When Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for governor against Sen. Michael Bennet in the June Democratic primary, said last November we needed to join the bloody mid-cycle redistricting wars, I was skeptical.
Not of the concept — the concept is both good and necessary — but of the timing.
Under the Colorado constitution, voters couldn’t change the redistricting rules in time to affect the 2026 election, which is all that matters now. Or almost all.
We’ve been repeatedly told this is the most important midterm election in U.S. history — I think I agree, but just don’t ask me which midterm comes second — and I worried that the redistricting issue could become a distraction, particularly in the toss-up 8th Congressional District race, a must-win for both parties.
That was then. And now, in what seems like many Trump years later, it’s more than clear to everyone — other than Donald Trump, his sycophantic aides and the rest of MAGA world — who the vote-riggers actually are.
And it’s even clearer that Colorado must join forces with California, Virginia, Maryland and other states to fight back against the rigging.
A group called Coloradans for Leveling the Playing Field is announcing today it is filing four ballot measures to put Colorado firmly, if a little late, into the mix. The group is planning for one of the initiatives to make the ballot in November.
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I’m not sure who is the force behind the measures, but I think it’s safe to assume that the House Democrats in Washington are heavily involved. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is definitely all in on redistricting wars. He told CNN the other day, “Republicans started this redistricting war, and Democrats have made clear, we’re going to finish it.”
“When they go low,” he added, “we strike back.”
The Colorado action is being done reluctantly, according to Leveling spokesperson Curtis Hubbard (who was at one time my editor at the Denver Post). “No one wanted to take this action,” Hubbard said. “Independent redistricting is the ideal.”
Yes, in an ideal world, meaning any time before Trump came bopping down the golden escalator, way back in the MANA days (Make America Normal Again), that would be true.
But there’s nothing ideal about what’s happening now. There’s nothing ideal about the likelihood that the Supreme Court will soon undo what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, leading to more gerrymandering. And there’s nothing ideal about Trump’s plans to subvert the November election however he can.
If you want a deep dive into Trump’s plans and why states don’t trust Trump officials, read this article, and this one, from The Atlantic. Of course they don’t trust Trump. I mean, why would anyone trust him after January 6, although I guess enough people did to somehow re-elect him.
I mean, trust the guy who has declared war on Colorado because no one will pardon election grifter Tina Peters? So as long as Peters is in prison, Coloradans must be punished. You’d think a hard spanking would do, but Trump prefers, say, blocking clean water to 50,000 Coloradans and keeping food from underserved children.
Or the guy who wants to ban mail-in voting? The guy who says voter ID rules must be enhanced to ward off voting by noncitizens — a non-issue, as study after study has shown — and could force voters to bring a passport with them to the polls?
The guy who wants to “nationalize” elections, despite the fact that the Constitution — that pesky document again, the one Trump routinely ignores — says the matter of holding elections is left to the states? So far, judges have overruled Trump’s executive orders to the contrary, which means, of course, that he’ll keep issuing such orders anyway. He has already said he doesn’t need Congress to pass a law to make nationalizing happen. Of course a wannabe dictator doesn’t.
The guy who is suing blue states, including Colorado, to turn over their voter data? We can only imagine what he might do with it. Presumably, say, hand it over to masked, jackbooted ICE agents.
The guy whose wholly owned DOJ and FBI seized voting records in Fulton County, Georgia, where Trump is still looking for those phantom 11,000 voters he insisted that state officials find for him back in 2020? Trump is still fighting that long-decided war, but he has shown he is willing to fight wars past and present simultaneously, even when they don’t include either Venezuela or Greenland.
He sent Tulsi Gabbard, the Putin apologist and director of national intelligence, to oversee the Georgia vote seizing. Why would she be there? Come on. You know better. She put Trump on the phone with the FBI agents — as if we didn’t already understand that the FBI’s work there was a Trump action requiring no more evidence than Trump’s word.
The guy who would do anything, just a guess here, to fix the November elections, up to and including sending in the troops to ensure the vote is either free and fair — yeah, right — or to ensure Trump and his utterly compliant Republicans win? How many people think Minnesota was just a warmup act?
If you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention. Stop worrying about him canceling the elections. That’s probably not going to happen, although, I guess, Trump could call yet another national emergency. But subvert them? Let’s go to the tape and see what Trump has to say about it:
Yes, he has said “maybe we shouldn’t even have elections,” knowing that Democrats might well sweep the midterms. But more to the point, he has said he would accept the November election results “only if the elections are honest.”
Honestly.
And this is what he said in a rally last summer in West Palm Beach, Florida:
“Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
Did he mean that he’d fix the elections “so good” or fix the country? Probably the latter, but I’d be happy to leave it open for your interpretation. The Christian country thing is disturbing enough.
Or let’s hear what former Trump adviser and present-day Trump whisperer, Steve Bannon, had to say on a recent podcast about the coming election:
“You have got to call up the 82nd and the 101st Airborne on the Insurrection Act. You’ve got to get around every poll. We will not accept anything less.”
Whether or not the 101st Airborne is going to bomb the polls, Trump’s extra-legal attempts to subvert the election is almost certain to be real.
And so my thinking has cleared, and for me the question has changed to this: If not now, when?
Trump started this war, which is raging across a range of states. It started when Trump ordered Texas to do a midterm recycling, which the ultra-red state, already well familiar with gerrymandering, was happy to do. California retaliated by proposing its own redistricting, which would go into effect this year only if the Texas proposal did.
And the fire, started by the Arsonist in Chief, now rages.
The redistricting ploy was an early Trump attempt to fix the midterms — which, as you know, historically favor the party out of power. And what party could be more out of power in Washington than the current Democratic Party?
And while the midterms are monumental, the 2028 election — you know, the presidential one — will mean everything.
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Voters would have to agree to change the state constitution this year to put the non-partisan redistricting committee — which was approved by voters in 2018 — on hold for the 2028 and 2030 elections.
A map proposed by Leveling the Playing Field would give Democrats the edge in seven of Colorado’s eight districts. Only Lauren Boebert’s 3rd CD would be safe, although in a few cases the Democratic advantages would be slight.
The vote is for a temporary change. After the 2030 census, the redistricting commission would return to draw new districts, or go back to the old districts or whatever. The presumption is that we will have begun the long road back to normalcy by then — which is not exactly a sure bet.
Nothing is a sure thing these days — except we have to fight back against Trump’s plans, using every legal tool available.
Voting this year to join the mid-cycle redistricting wars by 2028 is one sure way to step into the ring.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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