Update: Dems release map that would sacrifice ground in CD4 to make CD3 and CD6 more competitive (see image below).

The battle in Colorado over the shape of next decade’s congressional districts continues. State Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio fired off a response to the latest proposed map released by state Republicans. Democrats want to draw more competitive districts. Republicans want to effectively retain existing districts. Democrats argue that competition will result in greater lawmaker responsiveness and less partisanship. Republicans say they are seeking to avoid disruption and retain communities of interest.

“Republicans are sending a clear message to Colorado voters for the next decade: when it comes to your representation in Congress, your opinion and your vote won’t matter, Palacio is quoted to say in a release. “The GOP is trying to freeze the status quo while Coloradans are demanding a real say in who speaks for them in Washington.

“Competitive districts force representatives to pay attention to every voter and every issue, not just those of their political base. And competitive districts reflect Colorado’s political makeup, where voters equally identify as Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated from any party.”

The Republican map was reportedly released Friday. Democrats are set to release their map this afternoon.

When the state legislature last session failed to pass district boundaries updated according to recent census data, lawsuits redirected the task to federal district Judge William Hood, who will begin to hear arguments in mid October. Hood ordered the party maps released in advance of the coming trial so various stakeholders and community-of-interest representatives set to give testimony could adequately prepare.

A strategic endeavor with long-term consequences, redistricting is as much poker as demographic science. There’s no secret that both parties are angling for advantage.

As Lynn Bartels at the Denver Post reports, Republicans called their latest map “Minimum Disruption,” a title mocked by Democrats as a name more suitable to a “light jazz quartet.”

The Republican map would seem to create predictably partisan districts. Swing district CD3, currently held by Republican Scott Tipton, would include more GOP voters, as would recently purple CD4, presently held by Republican Cory Gardner. CD7, represented by Democrat Ed Perlmutter, would include more Democrats.

For their part, state Democrats have reportedly targeted CD6, currently represented by Republican Mike Coffman, for the most change. Coffman’s district is mostly suburban Denver, an area where Democrats are betting the population is most likely to trend left in coming years. In moving favorable voting areas into CD6, however, Democrats may also be taking a right-leaning district like CD4 out of contention.

Click on the maps to enlarge them:

Republican map:

Democratic map:

Current district boundaries:

After the 2008 election, Democrats represented five of the state’s seven congressional districts. In the 2010 election, Democrats lost two of those districts to Republicans, CD3 and CD4.

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State House Minority Leader Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, filed his paperwork today to run for U.S. Congress in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in 2012.

That seat is currently held by Republican Scott Tipton, who ousted Democrat John Salazar last year. Pace worked as district director for Salazar and was first elected to the State Legislature in 2008. He was named Minority Leader this year after the GOP regained control of the State House in 2010.

State Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo

Pace emailed supporters that he is “worried about the society we will leave for our children … When I think of my boys’ future, I know that to get there, we need a new approach to governing. We will not accomplish anything if both sides dig in their heels, refuse to negotiate and vilify the other side of the aisle.”

Pace, a graduate of Fort Lewis College in Durango, worked for Salazar as a legislative aide in the Colorado State House and later ran Salazar’s successful 2006 re-election campaign.

Salazar, a farmer and the brother of U.S. Interior Secretary and former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, was a Blue Dog Democrat who voted against climate change legislation and other energy reforms but still got swept out of Congress during last year’s Tea Party movement.

Tipton has enraged the more conservation-minded constituents in his district with his relentless campaign to limit the powers of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and to reverse the public lands policies of the Obama administration. Others clearly back his pro-business, pro-extractive energy agenda.

Pace will have to walk the same fine line to represent a largely rural and conservative region that currently includes Pueblo and Grand Junction as its two biggest cities.

Pace promises a campaign “that focuses on jobs in the district, on controlling the nation’s unsustainable debt, protecting our rural water, on opportunity for our kids, and on living up to our commitments to our seniors with Medicare and our veterans.”

Martelle Daniels, an attorney from Grand Junction, has been named the campaign’s treasurer. Click here for the Pace campaign website. Pace and his wife Marlene Valdez Pace have two young sons, Wyatt and Carlo.

An analysis of key U.S. Houses races in Tuesday’s midterm election conducted by the grassroots environmental group 1sky.org found that Democrats who voted against the ASES (American Clean Energy and Security Act) climate bill were three times more likely to lose Tuesday night. In fact, 80 percent of House Democrats who voted for the climate bill last year won their races.

Salazar, a farmer from southern Colorado, consistently voted against energy and climate reform bills, including this year’s CLEAR Act aimed at preventing on- and offshore oil spills.

He also initially supported Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette’s FRAC Act, which was designed to provide more accountability and transparency in natural gas drilling, but he later opposed the effort despite polling showing overwhelming support in his district.

“We understand that thousands of Coloradans’ votes still have not been counted a day after the election. In Congressional District 3, Pueblo County votes are still being tabulated. We will work together with the Secretary of State’s office to ensure Colorado voters will be heard and that every vote is counted before victory is declared in CD3.”

President Barack Obama, in a post-mortem press conference this afternoon on Tuesday’s brutal midterm election that saw Democrats lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives and barely hold onto the Senate, praised so-called Blue Dog Democrats in largely Republican districts who took courageous votes for the administration agenda despite the possibility of being thrown out of office.

As of last night, it looked as if that’s exactly what happened to Salazar in CD3 and Betsy Markey in largely rural CD4. Markey, whom Obama just last week praised by name on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” for taking tough votes, definitely lost to Republican Cory Gardner Tuesday. Salazar, the brother of U.S. Interior Secretary and former Colorado senator Ken Salazar, appears headed for the same fate.

But while Markey voted for Obama’s climate change legislation, including cap and trade, Salazar – from an agrarian and energy rich district — did not. At his press conference today, Obama declared cap and trade all but dead. Asked if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should administratively regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Obama said the agency is under a court order compelling it to deal with the emissions in some way.

Saying the feds can’t ignore the science on climate change, he went on to explain that cap and trade was “just one way of skinning the cat,” suggesting the incoming Republican Congress will have to work hard with Democrats to look at other ways reduce heat-trapping emissions.

The margin of victory for Tipton was 50 to 46 percent, tipping Colorado’s congressional delegation from 5-2 Democrat to 4-3 Republican.

As the candidates reached out to rural voters over an area larger than some states, The Times said one thing unites them as each tries to make the case that he is the true independent voice, neither swayed by nor beholden to party politics.

Salazar told voters in Creede — where two-thirds had already voted — that the health care plan was good for Colorado and a turning point for America. In another corner of the district, Tipton tried to convince voters he was the one who could put a steady hand on the economy.

From The Times:

In Colorado’s huge and mostly rural Third Congressional District, it was a final-push weekend of consolidating support. Both candidates focused on giving their backers a nudge of resolve — a stiffening of the spine, an inspiration to vote and a rationale for doing so. The far-flung district and the small towns in it made the effort a geographic scramble, with appearances by both men in tiny communities hundreds of miles apart, courting a handful of votes that both sides said could decide the election.

The district’s political culture is prickly and unpredictable — Republican on paper, wildly libertarian in spirit, with pockets of Hispanic voters who lean Democratic. Both candidates stressed that they could best speak for that complex stew, standing up to their own parties when necessary.

That way the actual constituents of such Dems – like Colorado’s John Salazar, CD3, and Betsy Markey, CD4 – can’t get through to them to let them know how they feel, one way or the other.

According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, CD3 residents on the Western Slope were upset last week that they couldn’t get through to a live voice or even voice mail at any of Salazar’s various offices, perhaps in part due to efforts of Tea Party talking heads like Michelle Malkin on FOX News, who’s been calling for a concerted calling campaign.

“We have a voice mailbox specifically set up for people who want to leave comments for the congressman, but 95 percent of those have been from out of state,” Salazar field representative Gail Gnirk told the Sentinel. “They spill over into everybody else’s voice mail, but I try to go through those every 20 minutes. It’s become impossible to do. I found six conservative Web sites that are telling people to call this office directly.”

It’s the kind of thing likely to draw right-wing activist and suspected break-in felon James O’Keefe to one of the “people’s offices” to see if the phones need fixing.

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Acknowledging that with 15 months to go before the 2010 election it’s a bit early to be counting coffers, the paper noted that Salazar, a three-term Democrat, has raised nearly 50 times more money than Beeson and has nearly 100 times more cash on hand.

Citing OpenSecrets.org, the paper reported Salazar raised $279,626 in the last reporting period ending June 30 compared to $6,100 for Beeson, and had $588,010 on hand compared to $6,063 for Beeson.

In announcing his candidacy in May, Beeson went after Salazar for his profligate spending on the House Appropriations Committee:

“As Americans, we must re-summon our courage and stand anew for that central value — freedom. Freedom to pursue the destiny God has designed for each of us without fear of Congress confiscating and redistributing destiny’s bounty through the House Appropriations Committee.”

….To equate having a valid ID to participate in the basic act of American self-government with a poll tax or to equate it with invidious racism, as some Democrats were quick to do, is demagogic flumdiddle….

No doubt, the Salazar campaign is skimble-scambled by the endorsement.