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Dear Attorney General Phil Weiser, it’s not “Do unto others as they did unto you;” it’s “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Weiser wants Colorado to ditch the independent redistricting commission 71% of voters endorsed in 2018 and return to partisan, gerrymandered congressional districts. Because other states have abused redistricting to secure more seats for their majority party, he thinks we should, too.

Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina legislatures recently manipulated their congressional maps to increase the likelihood of gaining additional Republican seats in the next election. In response, California voted to suspend the state’s independent redistricting commission and approve gerrymandered maps in favor of additional Democratic seats. Other states are threatening likewise.

Rather than follow their cynical lead, Colorado should continue to champion its inclusive, bipartisan redistricting process. Gerrymandering is unethical. It denies communities representation, increases partisan acrimony, and contributes to congressional dysfunction.

Since the dawn of nationhood, legislative majorities unconstrained by other checks and balances like redistricting commissions or judicial oversight, have sought to increase their power not by appealing to voters’ hearts and minds but by manipulating the process of redistricting. The term “gerrymandering” goes back to 1812 when Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed redistricting legislation to boost his party’s representation in the state senate. The Boston Gazette noted that one redrawn district looked like a salamander naming it a “Gerry-mander.”

Such meandering districts indicate gerrymanderers have been busy. Illinois and Texas’ congressional maps, for example, are crawling with serpentine districts drawn to ensure the majority has the largest number of winnable seats possible and the minority has the least.

Some states have completely erased minority party representation. Congressional districts in New Mexico are gerrymandered so there is not a single Republican representative in Congress, even though 46% of New Mexico voters picked Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Oklahoma’s congressional district map went solid red after the 2021 legislature ensured the state’s one slightly competitive district would never again go blue. Utah Democrats have no congressional representation even though more Salt Lake City voters are Democrats than Republicans. The legislature made sure to dilute their votes by divvying them up among Republican majority districts.

In New York, 44% of voters chose Trump, but Republicans hold only 27% of congressional districts. The opposite is true of Florida where 44% of voters picked Harris but Democrats only hold 29% of the seats. Gerrymandering has reduced Republican representation in Maryland to a single district even though a third of Marylanders picked Trump. Some politicians are now threatening to gerrymander away that state’s last vestige of fairness.

Partisan district rigging doesn’t just deny voters representation; it shields politicians from competition. In heavily gerrymandered Illinois and Texas, only a few districts are competitive. In fact, in most districts, incumbents enjoy not merely an advantage according to the Cook Partisan Voting Index but a double-digit one. By contrast, fewer districts in independent redistricting commission states such as Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Washington give that kind of insurmountable advantage to incumbents.

Without competition, politicians are under little pressure to respond to concerns from constituents who are members of the other party. They need not moderate their messaging or pursue compromise.

If anything, guaranteed reelection is an incentive to behave immoderately. Since the only competition such politicians face is in the primary, they feel pressure to please the most stalwart among the base with partisan votes and red meat messaging.

It stands to reason that if more congressional districts were competitive, politicians would try harder to be more broadly representative in tone and action. Congress would likely not be at an impasse over funding. Democrats would vote to fund the government, and Republicans would be more willing to compromise on health insurance subsidies. As it stands, though, not compromising gains praise from partisan primary voters. The frustration the rest of us feel is irrelevant.

We can do better than Texas and California. By being fair — doing unto others as you would have them do until you — we can encourage the same. Doing to others as they have done only provokes a cycle of bitter retaliation. Colorado should lead, not follow, and preserve its redistricting commission.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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For over a month, the longest government shutdown in American history has left our national parks in free fall. When the shutdown began in October, the Interior Department sent over 9,000 Park Service staff home without pay, with orders to leave most parks open with gates unlocked.

Since then, visitors have continued flocking to parks: More than 25,000 visitors poured into Utah’s Zion National Park on a single day; at New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument, hikers went off-trail across closed restoration areas; at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, sightseers walked through sensitive meadows, ignoring posted signs.

Meanwhile, there’s been virtually a public blackout about what’s been happening inside parks after key staffers were fired. That’s because top agency officials curtailed the freedom of park staff to communicate with the public, while website updates went dark. As the shutdown continues, national parks lose $1 million a day in uncollected fees.

But the government shutdown and its salary hiatus are only the latest blows to national park management. Because of new federal policies aimed at shrinking government agencies, including the Interior Department, one in four Park Service staffers is now gone for good.

I’ve been learning what this severe cutback looks like as the new Southwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the 433 national park sites across the country. I get to care about and advocate for a landscape of remarkable parks across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.

One of these parks, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, sits close to my home in Paonia, in western Colorado. Early in the Trump administration, federal reductions cut one-third of its staff. That meant even before the shutdown began, all custodial workers had lost their jobs. Workers who were already filling in for missing staff had to set aside core responsibilities and shift to bathroom maintenance.

With no rangers left, signs posted on the canyon’s North Rim warned visitors that they would need to “self-rescue” if they got into trouble. Then came the South Rim fire, which closed the park  for the first time in its history, consuming several park buildings though sparing the visitor center. It’s no secret that wildfires in the West are increasing in frequency, even as fewer staff remain to respond.

Of all the American institutions I thought would outlive me, the National Park Service seemed like a safe bet. Throughout 109 years of park history, national polls consistently show that Americans of all stripes love their national parks. They also respect the rangers who bring deep knowledge to their work, rescue adventurers who get into trouble, and help ensure that visitors enjoy themselves. People from all over the world come to experience our national parks and monuments because this country has been wise enough to preserve our magnificent landscapes, wildlife and history.

Yet here we are witnessing a deliberate effort to mismanage our national parks by depriving them of the very people and funding needed for their upkeep. The Trump administration also plans another round of mass terminations, meaning many furloughed park staff may never return.

Earlier this year, Congress gutted $267  million from the Park  Service budget, eliminating funding that was congressionally allocated for critical park staffing. President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget also calls for a $1 billion cut, which could force hundreds of  park sites to close across the country.

By starving the Park Service of necessary money for maintenance and repairs, wildlife management, research and other important functions, the administration is setting up our national parks to be sold out from under the American public or handed over to private interests.

We’re living in a moment where hypotheticals — once unbelievable — have become possible scenarios. That is, unless Americans speak up loudly. We need strong advocates to ensure that the Park Service can carry out its mission to “preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education and inspiration of this and future generations.”

We can help by urging members of Congress to hold the line against more indiscriminate firings of Park Service staff, and to restore funding so that parks can rebuild and flourish in the years to come.

Alex Johnson works for the National Parks Conservation Association, npca.org, and is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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You can’t separate the history of Colorado from the iconic natural landscapes of the San Luis Valley, the first part of our state to see settlers who came from what is today New Mexico to farm and graze this land. The farmers provide the food that keeps our state and country fed. The rich fabric of the diverse communities in the San Luis Valley reminds Coloradans who we are and where we came from. Here in the valley, our connection with the land and water has always defined our way of life.

Public lands in and around the San Luis Valley power our outdoor economy, provide water for our crops, sustain our agriculture industry, and support our families and communities.

It’s why we worked for nearly a decade with a broad coalition of community leaders, farmers and ranchers, conservation advocates, Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Gov. Jared Polis and the State Land Board to support the acquisition of the La Jara Basin property.

This hard-fought project to transfer nearly 50,000 acres of La Jara State Land Trust property to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service has been nearly a decade in the making. We were proud to work closely with our senators to secure the $43.5 million in Land and Water Conservation Fund funding we needed.

Now it has come to our attention that the governor-appointed State Land Board — with no representation from southern Colorado — may break another promise to the Valley and vote to kill this project.

As recently as June, the State Land Board was firmly behind this project. Governor Polis himself wrote an enthusiastic letter of support, citing the state’s commitment to seeing this project through. He wrote, “The state strongly supports this acquisition as a meaningful advancement in our goals of habitat connectivity, heritage preservation, and equitable public access to the outdoors. We commend the collaborative approach taken by BLM, the USDA Forest Service, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and local partners in continuing to move this multi-year project forward.”

Then just last month the State Land Board, which recognized a new director in June, suddenly reversed course. They began discussing an array of well-meaning but likely unworkable uses for this parcel of land if the state were to break their commitment to the federal government and San Luis Valley residents and vote to retain the land. We can assure you that if this project is terminated in the final hour that any trust that has been built over many years of work would be lost and the State Land Board would suffer a significant loss of credibility among the many partners who toiled for years on this project. That’s not to mention the loss of the $43.5 million LWCF dollars that our senators secured for this project which would evaporate and go to other states if the deal falls through.

This land transfer represents an incredible opportunity for the San Luis Valley to create needed jobs and bolster our agricultural and outdoor economy. The La Jara property contains cold-water fisheries and provides clean drinking water and irrigation for farmers and ranchers. It is home to hundreds of acres of pristine big game habitat for elk and mule deer, refuge for migratory birds, and irreplaceable historic and cultural resources.

The San Luis Valley has a long history of private landowners taking over public land. One only needs to look across to the other side of the Valley above the town of San Luis and the land known locally as La Sierra, to see the decades of controversy that can result when public land moves from accessible to locked gates and fences.

If the Board prevents this transfer from moving forward, what is to stop a future board from selling this land to a billionaire offering a price the state can’t refuse? What would then happen to the many ranchers who depend on this land for grazing or the hunters who rely on this land to feed their families.

This project enjoys deep and broad support in the San Luis Valley, and we have been committed, honest, and collaborative partners throughout this process. Unfortunately, however, rural communities in Colorado have become distressingly accustomed to bad faith deals. Decisionmakers in Denver too often pick winners and losers, without taking into account the impacts on rural communities.

But this time we simply cannot afford to see this agreement fail.

We urge the State Land Board to honor the commitment they made to San Luis Valley farmers, ranchers, business owners, recreationists, hunters, anglers, Indigenous leaders, and conservation partners, so our kids and our grandkids can benefit from this remarkable landscape for generations to come.

Ken Salazar is a former U.S. secretary of the Interior, U.S. senator and attorney general to Colorado and U.S. ambassador to Mexico. John Salazar, a farmer and rancher from Manassa Colorado, served as the U.S. Representative for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District from 2005 until 2011 and was the Commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture from 2011-2014.

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Homelessness is a national problem but at its core it is a local challenge, impacting cities all across the country.

Here in Aurora, where I have led as the mayor for the last six years, the city and our nonprofit partner, Advance Pathways, have developed a unique approach to addressing this seemingly intractable problem. It hinges on incentivizing individuals who have experienced homelessness to take the steps needed to stabilize their lives and to join the workforce and reach the maximum level of self-sufficiency they are capable of.

I believe this strategy, focused on meeting people where they are and giving them tangible, concrete incentives to make progress on the goals that will improve their lives, could set a new model for compassionately, and effectively helping lift people out of homelessness.

On Nov. 17, the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus (ARNC), formerly the Crowne Plaza Hotel & Conference Center, located at Chambers Road and Interstate 70, will open to serve the needs of the area’s homeless population. The facility will have the capacity to serve up to 600 individuals with a clean and safe place to stay, services to address their challenges, job training and employment opportunities. Transitional housing will be available to participants with jobs who are on a path to self-sufficiency through employment.

The entire cost of purchasing and renovating the building was $40 million, with all the funding coming from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA), which appropriated federal dollars to state and local governments during the pandemic. Aurora received a contribution in ARPA dollars from Adams County, Arapahoe County, and Douglas County, which are the three counties that Aurora is in, from the State of Colorado, and, of course, contributed its own ARPA dollars.

The city of Aurora will contribute approximately $2 million a year to support the ongoing cost of maintaining the facility and Advance Pathways will raise the remaining $8 to $9 million of the annual operating budget. The Daniels Fund and the Anschutz Family Foundation have already stepped up to help meet Advance Pathways’s operating budget requirements.

The program is neither a “Housing First” model, where individuals experiencing homelessness are given private rooms with the understanding that once stabilized they will want to take advantage of the wraparound services provided for them, nor is it a “Work First” model, where individuals, who have experienced homelessness, are required to work in exchange for receiving assistance.

I like the “Work First” approach but that model is only effective for individuals who have already made the decision to change their behavior. Our challenge is we want to take everyone in need whether or not they have made a decision to change their behavior.

This incentive-based program will have three separate tiers to it. Tier 1 is a low-barrier shelter for newly arrived individuals, many just off the streets, who are provided with emergency services including  cots, and basic nutrition.

Tier 2 has better living conditions than Tier 1 as an incentive to participate in case-managed mental health care, addiction recovery, and job training. Participants in Tier 2 are offered semi-private accommodations, a bed instead of a cot, places to store their personal items, and better food choices.

Tier 3 is comprised of 255 private rooms set aside as transitional housing for individuals who are working full-time but are still in need of some services. Those in Tier 3 will be expected to pay a third of their income back to support the program.

Aurora and Advance Pathways are committed to accountability in the same way we ask our participants at the ARNC to be accountable. We will be tracking outcomes and reporting them in our push to reduce homelessness in Aurora by 50% by 2030.

This is not about competing with other communities when it comes to different approaches, this is about finding solutions that work and can be replicated.

Mike Coffman is the mayor of Aurora, who represented Colorado in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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