Colorado won't see proposals for congressional map changes on upcoming ballots

DENVER (CN) — The Colorado State Supreme Court on Monday rejected three ballot measures proposing changes to the state’s congressional map for referencing one another in a way that violates the state’s constitutional provision limiting ballot proposals to single issues.

“Each of these cases presents, among other issues, the question of whether an initiative violates the single subject requirement when its effectiveness is conditioned on the passage of a separate initiative,” Supreme Court Justice Richard Gabriel wrote in a unanimous 144-page opinion.

Earlier this year, the state Title Board reviewed the three initiatives for placement on the ballot in November that promised to change Colorado’s congressional districts and the means of drawing them.

Telling voters, “President Trump’s election-rigging scheme is an emergency for our democracy,” proposal 241 asked voters to replace the constitutional provision governing the state’s current independent redistricting commission with an identical provision under state statute, which lawmakers would then have the ability to alter without direct voter input.

In line with 241, initiative 242 proposed creating a new congressional map for the 2028 and 2030 elections, and initiative 328 offered a temporary congressional map.

The nonprofit Coloradans for a Level Playing Field drafted the initiatives after President Donald Trump directed Republican-led states to redraw their maps to favor conservatives. In response, Texas Governor Greg Abbott notably signed legislation eliminating Democratic districts and California voters redrew their own maps to favor Democrats.

Colorado’s independent redistricting committee most recently created the politically competitive boundary around Congressional District 8 in 2021, encompassing the left-leaning suburbs of Thornton and Commerce City with conservative rural Weld County to the north.

In addition to flipping political parties between its first and second election, voters in the district supported Democrats for state office in 2022 and Donald Trump for president in the 2024 general election.

Colorado is currently represented by four Democrats and four Republicans in Congress.

Upon review, the state Title Board initially rejected proposal 328, but gave the green light for 241 and 242 to go to voters.

Represented by former Republican Secretary of State and attorney Scott Gessler, three voters filed petitions with the state Supreme Court to reject them for violating the state constitution.

Because 241 and 242 each relied on the other passing to go into effect, the high court found they violated the state constitution’s provision limiting ballot initiatives to single-subject issues with clear titles. The court affirmed the Title Board’s decision to reject 328.

The single-subject rule is intended to protect voters from being coerced into supporting something they would otherwise oppose.

“Such a requirement prevents proponents from combining multiple subjects to attract a ‘yes’ vote from voters who might vote ‘no’ on one or more of the subjects if they were proposed separately,” Gabriel wrote in the court’s opinion.

The proposed ballot measures failed this test in the court’s view, because they did not allow voters to support the new congressional map while opposing the new redistricting committee or vice versa.

“The question thus becomes whether the result should differ when these two subjects are contained in separate initiatives but when the effectiveness of each initiative is expressly contingent on the passage of the other,” Gabriel wrote.

Although each side accused the other of gerrymandering, the court declined to use the word in its opinion and did not evaluate the merits or the ballot proposals.

“The true winners of today’s decision are the people of Colorado,” Frank McNulty, chairman of Fair Maps Colorado, said in a statement. The bipartisan organization supported previous ballot initiatives that created Colorado’s current redistricting process.

“While other states stumble into the partisan abyss via gerrymandering warfare, Colorado is defending its reputation as a beacon for fairness and good government,” McNulty added.

Coloradans for a Level Playing Field was represented by attorney Martha Tierney, who practices with Tierney Lawrence Stiles in Denver. Over email, spokesperson Curtis Hubbard criticized the court’s finding.

“The success of this partisan attempt to sideline Coloradans from responding to Donald Trump’s unprecedented mid-decade redistricting scheme is disappointing,” Hubbard wrote. “While Trump and his MAGA allies regularly sidestep the law and ignore voters, efforts to respond have once again been dealt a legal setback over a technicality.”

Representatives for the Colorado Secretary of State and the attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Colorado’s full Supreme Court was appointed by the state’s last three Democratic governors: Monica Márquez by Bill Ritter; Brian Boatright, William Hood, Carlos Samour and Gabriel by John Hickenlooper; Maria Berkenkotter and Susan Blanco by outgoing Jared Polis.

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