Purplish

Marathon Zoom sessions. Painstaking geographic descriptions. And the slow struggle toward something like consensus. We head inside the final days of the Congressional redistricting commission’s work to see how they’re trying to get it done.

Colorado is one of the few states where the rules for redistricting encourage competitive districts. But is competition really all it’s cracked up to be?

Redistricting commission staff have released a new proposal that — if adopted — would make some dramatic changes to Colorado’s congressional districts.

Two stories in this episode about different communities that are hoping to persuade the commissions to take their concerns into account as they draw their maps.

The first draft of the Congressional map puts the state’s newest district north and east of Denver. We hit the road to hear what residents think of that idea.

Denver’s Northside, historic home of the Chicano movement, has been getting whiter over the last decade. At the same time, some suburbs, like Commerce City, have seen their Latino populations increase. How Colorado’s new political maps reflect these changes could have a big impact on the state’s Latino representation.

Republican relief, a bit of Democratic chagrin, and a whole lot of thumbs hoping to sneak onto all sorts of scales — we look at the political side of Colorado’s new approach to redistricting.

Colorado’s redistricting is in the hands of new independent commissions — we explain what led up to the change and how the process is works.