The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday unanimously blocked three ballot measures that would have let Democrats redraw the state’s congressional districts before the 2028 elections, dealing a significant blow to national Democratic efforts in the ongoing redistricting war.
Two separate unanimous rulings found the measures violated the state constitution’s “single subject” requirement. That provision bars ballot initiatives from combining multiple unrelated policy changes into a single proposition.
The Democrat-aligned group behind the effort, Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, had submitted four versions of the initiative in hopes of finding a structure that would survive court scrutiny. One version would have suspended the state’s independent redistricting commission outright, combining the authorization for mid-decade redistricting with the adoption of new district maps into a single measure. Two others split the effort into linked parts, each dependent on the other passing.
Chief Justice Monica M. Marquez rejected the first approach. “We conclude that these are distinct and separate subjects,” she wrote, finding that granting authority to redistrict mid-decade and approving specific new district maps were two separate matters, not one.
Justice Richard Gabriel wrote the court’s second unanimous ruling, targeting the two-part initiatives. He found the interlocking structure equally unconstitutional.
“To conclude otherwise and to allow initiative proponents to proceed with interlocking measures like those at issue here would allow proponents to achieve indirectly what they could not achieve directly and would endorse an end run around the single subject requirement. This we cannot do,” Gabriel wrote, covering Initiative numbers 241, 242, and 328.
Had the measures reached voters and passed, Democrats were projected to gain three additional U.S. House seats in Colorado. The new maps were designed for the 2028 and 2030 cycles. With the House majority expected to come down to a handful of seats in both elections, Colorado’s three seats carried outsized weight in the national calculus.
Colorado’s current district lines were drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission following the 2020 census. That commission remains in place.
The redistricting fight nationally traces back to Texas Republicans, who moved to redraw their congressional map mid-decade after the 2021 cycle. Democratic-led states moved aggressively to answer, launching competing redistricting efforts in California, Colorado, and Virginia among others. California’s effort passed last November. Virginia courts blocked it. Colorado now joins Virginia on the losing side.
Whether Coloradans for a Level Playing Field can find a different legal route to a redistricting ballot measure before 2028 remains unclear. The group said it was reviewing its options, but unanimous opinions from the state’s highest court leave little obvious path forward.
