While Denver City Council’s Redistricting Committee voted to move two maps to a regular council vote, only Map D will go to a public hearing with City Council next week after Map E was voted down at City Council’s meeting Monday.

Map D was ordered published by the council after an 11-2 vote, with Councilmembers Jamie Torres and Candi CdeBaca voting against it. At the last committee meeting, multiple council members voted to move more than one map forward, but everyone who voted for both Maps D and E voted aye just for Map D at council Monday evening.

The current council district map has two “minority-majority” districts, where non-white voters make up more than 50% of the voting-age population, and four “minority-influence” districts, where non-white voters make up between 35% and 50% of the voting-age population.

Map D will increase the number of minority-majority districts to four, but it will decrease the number of minority-influence districts to one.

The map that passed council on first reading Monday is a modified version of the original Map D, moving the Virginia Vale neighborhood fully into District 6 and the Winston Downs neighborhood into District 5.

Councilmember Amanda Sandoval, who chaired the Redistricting Committee, emphasized how rare it is for City Council to convene as a committee of the whole, which means every council member was part of the process. Because two council members were not present for the committee’s final vote last week, she said she wanted all three maps that were left for consideration to be voted on again to determine which would go to a public hearing next week.

CdeBaca also filed a fourth map for consideration, Map G, which she said was a modified version of Map E. Because she said Map E’s sponsors were not in favor of her recommended changes, she asked the rest of council to vote it down. She did vote aye on the map she sponsored, Map A, despite it failing in committee last week.

CdeBaca said she wanted a legal review of her map to show that it was in fact legal and not considered gerrymandering. She noted that her map was the only one to capture a majority-minority district in District 9.

“We did not achieve that in any of the other maps, and so I just wanted to make sure that history recalls on the record that this map was introduced and it was voted down, and we did forfeit that majority-minority district at a time when minorities in the city are being displaced rapidly,” CdeBaca said.

A public hearing on Map D will take place at City Council’s meeting March 29, followed by council’s adoption of the ordinance. This will make the map effective for the April 2023 Denver municipal elections.