An Act to provide a temporary Government for the Territory of Colorado[2]
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.[3] 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,[4] the people of Colorado have reserved initiative of laws and referendum of laws enacted by the legislature to themselves,[5] provided for recall of office holders,[6] and limit tax increases beyond set amounts without explicit voter approval (via the Taxpayer Bill of Rights),[7] and must explicitly approve any change to the constitution, often with a 55% majority.[8] The Colorado state constitution is one of the longest in the United States.[9]
The first Jefferson Constitutional Convention meeting in Denver City adopted a proposed "Constitution of the State of Jefferson" on August 1, 1859. This proposed state constitution was a modified version of the second Constitution of the State of Iowa that was drafted two years earlier. The next month (September 5), voters of the gold fields reject statehood as premature. On October 3, the second Jefferson Constitutional Convention in Denver City adopted a proposed Constitution of the Territory of Jefferson. This proposed territorial constitution was a modified version of the rejected state constitution that was drafted two months earlier.
Map of the extralegal Territory of Jefferson
By a vote of 2163 to 280, the voters of the gold fields approved the creation of the free Territory of Jefferson on October 24, 1859. The new territory included portions of the Territory of Kansas, the Territory of Nebraska, the Territory of New Mexico, the Territory of Utah, and the Territory of Washington. The United States Congress refused to recognize this new citizen-initiated territory because of the precarious balance of power between the free states and the slave states in the US. However, the Jefferson Territorial government effectively governed the region until 1861 with little interference from the federal government. The next year, on October 10, 1860, Denver City voters approved the Constitution of the "People's Government of Denver", which operated as an independent municipal government.
On January 29, 1861, "An Act Admitting the State of Kansas to the Union" was signed into law by President James Buchanan. The act included only the eastern two-thirds of the Territory of Kansas in the boundaries of the new state, which left the western portion of the Kansas Territory (claimed by the Territory of Jefferson) formally unorganized. The next month, Buchanan signed the Organic Act for the Territory of Colorado.[2] This new territory occupied most of the extralegal territory of Jefferson, but was 41% less extensive. The Jefferson Territory formally disbanded on June 6, 1861, in favor of the government of the Territory of Colorado.
The American Civil War started in April 1861, shortly after Abraham Lincoln became the president of the US in March. During the war, the Colorado territory's population remained generally supportive of the Union. Lincoln signed "An Enabling Act for the State of Colorado" on March 21, 1864, which allowed the citizens of the territory to organize a state, contingent on later congressional recognition. Three months later, on July 11, 1864, the first Colorado Constitutional Convention in Denver City adopted the first proposed "Constitution of the State of Colorado". This proposed constitution was inspired by the Wyandotte Constitution of the State of Kansas drafted in 1859. However, on October 11, Colorado voters rejected this particular formulation by a vote of 1520 to 4672, primarily because it included a pre-selected slate of candidates for state and national office.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, and the civil war ended in May. The second Colorado Constitutional Convention adopted their proposed "Constitution of the State of Colorado" on August 12 of that year. Colorado voters approved this constitution on September 1. However, President Andrew Johnson refused to declare the statehood of Colorado, in part because he feared it would lead to a Republican majority in the US Congress. This action frustrated congress, who subsequently approved a new "Colorado Statehood Bill", which Johnson vetoed May 15, 1866. Congress subsequently approved a second Colorado Statehood Bill, which was also vetoed in January 1867.
Ulysses S. Grant became the President of the United States in March 1869. During Grant's time in office, Congress tried and failed to pass a third, fourth, and fifth Colorado Statehood Bill in 1869, 1871, and 1873 respectively. Then in December 1873, Grant endorsed a second enabling act for Colorado's statehood during his address to congress. The second "Enabling Act for the State of Colorado" was then enacted and signed into law by Grant on March 3, 1875.[12]
Map of the United States in 1876
Colorado voters elected delegates to the third Colorado Constitutional Convention on October 10, 1875. This convention in Denver adopted their third proposed "Constitution of the State of Colorado" on March 14, 1876. This proposed state constitution was inspired by the third Constitution of the State of Illinois (1870), the fourth Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1873), and the third Constitution of the State of Missouri (1875). This constitution was at the time (and remains to this day) one of the lengthiest of the state constitutions in the United States.[9][13] Colorado voters approved this constitution on July 1, 1876, three days before the Centennial of the United States. President Grant then proclaimed that the Territory of Colorado had been accepted into the US as the State of Colorado on August 1, with its 1876 constitution.[14] The state was immediately nicknamed the "Centennial State".
When it was adopted in 1876, the constitution included a "Schedule" at the end, which laid out specific provisions for the transition of Colorado from its territorial government to its statehood.
From 1876 to 2007, the Constitution of the State of Colorado had been amended 152 times. In 2012, voters approved recreational use of marijuana via constitutional amendment. In 2018, voters approved a new set of amendments related to congressional apportionment at state and federal levels intended to reduce gerrymandering.
There are presently three ways to amend the Colorado state constitution. First, an initiative may be proposed directly by the people of Colorado, achieve a required number of signatures on a petition, and then be voted on in a state-wide referendum, in which must achieve a 55% majority in order to be adopted. Second, the state assembly may draft an amendment, approve it by a two-thirds majority vote in each house, and then send it to the voters, who must again approve it with a 55% majority in a state-wide referendum. In either of these methods, if the amendment is limited only to repealing a part of the constitution, it only needs a simple majority approval in state-wide referendum. Third, the state assembly may call a constitutional convention (political meeting) by a two-thirds majority vote in each house and simple majority approval of voters in a state-wide referendum, with members then determined by state-wide election using state senate districts, who would submit alterations to the voters to approve as a slate via simple majority.[1][15]
Despite these relatively high bars to passing any given amendment, at least 166 amendments to the constitution have been passed since its initial adoption in 1876.[1] Prior to 2016, constitutional amendments needed to only achieve a 50% majority upon state-wide referendum.[16]
The constitution's Article II, The Bill of Rights, contains two provisions added via amendment related to sexual orientation that were found to violate the US Constitution. The first of these, Section 30b, was passed in 1992 and prohibited legislative or administrative bodies in Colorado from declaring sexual orientation a basis of protected status; this was found unconstitutional in Romer v. Evans and so is not in force. The second of these provisions, Section 31, passed as 2006 Colorado Amendment 43, effectively banned same-sex marriage. This provision was affected by three different federal cases: Kitchen v. Herbert (2014), Bishop v. Smith (2014), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The last of these cases guaranteed the right to same-sex marriage in every state in the US, effectively nullifying this section. However, section 30b remains in the text of the present Colorado constitution, and has not been repealed. Amendment 43 was repealed by Colorado voters on November 5, 2024.
In 1992, voters approved an amendment creating Article X, Section 20, which established the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). This law is a constitutional provision which intentionally limits tax increases every year, making it impossible for the Colorado legislature or other bodies to raise taxes in Colorado beyond set annual increases without explicit voter approval via referendum.
There have been at least two amendments related to congressional term limits. The first of these amendments (Article XVIII, Section 12, "Amendment 12") was made effective in December 1996 and attempted to direct Colorado's representatives to the US Congress to propose and vote for an amendment to the US constitution in support of congressional term limits. This amendment was found unconstitutional in the 1998 Colorado Supreme Court case Morrissey v. State, on the grounds that a state's voters could not compel their representatives to vote or act in a legislature in any particular way, as doing so would be contrary to the republican form of government guaranteed by the Guarantee Clause of the US Constitution.[17] Amendment 12 was subsequently repealed in 2002, though it had not been in effect for four years. The second congressional term limit amendment (Article XVIII, Section 12a, "Amendment 18") was much reduced in scope, and instead opted to allow candidates for US Congress to sign a pledge to honor term limits to three terms in the US House of Representatives and two terms in the US Senate, with information about a candidate's pledge status appearing on the ballot next to their name. This amendment took effect on December 30, 1998.
In 2006, the constitution was amended to allow and regulate medical marijuana ("Amendment 20"). Eight years later, another amendment legalized marijuana possession and use generally ("Amendment 64"). Both of these amendments are presently contained in Article XIX of the constitution, "Miscellany". Also in 2006, "Amendment 41" was passed, creating an independent ethics commission for state officers with the intent of regulating gifts and lobbying.
1982 Gallagher Amendment, set forth a formula for determining property values (repealed in 2020)
1992 Colorado Amendment 1, "Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR)", a restriction on tax increases without voter approval
1992 Colorado Amendment 2, prohibited protected status on the basis of sexual orientation (overturned in Romer v. Evans)
1996 Colorado Amendment 12, attempted to compel Colorado representatives to the US Congress to support a constitutional amendment requiring term limits (found unconstitutional in Morrissey v. State (1998))
1998 Colorado Amendment 18, requires candidates for US congress to either pledge to voluntarily term-limit themselves or sign a form stating that they refused to sign such a pledge
2016 Colorado Amendment 71, changed the signature requirement for ballot initiatives and increased the amendment approval threshold from a 50% to 55% majority
A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, they can be appended to the constitution as supplemental additions, thus changing the frame of government without altering the existing text of the document.
The District of Columbia statehood movement is a political movement that advocates making the District of Columbia a U.S. state, to provide the residents of the District of Columbia with voting representation in the Congress and complete control over local affairs.
The Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson was an extralegal and unrecognized United States territory that existed in the Pike's Peak mining region from October 24, 1859, until it yielded to the new Territory of Colorado on June 6, 1861. The Jefferson Territory, named for Founding Father and third United States president Thomas Jefferson, included land officially part of the Kansas Territory, the Nebraska Territory, the New Mexico Territory, the Utah Territory, and the Washington Territory, but the region was remote from the governments of those five territories.
A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises at times when action is taken. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote. In consensus democracy the supermajority rule is applied in most cases.
In the politics of the United States, the process of initiatives and referendums allow citizens of many U.S. states to place legislation on the ballot for a referendum or popular vote, either enacting new legislation, or voting down existing legislation. Citizens, or an organization, might start a popular initiative to gather a predetermined number of signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. The measure is placed on the ballot for the referendum, or actual vote.
In Australia, referendums are public votes held on important issues where the electorate may approve or reject a certain proposal. In contemporary usage, polls conducted on non-constitutional issues are known as plebiscites, with the term referendum being reserved solely for votes on constitutional changes, which is legally required to make a change to the Constitution of Australia.
The Constitution of the State of Texas is the document that establishes the structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Texas and enumerates the basic rights of the citizens of Texas.
The Constitution of Arkansas is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of Arkansas delineating the duties, powers, structures, and functions of the state government. Arkansas' original constitution was adopted at a constitutional convention held at Little Rock in advance of the territory's admission to the Union in 1836. In 1861 a constitution was adopted with succession. After the American Civil War its 1864 constitution was drafted. An 1868 constitution was passed to comply with the Reconstruction acts. The current constitution was ratified in 1874 following the Brooks–Baxter War.
The Constitution of the State of Florida is the document that establishes and describes the powers, duties, structure, and function of the government of the U.S. state of Florida, and establishes the basic law of the state. The current Constitution of Florida was ratified on November 5, 1968.
The Constitution of the State of Ohio is the basic governing document of the State of Ohio, which in 1803 became the 17th state to join the United States of America. Ohio has had three constitutions since statehood was granted.
The Constitution of North Dakota is the most basic legal document in the U.S. state of North Dakota. It consists of a preamble and fourteen articles.
The Constitution of the State of Oklahoma is the governing document of the U.S. State of Oklahoma. Adopted in 1907, Oklahoma ratified the United States Constitution on November 16, 1907, as the 46th U.S. state. At its ratification, the Oklahoma Constitution was the lengthiest governing document of any government in the U.S. All U.S. state constitutions are subject to federal judicial review; any provision can be nullified if it conflicts with the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution of the State of Wisconsin is the governing document of the U.S. State of Wisconsin. It establishes the structure and function of state government, describes the state boundaries, and declares the rights of state citizens. The Wisconsin Constitution was written at a constitutional convention held in Madison, Wisconsin, in December 1847 and approved by the citizens of Wisconsin Territory in a referendum held in March 1848. Wisconsin was admitted to the United States on May 29, 1848. Although it has been amended over a hundred times, the original constitution ratified in 1848 is still in use. This makes the Wisconsin Constitution the oldest U.S. state constitution outside New England; only Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont use older constitutions.
In the United States, term limits restrict the number of terms of office an officeholder may serve. At the federal level, the president of the United States can serve a maximum of two four-year terms, limited by the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Some state government offices are also term-limited, including executive, legislative, and judicial offices.
The Constitution of the State of Nevada is the organic law of the state of Nevada, and the basis for Nevada's statehood as one of the United States.
The Constitution of Indiana is the highest body of state law in the U.S. state of Indiana. It establishes the structure and function of the state and is based on the principles of federalism and Jacksonian democracy. Indiana's constitution is subordinate only to the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Prior to the enactment of Indiana's first state constitution and achievement of statehood in 1816, the Indiana Territory was governed by territorial law. The state's first constitution was created in 1816, after the U.S. Congress had agreed to grant statehood to the former Indiana Territory. The present-day document, which went into effect on November 1, 1851, is the state's second constitution. It supersedes Indiana's 1816 constitution and has had numerous amendments since its initial adoption.
The Constitution of the State of New Mexico is the document that establishes the fundamental political framework of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It sets forth the principles and structure of government, enumerates the rights of citizens, and functions as the supreme law of the state, subordinate only to the United States Constitution.
The politics of Colorado refers to the political system and electoral processes of the U.S. state of Colorado. The state operates under a constitution adopted in 1876 and features both a traditional three-branch system of government and extensive direct democracy mechanisms, including citizen initiatives and referendums.
A referendum on statehood for the District of Columbia was held on November 8, 2016. It was the first referendum on statehood to be held in the district. The District of Columbia was created following the passage of the Residence Act on July 9, 1790, which approved the creation of a national capital, the City of Washington on the Potomac River.
The 1876 Colorado gubernatorial election took place on October 3, 1876, to elect the 1st Governor of Colorado after the state was admitted to the union on August 1, 1876. Republican John Long Routt, last governor of the Colorado Territory, was elected in a close race against Democratic nominee Bela M. Hughes.
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