Spurred by President Donald Trump’s demands that the GOP redraw districts for maximum advantage, red and blue states alike have introduced or are publicly considering new congressional maps with explicit partisan tilts.
Control of the U.S. House of Representatives hangs in the balance — along with the investigatory, impeachment and legislative authority that a majority in the chamber entails.
But Colorado won’t be a theater in this latest political battle. Not in time for the 2026 election, at least.
The state’s voters in 2018, and a Colorado Supreme Court opinion issued 15 years before that, put a kibosh on redistricting in the state outside the usual post-census cycle that happens every decade.
Amendments Y and Z, passed in 2018, tie the redrawing of district maps for congressional and state legislative seats to the year following the census. Further, the two enshrine in the state constitution that “the practice of political gerrymandering, whereby (legislative and congressional) districts are purposefully drawn to favor one political party or incumbent politician over another, must end.”
The amendments resulted in Colorado drawing up the 8th Congressional District — a new seat granted to the state after the 2020 census — as one of the most competitive seats in the country. Lately, despite Colorado’s otherwise solidly Democratic voting habits in recent years, it’s also given the state an evenly split congressional delegation.
Voters left no ambiguity about their collective feelings when they approved the amendments. Each passed with more than 70% of the vote.
“Clearly, voters told us, told the state, told themselves — they do not want partisan gerrymandering,” said Beth Hendrix, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, a key backer of the measures. “Why would we overturn the will of the voters?”
The question, however, arises as other states have no such constraints and instead have seen an opportunity to gain an advantage heading into the key midterm election of Trump’s second term.
11 other states eye new maps ahead of 2026
Texas already signed a partisan gerrymandering of its maps into law that’s designed to give Republicans an advantage in five additional congressional districts. Missouri’s Republican majority has also sent a new map to the state’s governor that’s designed to eliminate a Democratic-leaning seat there.
Kansas, Louisiana, Florida, Indiana and Ohio round out the other Republican-dominated states looking to give the GOP an advantage heading into 2026.
California voters, meanwhile, will decide this November on bypassing that state’s independent redistricting commission so it can add five Democratic-leaning seats to its congressional maps — a direct reproach to Texas. Officials in Maryland, Illinois and New York have also threatened to join the gerrymandering wars.
The resulting maps could end up dictating which party controls the House come 2027.
Now, Republicans hold a narrow six-seat majority over Democrats, with three vacancies. Historically, the president’s party tends to lose seats in the chamber in midterm elections. Trump’s negative approval rating in polls bodes poorly for him bucking that trend.
He’s publicly cheered the gerrymandering in Republicans’ favor, including saying his party is “entitled” to the extra seats in Texas while decrying a lack of GOP representation in deeply Democratic states.
While Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendments barring the practice here, observers recall criticism at the time of the votes that the state was giving up a potent political tool that others may wield.
Now that the theory of political warfare is becoming reality, a new committee has formed, looking to ask Colorado voters if they want to join the fray.
Coloradans start push for change
Jorge Rodriguez, a 27-year-old accountant by trade, formed the Colorado Emergency Redistricting Powers Committee last month with the support of like-minded allies. The committee doesn’t necessarily seek the complete repeal of Colorado’s anti-gerrymandering amendments, but it’s looking at ways to give state officials the power to counterbalance gerrymandering elsewhere, Rodriguez said.
“We don’t want every state to just give in to gerrymandering,” said Rodriguez, who voted yes on the 2018 amendments. “At the end of the day, it is good to have independent redistricting. We just want it done nationwide. If we only do it in Democratic states, it’s tying our hands behind our backs while the Republican party arms itself to the teeth.”
Rodriguez is affiliated as a Democrat, but his activism before this has never exceeded attending a few party meetings, he said. He acknowledged it would be a long road to amend the constitution to allow these new powers. He and others on the committee were still working on language for the proposed amendment to bring to the state’s title board for approval.
A draft filed with the state would give the governor or the General Assembly authority to suspend the independent redistricting commission if “substantial evidence” exists that the U.S. president is trying to coerce individual states to adopt maps that favor one political party. An emergency commission would then be appointed to redraw Colorado’s maps “to preserve electoral fairness, proportionality, and resistance to federal executive interference.”
If the state title board approves the proposal, backers would still need to gather nearly 125,000 signatures from across the state and then wage a campaign to win over 55% of voters in 2026 — with every step a costly, time-intensive affair.
Even if such a measure passed, Colorado wouldn’t be able to redistrict until the 2028 election at the earliest.
Rodriguez said he at least wants to push the conversation in Colorado. And, he hopes, push Colorado’s top Democrats to fight more aggressively against national Republicans and the Trump administration in the way Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom, of California, and J.B. Pritzker, of Illinois, have.
Christopher Jackson, an attorney with the law firm Holland & Hart and a former Colorado assistant attorney general, said the state’s constitutional law is clear that mid-census redistricting and partisan gerrymandering are both a no-go in Colorado.
A successful rewriting of the Constitution, in whichever shape, would be necessary to eliminate those restrictions, he said. But from there, he didn’t see significant federal hurdles to Colorado jumping into the redistricting fight.
“Federal law could restrict states like Colorado from doing something,” Jackson said, though he noted that Congress hasn’t actually passed any laws to rein in partisan gerrymandering. “But the U.S. Constitution says states can regulate time, place and manner of their own elections.”
Hendrix, from the League of Women Voters, remains steadfast against Colorado stepping back from its reforms.
Regardless of aims, partisan gerrymanders only hurt representative government, she said. That tactic lets politicians pick their voters instead of the other way around. And, she noted, most Coloradans now identify as unaffiliated with a political party, regardless of voting habits. That tells her the electorate is largely sick of partisan games.
“I understand the reaction of wanting to fight fire with fire,” Hendrix said. “I absolutely do. And it’s a toughie. But we’re sticking to our principles. We don’t believe in partisan gerrymandering. Voters are hurt by partisan gerrymandering. We stand by the voters.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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