The Colorado Supreme Court upheld Colorado’s voter-approved redistricting system Monday, fending off an attempt initiated by Democrats to subvert it to their advantage.

The upshot of the ruling is to keep our state’s fair and reasonably drawn congressional districts in place — and to keep Colorado out of the national, election-year brawl over redistricting.

Colorado once let politicians draw congressional district maps behind closed doors, generating fights and court battles that often meant judges had final say. But in 2018, a resounding 71% of voters passed Amendments Y and Z to create independent commissions to draw legislative maps.

The system isn’t perfect, but it’s relatively nonpartisan and above the fray, as voters intended. Given that over half of voters are now unaffiliated, it’s characteristically Coloradan in its approach.

Colorado has four Democratic and four Republican congressional districts. One seat, the 8th Congressional District, flipped from Democrat Yadira Caraveo to Republican Gabe Evans only two years ago and remains hotly contested this year.

But Democratic operatives for the ironically named special-interest group Coloradans for a Level Playing Field put forward Initiative No. 240 this year to bypass the independent redistricting commission and lock in a new map — virtually guaranteeing Democrats seven seats to one Republican — for the 2028 and 2030 elections.

Republicans countered with Initiative No. 327, favoring their party. It turned out both bids ran afoul of the state’s single-subject requirement for ballot initiatives by simultaneously trying to change the map and the procedure.

So, Democrats also tried something else — splitting the same scheme into two initiatives, No. 241 and No. 242, each contingent on the other passing. It was the same power grab but repackaged in two parts — and turned out to be too clever by half.

The state’s Title Board approved No. 241 and No. 242 but rejected Republicans’ similar Initiative No. 328 — exposing a double standard the Supreme Court didn’t buy.

The court concluded that the measures represented an unconstitutional runaround of a voter-approved system.

“To conclude otherwise and to allow initiative proponents to proceed with interlocking measures like those at issue here would allow proponents to achieve indirectly what they could not achieve directly and would endorse an end run around the single subject requirement,” Justice Richard Gabriel wrote in one opinion. “This we cannot do.”

Chief Justice Monica Márquez echoed those sentiments in the other decision, writing that “modifying the timing, frequency, criteria, and entity responsible for congressional redistricting represents a significant change” that went beyond the central purpose of “congressional redistricting by adopting a new temporary map.”

The Supreme Court stopped the gamesmanship entirely. None of the maps put forward by either side survived. Republicans, whose proposal only was intended as a tactical counterpunch, were pleased at the outcome.

The ruling vindicated their argument that the Title Board shouldn’t have treated competing proposals differently, and that, fundamentally, Colorado’s independent system for drawing congressional districts should remain intact.

“Eight years ago, Colorado voters strongly supported an independent redistricting commission,” said Scott Gessler, legal counsel for the countermeasures. “Today, the court soundly rejected the Democratic efforts to manipulate the ballot process to overturn Colorado’s nonpartisan redistricting process.”

Michael Fields, president of the conservative group Advance Colorado, called it “a win for fairness and a blow to the Democrats’ national attempts to take away the voice of citizens who want to choose their own representation.”

Coloradans voted overwhelmingly eight years ago to separate politics from redistricting once and for all. Now, the state’s highest court has ensured the voters’ will is honored.