The Colorado Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Colorado. Located in Denver, the court was established in 1876. It consists of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices who are appointed by the Governor of Colorado from a list of candidates approved by a state judicial commission. Each justice faces a retention election two years after his or her appointment and every ten years thereafter, with mandatory retirement at age 72.
The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), or Proposal 2, was a ballot initiative in the U.S. state of Michigan that passed into Michigan Constitutional law by a 58% to 42% margin on November 7, 2006, according to results officially certified by the Michigan Secretary of State. By Michigan law, the Proposal became law on December 22, 2006. MCRI was a citizen initiative aimed at banning consideration of race, color, sex, or religion in admission to colleges, jobs, and other publicly funded institutions – effectively prohibiting some affirmative action by public institutions based on those factors. The Proposal's constitutionality was challenged in federal court, but its constitutionality was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States.
Georgia Constitutional Amendment 1 of 2004, is an amendment to the Georgia Constitution that previously made it unconstitutional for the state to recognize or perform same-sex marriages or civil unions. The referendum was approved by 76% of the voters.
The Constitution of the State of Colorado is the foundation of the laws and government of the U.S. state of Colorado. The Colorado State Constitution was drafted on March 14, 1876; approved by Colorado voters on July 1, 1876; and took effect upon the statehood of Colorado on August 1, 1876. As of 2020, the constitution has been amended at least 166 times. The Constitution of Colorado derives its authority from the sovereignty of the people. As such, the people of Colorado reserved specific powers in governing Colorado directly; in addition to providing for voting for Governor, state legislators, and judges, the people of Colorado have reserved initiative of laws and referendum of laws enacted by the legislature to themselves, provided for recall of office holders, and limit tax increases beyond set amounts without explicit voter approval, and must explicitly approve any change to the constitution, often with a 55% majority. The Colorado state constitution is one of the longest in the United States.
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in court. The proposition was created by opponents of same-sex marriage in advance of the California Supreme Court's May 2008 appeal ruling, In re Marriage Cases, which followed the short-lived 2004 same-sex weddings controversy and found the previous ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by a federal court in 2010, although the court decision did not go into effect until June 26, 2013, following the conclusion of proponents' appeals.
Amendment 54 was a proposed initiative on the Colorado ballot for 2008. It passed with 51.2% of the vote.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Colorado since October 7, 2014. Colorado's state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was struck down in state district court on July 9, 2014, and by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on July 23, 2014. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had already made similar rulings with respect to such bans in Utah on June 25 and Oklahoma on July 18, which are binding precedents on courts in Colorado. On October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the Tenth Circuit cases, and the Tenth Circuit lifted its stay. On October 7, the Colorado Supreme Court and the Tenth Circuit cleared the way for same-sex marriages to begin in Colorado. Colorado was the 25th U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly, depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction, although there is no uniform federal law. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions; others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while some allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.
Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, Inc., 525 U.S. 182 (1999), was a United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the authority of states to regulate the electoral process, and the point at which state regulations of the electoral process violate the First Amendment freedoms.
Citizens for Equal Protection v. Bruning, 455 F.3d 859, was a federal lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska and decided on appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. It challenged the federal constitutionality of Nebraska Initiative Measure 416, a 2000 ballot initiative that amended the Nebraska Constitution to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions, and other same-sex relationships.
The California state elections was held on Election Day, November 6, 2012. On the ballot were eleven propositions, various parties' nominees for the United States presidency, the Class I Senator to the United States Senate, all of California's seats to the House of Representatives, all of the seats of the State Assembly, and all odd-numbered seats of the State Senate.
Scott Gessler is an American politician and the former Secretary of State of Colorado, having served from 2011 to 2015. He is a former business owner and elections attorney. Gessler is a member of the Republican Party. Gessler is also a veteran of the United States Army.
The Colorado recall election of 2013 was a successful effort to recall two Democratic members of the Colorado Senate following their support of new gun control legislation. Initially four politicians were targeted, but sufficient signatures could only be obtained for State Senate President John Morse and State Senator Angela Giron.
Florida Amendment 2, Use of Marijuana for Certain Medical Conditions, is an initiative that appeared on the November 4, 2014, ballot in the state of Florida as a citizen initiated state constitutional amendment. It received a higher percentage than the 2006 vote which raised the minimum requirement to a 3/5 majority, although it failed to pass.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Arkansas since the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, striking down same-sex marriage bans nationwide. Prior to this, same-sex marriage in Arkansas was briefly legal for a period beginning on May 9, 2014, as a result of a ruling by Sixth Judicial Circuit Judge Chris Piazza striking down the state's constitutional and statutory bans on same-sex marriage as violating the U.S. Constitution. Approximately 541 same-sex couples received marriage licenses in several counties before the Arkansas Supreme Court stayed his ruling pending appeal on May 16, 2014.
Brinkman v. Long, and its companion case, McDaniel-Miccio v. Hickenlooper, are the lead state court cases on same-sex marriage in Colorado. Here, a Colorado district court found on July 9, 2014, that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates same-sex couples' guarantees of equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Brinkman and McDaniel-Miccio have been appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, where they were dismissed following the dismissal of similar petitions by the U.S. Supreme Court on October 6, 2014.
Richard L. Gabriel was an American lawyer and judge, who was an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. He previously served on the Colorado Court of Appeals from 2008 to 2015.
Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 578 (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case on the issue of "faithless electors" in the Electoral College stemming from the 2016 United States presidential election. The Court ruled unanimously, by a vote of 9–0, that states have the ability to enforce an elector's pledge in presidential elections. Chiafalo deals with electors who received US$1,000 fines for not voting for the nominees of their party in the state of Washington. The case was originally consolidated with Colorado Department of State v. Baca, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), a similar case based on a challenge to a Colorado law providing for the removal and replacement of an elector who does not vote for the presidential candidate who received the most votes in the state, with the electors claiming they have discretion to vote as they choose under the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On March 10, 2020, Justice Sonia Sotomayor recused herself in the Colorado case due to a prior relationship to a respondent, and the cases were decided separately on July 6, 2020. Baca was a per curiam decision that followed from the unanimous ruling in Chiafalo against the faithless electors and in favor of the state.
Amendment 2 was a ballot measure approved by Colorado voters on November 3, 1992, simultaneously with the United States presidential election. The amendment prevented municipalities from enacting anti-discrimination laws protecting gay, lesbian, or bisexual people.
Tina Peters is an American convicted felon who is the former County Clerk of Mesa County, Colorado. Described in 2022 as "one of at least twenty-two election deniers vying to take charge of elections in eighteen states", she was the first election official in the U.S. convicted of criminal charges related to stolen election conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 United States presidential election. In August 2024, she was convicted on charges relating to unauthorized access to election machines. Peters was sentenced to nine years of incarceration in October 2024.
