The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday threw out a trio of ballot measures that aimed to redraw the state’s congressional map and give Democrats three more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, removing Colorado from the nationwide battle over redistricting and delivering a victory to Republicans.
The initiatives, funded by a group linked to U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, would have temporarily paused the state’s independent redistricting process, which voters added to the state constitution in 2018.
Had voters approved the ballot measures in November, they would have put new maps in place for the elections in 2028 and 2030, making Democrats favored to win seven of Colorado’s eight congressional seats, up from the four they hold today.
Only Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, represented by Republican Lauren Boebert, would have remained a safe GOP seat.
But in two decisions on Monday, the state Supreme Court ruled that the proposal violated the “single subject” requirement in the state constitution, which requires that ballot initiatives have only one central purpose.
“Changing the constitutionally mandated frequency of redistricting — however temporary the change — is not merely a mechanism to administer the new congressional district map,” Chief Justice Monica Marquez wrote in the court’s unanimous decision blocking Initiative 240. “Instead, it represents a seismic shift to Colorado’s longstanding redistricting process enshrined in the state constitution.”
Traditionally, redistricting has occurred once a decade following the U.S. census. But states across the country have adopted new congressional maps in recent months as part of an extraordinary off-cycle attempt — set off by President Donald Trump — to gain an edge in congressional contests. Republicans have gained more of an advantage from those efforts than Democrats.
In Colorado — an increasingly blue state — the efforts were complicated by the state’s independent redistricting commission, which voters created through amendments to the state constitution. The ballot measures creating the new system were the result of a bipartisan agreement aimed at preventing partisan gerrymandering.
Because redistricting power was taken away from the legislature, Colorado Democrats were unable to join the national redistricting fight without asking voters to amend the state constitution yet again.
The measures, Initiatives 240, 241 and 242, were filed earlier this year by an organization called Coloradans for a Level Playing Field. The group intended for them to go before voters in November.
Initiative 240 contained the entire plan in one measure, while Initiatives 241 and 242 were a novel attempt to break the maneuver into two parts to circumvent the single-subject rule. But in a second unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Richard Gabriel, the court ruled that conditioning one measure on the passage of the other was still a violation of the single-subject requirement.
“When a measure’s effectiveness is expressly contingent on the passage of a separate and independent measure, the measure contains multiple subjects, just as if the measures were combined into one,” Gabriel wrote.
Coloradans for a Level Playing Field had already spent more than $2 million through June 10 on legal fees and signature gathering with the hopes that the measures would be allowed to proceed by the Colorado Supreme Court.
The group said it had gathered tens of thousands of voter signatures to get their measures on the November ballot. (They needed about 125,000 per measure.)
But Republicans challenged the measures in court, leading to Monday’s decision.
“The success of this partisan attempt to sideline Coloradans from responding to Donald Trump’s unprecedented mid-decade redistricting scheme is disappointing,” Curtis Hubbard, a spokesperson for Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, said in a written statement. “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.”
Hubbard said with Colorado unable to join the redistricting fight, Republicans are set to net up to 11 seats in Congress.
Republicans responded to Coloradans for a Level Playing Field with Colorado ballot measures of their own that would require the Colorado Supreme Court and the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission to review any congressional maps in Colorado redrawn outside of the independent redistricting process.
Those measures, backed by Advance Colorado, have been approved for signature gathering and may still appear on the November ballot.
This is a developing story that will be updated.