Photo: Capitol Building, Denver, Colorado.
This story by Robert Davis appeared on Colorado Newsline on March 11, 2025.
A broad coalition of transparency advocates plans to submit a ballot initiative in 2026 to amend Colorado’s constitution and strengthen public access to government records.
The initiative is led by Jon Caldara of the Denver-based Independence Institute, a Libertarian think tank. Fifty groups are part of the coalition, some of which have historically held little shared political ground. They include as the Rocky Mountain Voice, League of Women Voters, the Colorado Press Association, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, and several others.
The final draft of the ballot measure is still being worked out. Even so, Jeffrey Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, told Newsline that it will address a range of issues, from the cost of public records to establishing a uniform right to access government records and addressing open meeting law requirements.
“Everybody needs to know what their government is doing,” Roberts said.
The group has been meeting monthly, both on Zoom and at the Independence Institute, to discuss how to address the transparency issues at the State Capitol. One law that has united the group is Senate Bill 24-157, which was passed by the Democrat-controlled Legislature in 2024. The bill created exemptions to the state open meetings law for written and electronic communications among lawmakers.
SB-157 was passed after a judge ordered Democrats to stop using a secret electronic voting system, also known as quadratic voting, to decide which bills to debate. The judge said the system appeared to be set up to abide by the open meetings law but violated its spirit.
Transparency advocates asked lawmakers to repeal the exemptions before the 2025 session convened, but finding the right coalition of lawmakers has been difficult, because they are basically asking lawmakers to police themselves, Tim Regan-Porter, CEO of the Colorado Press Association, told Newsline.
Regan-Porter added that government transparency and the public’s ability to access government records has been steadily declining over the last several years. Part of the issue is that bad-faith actors have tried to flood public records offices with requests, he said. The cost of public records — which currently sits at $41.37 per hour — has also become a concern for many media organizations, and has compounded the economic challenges media organizations in Colorado face, Regan-Porter added.
“Sometimes things go unreported because we don’t have access to the data, and we should be making it easier for reporters and the public to be able to know what’s going on,” Regan-Porter said.
Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League of Women Voters, told Newsline that the “right to know” initiative is about more than protecting journalists and the media. It’s also about ensuring voters remain informed about what their elected officials are doing, and making sure the issues voters care about are being addressed.
“A democracy works best when everyone’s involved, when everyone is voting and discussing and debating,” Hendrix told Newsline.
Multiple bills introduced during the 2025 session would further limit government transparency. For instance, HB25-1041 sought to exempt student-athlete name, image and likeness agreements from the Colorado Open Records Act before it was amended to apply only to personally identifiable information.
Lawmakers have also advanced Senate Bill 25-77, a bill to extend the timeline for responses to open records requests from three days to five. The bill would also require agencies to accept electronic payments for CORA requests and a breakdown of all costs and fees levied as part of a response. It is sponsored by a bipartisan coalition including Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins and Republican Sen. Janice Rich of Grand Junction as well as Democratic Rep. Michael Carter of Boulder and Republican Rep. Matt Soper of Delta.
Republican lawmakers Lori Garcia Sander of Eaton and Byron Pelton of Sterling introduced House Bill 25-1242, a bill that would undo the open meeting law exemptions that were passed in 2024. However, the bill had no Democratic co-sponsors and was assigned to the House State, Civic, Military & Veterans Affairs committee, otherwise known as the “kill committee.” The committee on Monday voted 8-3 against the bill, and it was postponed indefinitely.
Open records bill
The bills introduced by Kipp, Garcia Sander, and Pelton had their first hearing Monday. During the hearing, Soper said SB-77 seeks to clean up a couple of provisions in CORA that are difficult for smaller public agencies to abide by. He said small organizations like the Delta County Memorial Hospital District — the board of which Soper sits on — often cannot respond to records requests within three days. Also, it also clarifies the procedure for responding to requests when an agency records custodian is out of the office.
Carter said he does not intend for SB-77 to be used to attack legitimate records requests from the news media and Colorado citizens. Soper added that the bill treats news media separate from requesters using the information for “pecuniary gain,” because records requests from news media tend to be limited in scope and easier to respond to.
People opposed to the bill pushed back against SB-77’s carve-out for news media organizations, arguing that it discourages citizen journalists from submitting records requests. Cory Gaines, who writes a Substack blog called the Colorado Accountability Project, added that it makes some bad assumptions about the responsiveness of records custodians.
“I shouldn’t be treated as a second-class requester when my taxes pay the bills in this state,” Gaines said.
Heather Stauffer, Colorado Municipal League legislative advocacy manager, argued that SB-77 should treat all requesting entities the same, meaning there should be no carve-out for the news media. Stauffer added that the bill would provide some “much needed flexibility” to governments to respond to records requests.
SB-77 was amended to clarify when custodians can deny records requests, and it passed the committee by a vote of 8-3. It will be heard next by the full House.
Open meeting law changes
Garcia Sander said HB-1242 was needed because lawmakers adopted exemptions for themselves to the state’s open meeting law in 2024. She cited examples of how the law has been misused to shield lawmakers from scrutiny like when journalists with The Colorado Sun were not allowed to attend a virtual caucus meeting and debates over property taxes before last year’s special session.
“This is our chance to restore public trust,” Garcia Sander said. “Transparency is not a Republican or Democrat issue.”
Lawmakers on the committee argued that the bill could make their jobs more difficult. Democratic Rep. Chad Clifford argued that the 2024 open meeting law revisions allowed lawmakers to have private conversations that are similar to executive sessions that local governments can have. He added that he “has never seen something as open” as Colorado’s 120-day legislative session.
Democratic Rep. Cecelia Espenoza of Denver said the private conversations can be used to compromise on issues.
Caldera said the objections raised were “non-issues.” He added that the bill is not designed to limit private conversations between lawmakers. It is intended to ensure that meetings between lawmakers that are subject to the open meeting law remain open to the public.
“The public is begging for transparency and accountability,” Republican Rep. Brandi Bradley of Littleton said. “I don’t love getting CORA requests, but it holds me accountable. It keeps me on my toes.”