The 2020 election in November is the last under current state House and Senate district boundaries. That’s good because since 2011 with the last redistricting, state House and Senate seats are increasingly uncompetitive.

The redistricting commission is now taking applications. Here’s the current landscape of what the commission will face.

If competitive races demand a Democrat-to-GOP spread of no more than 10% in voter registration, then very few races are now in contention.

Of 65 seats up in the House, 33, a majority, are already secured by Democrats. Republicans have 24 secure districts. So, 57 of 65 seats in the House are already decided by registration. If a contest happened, it occurred within parties in the primaries. As a side note, the party establishments discourage primaries against incumbents.

The state Senate has 18 seats up for grabs, but 12 of 18 are already in the Democrats’ pocket and four of 18 will go to the Republicans. That leaves six that are sort of competitive. Competitive means the registration is under a 10% registration spread.

Our state elections used to be lively. As recently as 2018, Senate districts surrounding the Denver metro area in Jefferson, Arapahoe and Adams counties could go either way by voter registration. The Senate at that time was controlled by Republicans. But Democrats almost universally won the 2018 races.

The last time the House was in Republican control was 2013, when the biggest end-of-session argument was over civil unions for the LGBTQ community. It’s been downhill for the GOP in the House since then.

The state redistricting commission will comprise four Democrats, four Republicans, and four unaffiliated voters. To truly reflect registration — and this is how much voting has changed in Colorado since 2011 — there should be six unaffiliated representatives, three Democrats and three Republicans. If registrations continue as they have in the shift to unaffiliated voters, by 2030 with that decade’s census, unaffiliated voters will certainly represent over 50% of voters.

Colorado’s rules around redistricting will make configuring districts for competition difficult. The state follows common redistricting criteria: contiguity, compactness, and communities of interest. Racial and ethnic composition is another factor.

These standards set a bias against competition as Colorado’s citizens now tend to live in political silos. Denver County and Boulder County voters, by large numbers, are Democrats. El Paso County, Douglas County and Mesa County voters, by large numbers, are Republicans.

When compactness is a criterion, Democrats get packed into Denver and Boulder districts, and Republicans get packed into Douglas, El Paso and Mesa County districts.

When contiguity is a requirement, city and county boundaries affect districts, and these locations are often dominated by one party or the other. Minorities get jammed into just a few districts because of housing patterns.

Spread-out districts can create competition and perhaps more understanding between rural, suburban and urban communities. Take the northern Colorado state boundary as an example. If a Senate district were drawn east to west across the northern-most portion of the state, its residents would be rural, suburban and urban.

Follow the state’s geography just south of this prospective northern district to Boulder and Weld Counties. If Boulder and Weld were cut in half horizontally for House and Senate districts, those seats would be well mixed with Democrats and Republicans on both ends of the political spectrum. It would be a great test of democracy for these opposites to share the same elected officials.

The effect of uncompetitive districts is significant. Republicans are feeling the hurt the most because they lost their majority in both chambers. They can occasionally affect legislation, but only if Gov. Jared Polis gets behind the GOP’s point of view, usually represented by business interests.

The Colorado Constitution doesn’t require the redistricting commission to set goals for competitive districts, say to start, 50% of districts should be within 7% of each other by party registration. It would be wise if the commission took up this goal.

For the sake of both parties, competition will create more dialogue and policy ideas. Elections will be more interesting and increase turnout when districts are actually in contention.