At the turn of the century, Colorado emerged as a purple state in presidential politics and showed evidence that state level office holders were also trending in a more liberal direction . Some argue that the migration of liberals to Colorado from places like California and elsewhere essentially created “a new Western community – a community of creative classes, childless households and urban professionals who are more likely to vote Democrat than the rural conservatives they are increasingly outnumbering” . However, even as the state shifted to prefer Democratic presidential candidates beginning in 2008, the number of registered Republicans exceeded the number of registered Democrats until 2016. At the time of the 2014 midterm elections, unaffiliated voters constituted the largest voting bloc at 34.8% of the electorate, followed by 32.9% Republican, and 30.9% Democratic. Reforms to the state’s presidential and congressional primary rules passed in 2016 adopted a presidential primary and permitted unaffiliated voters with the opportunity to participate in either the Democratic or Republican primary.
These reforms resulted in an immediate increase in the share of unaffiliated voters, nft system which continues to grow. The most recent figures from the Secretary of State’s office indicate that nearly half of the state’s active voters are registered as unaffiliated. Registered Democrats and Republicans constitute an additional 26% and 23.3% of the electorate, respectively . This near parity in major-party voter registration masks the share of the electorate inclined to support Democratic candidates and liberal policy reforms. A recent survey of Coloradoans suggests that unaffiliated voters trust the Democratic party by large margins over its Republican counterparts. On the issues of abortion and climate change, unaffiliated voters trusted the Democratic party by margins of about 45 percentage points. Voters also trusted Democrats by wide margins on the issues of health care , protecting public lands , improving public education , and supporting the working- and middle-class . Respondents also slightly preferred Democrats on the issues of inflation/cost of living and improving the economy . The single issue where unaffiliated voters expressed more trust in Republicans was reducing crime and promoting public safety . As Democrats continue to expand their political power, Republicans have fewer options available to obstruct liberal policy reforms. Democrats successfully repealed the death penalty amidst filibuster threats and near unanimous Republican opposition in 2020, for example.
According to an analysis of ideological polarization in state legislatures over time, Shor and McCarty conclude that Colorado surpassed California as the most ideologically polarized legislature in the nation in 2017 . Figure 1 shows estimates of party ideology in select states using responses to the National Political Awareness Test . The chasm between parties is wide in many Western states including Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Washington, but the rapid polarization of the Colorado legislature across a relatively short period of time is particularly notable. A steady march to the right has positioned the Colorado Republican party as the most conservative in the West, and by 2020, the California Democrats were the only Western party ranked as more liberal than Colorado Democrats . Consistent gains averaging one seat in the Senate and 2.4 seats in the House across recent election cycles has positioned the Democratic party on the cusp of super majority status in both chambers. Democrats have viewed these large majorities as a mandate from the electorate to advance a progressive agenda alongside like minded Democratic governors. The parties remain deeply divided on contentious issues such as abortion, gun control, health care, and election administration.While a unified majority has the votes to impose its will on a numerically disadvantaged minority party, the Colorado General Assembly has a history of protecting minority rights. In recent terms, Republicans have used dilatory tactics to slow progressive policy change including requests to read bills in their entirety. This trend began over objections to Democratic efforts to impose greater regulations on the extraction industry.
In response to more frequent Republican motions to read the full text of bills, sometimes thousands of pages long, the Democrats attempted negotiation, but ultimately decided to have multiple computers read the text aloud at an intelligible speed of about 650 words per minute. In Markwell v. Cooke the Colorado Supreme Court held by a 4-3 vote that the “cacophony” method to read bills in a manner that produced “unintelligible sounds” for hours at a time failed to comply with article V, section 22 of the state’s constitution .3 This ruling emboldened Republicans to continue using stalling tactics to obstruct the Democratic majority. After gaining additional seats in the 2022 elections, Democrats sought to advance several controversial measures over considerable Republican opposition. Although the legislature has a norm of unlimited debate, House Rule 14 permits a majority vote as sufficient to limit further debate on a bill to a minimum of one hour following a successful vote. In the past neither party seemed inclined to invoke Rule 14 to end debate, in part because majority party leaders recognized that they may find themselves in the minority at some point in the not so distant future. However, with substantial Republican opposition to gun control reform and greater confidence that Democrats can maintain their majorities, Democrats employed the rarely used cloture-type mechanism to advance progressive gun control reforms. These included increasing the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21-years-old , imposing a 3-day waiting period for gun purchases , expanding the criteria for making reports under the state’s “red-flag” law , and imposing greater liability for firearms manufacturers . Justifying the decision to invoke Rule 14 for the first time in at least 10 years after enduring legislative debates that at times extended overnight into the early morning, House Speaker Julie McCluskie said, “Filibustering and delay tactics, by having bills read at length, is not why we were voted into office. We were voted into office to consider and debate policy. At the time we invoked House Rule 14, we wanted to drive more productive conversations” . Health care reforms regarding reproductive rights and gender-affirming health care coverage likewise involved bitter partisan conflict and further Republican delays. Since the existence of term limits has restricted the time legislators may serve, few current Democrats have institutional memories of serving in the minority party. The next session of the General Assembly will have zero Democratic lawmakers who previously served in the minority party. This collective inexperience serving as a minority party likely contributed to a greater willingness among Democrats to impose their will on numerically disadvantaged conservatives. With less fear of a tit-for-tat retribution in the near-term future, Democrats proceeded to invoke Rule 14 more than a dozen times in 2023 to advance their policy goals on a range of issues deemed worthy of such norm breaking.Governor Polis submitted a 2024–2025 budget proposal of $15.9 billion in General Fund spending to the General Assembly on November 1, 2023. This General Fund spending balance represents a 6.0% increase from the prior year’s enacted budget. The budget letter emphasizes Polis’ spending priorities pertaining to “five bold goals for the second term,” which includes affordable housing, hydroponic gutter public safety, health care, property taxes, and renewable energy . Public polling data suggest many Coloradoans have economic concerns related to inflation, cost of living, affordable housing, and property taxes . Housing affordability is an issue that resonates across the state but especially across the Front Range and in mountain communities. The presentation of the governor’s budget to the legislature highlights many areas of investment in this area, led by an effort to develop “More Housing Now.”
Seeking to promote greater housing affordability, the governor’s budget proposes several key initiatives to this end including a $136.7 million housing package to promote development and produce a greater supply of housing units. Governor Polis also proposes $65 million in tax credits and funds for local governments to develop new housing near mass transit nodes. The budget further proposes an additional $18 million and $16 million to support local development of accessory dwelling units and further tax credits for new housing units, respectively. As it was when he first took office, education remains among Polis’ top priorities. The FY 24–25 budget proposes new investments of $561 million in primary and secondary education, which would increase per pupil funding by about $700. Another notable investment in education this year is $141.3 million to fully eliminate the budget stabilization factor to fully fund K-12 education. This milestone represents the elimination of the budget stabilization factor for the first time in nearly 15 years. Polis’ budget also seeks to further advance a key campaign pledge from his first run for governor—providing universal pre-kindergarten for every child in the state. Polis signed a bill in 2022 providing all 4-year-olds 10 hours per week of tuition-free preschool in public schools, churches, or childcare centers. The current budget proposes an additional investment of $4.3 million to support the universal pre-K program as well as $8 million to further support science education programming in public schools. Regarding higher education, the budget proposes $33.4 million to colleges across the state to prevent tuition increases that exceed half of the inflation rate. Additional investments of about $9 million are devoted to student scholarships, financial aid, and various student support programs. Another priority in the governor’s budget is public safety. According to data from the National Insurance Crime Bureau, Colorado had the highest rate of automobile thefts in the nation in 2020 and 2021 . The state is also ignominiously among the national leaders in catalytic converter theft, which spurred police departments to offer complementary catalytic converter theft prevention kits to the public. The budget allocates $14.4 million for further auto-theft prevention efforts, and $7.5 million for additional crime prevention programs at the community level. Other spending proposals to promote public safety include nearly $40 million for evidence based crime prevention to “reduce auto theft, protect communities against targeted violence, support community-led crime prevention, leverage new technology to prevent crime, helpvictims recover, and prevent gun violence” . The budget also proposes $1 million to promote Department of Corrections efforts to reduce recidivism. Regarding climate change and environmental protection, the Governor’s Office reaffirmed its commitment to reach 100% renewable energy by 2040 with its recent unveiling of a “Roadmap to 100% Renewable Energy by 2040.” The policy goals in the administration’s roadmap included modernizing the public utilities commission, supporting local government innovation, developing green jobs, promoting energy efficiency, saving consumers money, encouraging public transportation use, incentivizing zero-emission vehicles, and moving toward zero emission buildings. The budget proposal includes increased funding for climate and environmental projects in the Denver metro area as well as rural parts of the state including $14 million to improve air quality, $10 million to support sustainable agricultural practices, and $2 million to replace gas-powered landscaping equipment owned by the state with electric alternatives.Given the wide ideological gulf between the Democratic and Republican parties in Colorado, it may come as a surprise that large majorities of enacted legislation in recent years passed with bipartisan support. Nearly 95% of bills passed in 2021 and 2022 had bipartisan support. However, partisan divisions became more pronounced recently as Democratic majorities sought to advance a number of controversial progressive reforms. The percentage of bipartisan enactments decreased to 88% in 2023 and coincided with a greater proportion of measures enacted by a party line vote. The proportion of party line votes doubled from the prior year to 6.8% in 2023, while the percentage of bills with zero Republican support similarly increased to reach nearly 12% . Greater ideological polarization and divergent partisan preferences on hot-button issues produced greater acrimony between the parties, which was likewise evident during this year’s budgetary debate. An analysis of voting behavior during the last term concluded that Democrats passed considerably more bills with zero Republican support in 2023. However, intra-party divisions occasionally manifested whereby “moderate Democrats sided with Republicans in voting ‘no’ on some more liberal measures, while progressive Democrats sometimes voted against their more moderate colleagues, especially on criminal justice bills” . At least four bills with sufficient Democratic deffections required at least some Republican support . This was not the case with the state budget as Democrats demonstrated more party unity and few Republicans voted in favor. According to Senator Rachel Zenzinger who serves on the Joint Budget Committee one unique aspect to begin the 2024 budget negotiations was a discrepancy in the state’s population estimate from the U.S.