The Colorado Supreme Court on June 29 unanimously struck down all five redistricting-related ballot initiatives that had been approved for signature gathering, ruling that each violated the state constitution’s single-subject requirement. The single-subject rule, codified in Article V, Section 1(5.5) of the Colorado Constitution, provides that “no measure shall be proposed by petition containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly expressed in its title,” and that if a measure contains more than one subject such that a ballot title cannot be fixed to clearly express a single subject, “no title shall be set and the measure shall not be submitted to the people for adoption or rejection at the polls.” The rule is designed to prevent “logrolling,” the practice of bundling unrelated provisions together so voters are forced to accept unpopular items in order to approve popular ones.
In three separate opinions, the court found that both the Democrat-backed measures (Initiatives 240, 241, and 242, filed by Coloradans for a Level Playing Field) and the Republican-backed measures (Initiatives 251 and 256, filed by Advance Colorado) impermissibly combined changes to the redistricting process with approval of specific congressional maps for the 2028 and 2030 elections. Chief Justice Monica Márquez wrote in a concurring opinion that the measures went beyond their stated purpose by “changing the timing, frequency, criteria, and the responsible entity for congressional redistricting,” calling the proposals “a seismic shift to Colorado’s longstanding redistricting process enshrined in the state constitution.”
The ruling effectively removes Colorado from the national redistricting fight for the foreseeable future, as there is no realistic path to drafting compliant new proposals, securing Title Board approval, and gathering approximately 125,000 valid signatures before the August 3 petition deadline. Colorado’s 4-4 partisan split in its congressional delegation, drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census, will likely remain in place through at least the 2030 redistricting cycle.
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