While some El Paso County commissioners and residents have clashed in recent weeks over the definition of proper racial minority representation, a coalition of local chapters of national civil rights groups recently stepped into the redistricting process with claims of racial discrimination that one commissioner calls “insulting.”

In a letter penned July 31 to the El Paso County Redistricting Commission, several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and NAACP of Colorado Springs, state that current county commissioner districts uphold a “continuing legacy of racial exclusion” in that its members consistently fail to reflect their “Black and Brown” constituents despite the fact that people of color currently make up 34% of the county’s population – up from 23% in 2000 – according to the most recent U.S. Census redistricting data.

Amid gerrymandering concerns in El Paso County, door could open to rare Democratic seat

The letter, whose signatories also include the Latina Equity Foundation, Colorado Latinos Vote, Citizens Project, League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region and Rocky Mountain NAACP, urges the current five members of the county Board of Commissioners – who tasked themselves in April with redrawing their voter districts for the first time since 2017 – to “design districts that will ensure this rich diversity is reflected” on the board.

Commissioner Longinos Gonzalez, a Hispanic man, said the claims are “offensive” to himself and to Ed Jones and Darryl Glenn, two Black former commissioners who served from 1995 to 2003 and 2011 to 2019, respectively. All three men are Republicans.

“When I first came onto this board (in 2017) … 40% of the (board) was represented by minorities,” Gonzalez told The Gazette. “I still remain on this board as a representative of the Hispanic and minority community.”

“What they meant is that they want Democrats, but they don’t want to put that on paper … (that is) unfortunately insulting to people of color like me,” he added. “What they meant is that we don’t count.”

Taylor Pendergrass, ACLU of Colorado’s director of advocacy, said there is a “conceptual difference” between Gonzalez’s and the letter’s definition of what minority representation looks like.

Historically, voter precincts in southeast Colorado Springs have been split between three commissioner districts – a move called “cracking” that residents have said effectively dilutes the minority and Democrat vote – given that a Democrat has not sat on the board since Stan Johnson’s election in 1970.

Pendergrass said that dilution has made it “impossible” for minority voters to elect their “preferred candidate” in the past, and while people of color have sat on the county commissioner board, they were not widely supported by minority voters in their district.

Citing data from a “racially polarized voting” analysis performed by the coalition behind the letter, Pendergrass said that while Gonzalez is Hispanic, “only 17 to 27% of non-White voters” selected Gonzalez in the 2020 commissioner election, compared to 88%-98% of White voters.

“(Jones’, Glenn’s and Gonzalez’s) representation and the barriers that they broke as people of color in those positions should not be undervalued,” Pendergrass said. “(But) Gonzales, (partly) because of the way that districts are drawn, did not capture a majority of the minority vote in El Paso County.”

City Council approves controversial apartments for homeless young adults in Colorado Springs

The letter states that El Paso County’s current districts “may violate” the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits election systems from denying any American citizen the right to “vote on account of race or color” and from giving racial minorities “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to … elect representatives of their choice.”

The coalition also said that because El Paso County’s minority population is “sufficiently large and geographically compact” to create a potential majority if consolidated into one district and tends to vote in a political bloc (in this case, Democrat), and because its majority White voters are also politically cohesive and “tend to defeat the minority’s proposed candidate,” the county meets all three pre-conditions for a VRA violation.

According to U.S. Census data, the county’s Black and Hispanic population is heavily concentrated in southeast Colorado Springs south to Fountain and Security-Widefield.

Pendergrass disputed the claim that the coalition is specifically seeking Democratic control of a district in El Paso County.

“If you were to draw districts where minorities were included in a way that allowed them to exercise their preference for a candidate, and the candidate they chose to represent them was a Republican, or a Green Party member, or a Democratic Socialist or a Democrat, all of that would satisfy the Voting Rights Act.”

Neighbors opposing Launchpad Apartments focus on potential landslides in appeal to council

Pendergrass said the organization does not comment on potential litigation and could not confirm whether it would take legal action against the county if it believed a finalized map did not satisfy the VRA.

During the redistricting process, residents have requested that commissioners consolidate into one district southeast Colorado Springs, defined as a region of roughly 30 precincts west and northwest of the Colorado Springs Airport that each have a minority population of 45% or greater.

In recent weeks, commissioners enacted guidelines that could create a potentially left-leaning district by eliminating any previously created maps that split the area between districts and blocked from future consideration any new maps that did not keep the southeast intact.

On Tuesday, commissioners honed in on three finalist maps that all keep the 28 southeast precincts together, but split Monument into northern District 1 and into District 3, which also incorporates Manitou Springs and Old Colorado City.

Mike Williams, executive director of Citizens Project, one of the letter’s signatories, said that while the southeast may be kept intact, joining part of Monument and the southwest portion of the county in one district will make District 3 less politically competitive.

“It reemphasizes stuff in the letter,” Williams said.

The redistricting commission will hold a final meeting at 1 p.m. on Aug. 15, when it is set to select a final map.

While Tuesday was the last day for the public to address commissioners in person, residents have until 11:59 p.m. on Friday to submit public feedback on the finalist maps to the county’s redistricting portal.

Swiss solar manufacturer to spend $403.5 million to expand in Colorado Springs, seeks $3 million in city financial incentives