in several court decisions that have weakened the federal VRA over the last decade.
The ruling stopped short of declaring Section 2 unconstitutional, but the effect is the same and “will be really devastating to the political power of people of color in this country, and particularly in the South,” according to Aly Belknap, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, a nonpartisan democracy advocacy organization.
“This is our primary tool for challenging racial discrimination in voting, and it’s essentially unusable now,” Belknap said.
A projection by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters, lists up to 19 U.S. House seats Republicans may secure as a result of the Supreme Court ruling. None of those seats are in Colorado.
Colorado’s constitution outlines requirements for redistricting following two anti-gerrymandering amendments passed by voters in 2018, which established independent redistricting commissions to draw congressional and legislative maps.
The state constitution says the independent redistricting commissions and the Colorado Supreme Court may not approve maps that dilute the voting impact of a racial minority, mirroring the goals of Section 2. The amendments mention several factors that commissions should consider when drawing maps, and it is up to them to determine the proper balance.
“When we wrote the constitutional amendment, we knew that the independent commission was going to have to wrestle with all of this. It wasn’t going to be easy,” said Steve Fenberg, a former Colorado Senate president who led legislative efforts creating the independent redistricting process.
“It was about prioritizing different factors to get to the best map that they could agree to, and then also allow a process for someone to challenge it if they felt like something was done that intentionally silenced the voices of minority groups,” Fenberg said.
It’s unclear exactly how the Supreme Court decision will affect Colorado, Fenberg said, since several proposed ballot measures could change Colorado’s redistricting process.
Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years after the census, but President Donald Trump has urged Republican states to draw new congressional maps to maximize GOP advantage in the midterms this year, which has resulted in new maps in several Republican-led states and Democratic-led states seeking to rebalance the scales.
A Democratic-led group in Colorado is gathering signatures for several ballot measures that would allow Colorado to change its congressional maps ahead of the 2028 election.
Independent redistricting ensures politicians are not the ones drawing Colorado’s congressional and legislative maps, Belknap said, but she wants to see the protections provided by the Colorado Voting Rights Act embedded in the state constitution to further ensure equitable representation for voters of color.
Colorado’s version of the VRA has stronger protections against racial discrimination in voting than the federal measure, Belknap said. But because redistricting is governed by the Colorado constitution, the Colorado Voting Rights Act, which is in state statute, does not apply to congressional and legislative redistricting.
Colorado’s eight-seat congressional map was drawn by the inaugural independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census. The congressional delegation is split 4-4 between Democrats and Republicans, with four seats rated as solidly Democratic, one leaning toward Republicans, two solidly Republican and one toss-up.
Colorado state Rep. Junie Joseph, a Boulder Democrat who sponsored the Colorado Voting Rights Act, said the court’s decision is “deeply concerning for the future of fair representation in our democracy.”
“At a time when communities across the country are fighting to ensure their voices are heard, this ruling moves us in the wrong direction,” Joseph said in a statement. “The ability of voters — especially communities of color — to elect candidates of their choice is foundational to a functioning democracy.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a statement that the ruling is the court’s “latest brazen attack on the Voting Rights Act” and that Colorado will continue to defend the rights of all voters.
The Supreme Court decision gives Republicans “the green light to pursue more partisan gerrymandering,” U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat, said. He said Congress needs to ban gerrymandering and “reform our government so it works for working people.”
“Their disastrous decision will further corrode our politics, eliminate fair maps, and embolden corporate special interests,” Crow said in a statement. “By eroding civil rights laws like the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is attacking the right of every citizen to vote and make their voice heard.”
The Colorado Legislature last year passed the Colorado Voting Rights Act, and sponsors specifically sought to shield the state from federal actions weakening the federal Voting Rights Act. State Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat who sponsored the bill, said at its signing that Colorado was “not just going to sit around and see what happens” to federal voting protections given inaction from Congress, federal court rulings, and concerns that the Trump administration would try to erode voter protections.
The state measure, which mimics the federal Voting Rights Act, allows the Colorado attorney general to enforce voting rights so the state does not need to rely on federal courts to enforce voting protections. The provisions of the law apply to all state and municipal elections. Voters whose rights are violated under the act can take action along with civil rights groups.
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