Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser is hoping to drag our state into a national partisan arms race to redraw congressional maps.

Last week, the Democrat and gubernatorial hopeful started shopping a scheme to media outlets, pushing out a press release posted to his website under the banner of “Defending Colorado and Our Rights.” In reality, he wants to undermine a very Colorado way of governing.

In 2018, a resounding 71% of voters passed Amendments Y and Z, creating independent redistricting commissions to draw both congressional and state legislative maps, which happens once every decade after the U.S. Census.

Coloradans were sick of politicians carving districts behind closed doors for partisan benefit. So, they wrote balance, fairness and transparency into the constitution.

Recently, a few Republican states starting with Texas have launched unprecedented mid-decade redistricting — changing congressional maps before the next census to grab more House seats, pressed to that partisan crusade by President Trump.

Democratic states like California are racing to retaliate in kind. It’s the exact red-versus-blue, tit-for-tat game Coloradans rejected.

Instead of rejecting the madness, too, Weiser wants Colorado to join in — by amending the state constitution so the Democrats who control state government can redraw the maps anew.

He’s pitching his proposal as a “narrowly drawn exception,” a “break glass in case of emergency” option when “other states break the established norm” — all in the name of “defending our democracy.”

“We’re not going to let those changing the rules to get an unfair advantage benefit from those efforts,” he said. “Colorado must be ready to step up and do our part.”

Let’s be honest: This isn’t about democracy or Colorado’s interests. It’s gerrymandering for national partisan gain.

Colorado has a balanced House delegation — four Republicans, four Democrats and two competitive districts. That’s what voters wanted when they passed Y and Z — a check on partisanship, not a boomerang whenever national politics gets ridiculous.

And it’s worked. Our current map is among the fairest in the country, with Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project giving it an A. Meanwhile, the red states we’re supposed to “fight back” against — Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina — already flunk their fairness test.

Weiser knows gerrymandering is wrong — because he’s taken others to task for it. When conservative Weld County redrew its commissioner districts, Weiser sued, blasting county officials for “improperly dividing Greeley voters… for political purposes” and creating a map that “dilutes the voting power… of urban voters and Latino voters.”

But that’s exactly what his plan would do: “dilute the voting power” of rural Colorado to advantage bluer urban strongholds.

“I think actually the congressional delegation represents the larger aspects of Colorado very well,” Rebecca Theobald, a geography professor at University of Colorado Colorado Springs leading the GeoCivics program there, told Rocky Mountain PBS in August.

Theobald said Colorado is “an excellent microcosm of the country” and “more of a purple state than people imagine,” with Democrats clustered in cities while Republicans spread across rural communities.

Yet we’re supposed to scrap a system that works to copy states that don’t — because “democracy?”

Phil Weiser has spent years projecting himself as an “above the fray” attorney general. When he first ran for office, and after he was elected, I interviewed him multiple times on air. We disagreed plenty, but he always came across as someone driven more by principle than raw partisanship. That’s why this is so disappointing.

Even Weiser admits his plan for a 2026 ballot measure couldn’t affect elections until 2028, after the current fight. So, why do it now? Because it’s political posturing dressed up as good governance, grasping for national headlines and campaign cash.

He hasn’t proposed any “fairer” maps of his own — because the goal is bluer, not fairer. Why would Coloradans choose to rig our maps now after we overwhelmingly voted against it?

The results speak for themselves. The 8th District is one of the most competitive in America, and the 3rd isn’t far behind. Republicans hold them now, but they can easily swing the other way — just as the GOP’s U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans flipped the 8th last year away from Democratic former Rep. Yadira Caraveo. You don’t need to rig representation when voters can change it themselves.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, also running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, said changing maps in 2028 is “too late.” He’d prefer Democrats flip Republican seats. But Bennet

offered zero objections to blowing up our constitutional redistricting system. “All options should be on the table to defend our democracy,” he said.

Let’s be serious: Even if you want blue states to “fight fire with fire,” Colorado is the last place to play that game. Our voters — half of whom are deliberately unaffiliated because they’re fed up with both parties — have already chosen to cut politics out of map-making. Weiser’s scheme doesn’t square with those independent values.

Colorado shouldn’t follow either President Trump or California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom into an endless partisan rat race. We should lead the nation by keeping partisanship out of map-making — and show it’s possible to pursue fairness over tribalism.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.