As the next census year approaches — 2020 — someone will soon have to go to the drawing table to redraw Colorado’s legislative district maps. The question is not when, but who will complete the task. While still nearly four years out, several groups want to be proactive and change the process this year at the ballot box.

Progressive groups just presented their own plan to remodel what many argue is a clunky system currently in place. Katina Banks and Robert DuRay filed ballot initiative proposals Thursday to create two new map-drawing commissions, one to draw congressional districts and one to draw state legislative districts. The proposals are listed on the Colorado General Assembly’s website as initiatives 122 and 123.

Banks is a high-powered trademark and civil rights lawyer and a board member for the state’s top LGBT-rights organization One Colorado. Robert Duray is a director at the Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable and was the field director for youth-politics group New Era Colorado.

Supporters are touting the proposals as heavy on transparency and public participation. Each commission would be made up of nine members — three each of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters.

The initiatives come after a group of high-profile state officials unveiled a proposal in the fall — ballot initiative 107 — that critics railed against as the product of old-boy-style politics. Although newspaper editorial boards praised the plan, ethnic minority groups in particular saw it as a threat to the growing power of the minority vote in the state.

Opponents of 107 held community meetings and determined to rally the public against it. The two ballot initiatives filed Thursday reportedly grew in part from those efforts and out of a growing sense of urgency to supplant 107.

Supporters of 122 and 123 are currently conducting a pre-campaign to muster buy-in from communities and to build momentum before more fully unveiling them to the public.

The initiatives are scheduled for a “review and comment” hearing at the Capitol March 24.

— john@coloradostatesman.com