Colorado Supreme Court rejects plan to give Democrats edge in Congress

Key Points:

• The Colorado Supreme Court invalidated three ballot measures that sought to redraw the state's congressional map to favor Democrats by adding three seats, citing violations of the state's single-subject constitutional rule.
• The measures, funded by a group linked to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, aimed to pause Colorado's independent redistricting process established in 2018 and would have applied new maps for the 2028 and 2030 elections.
• The court ruled that the initiatives improperly combined multiple subjects, including changing the constitutionally mandated redistricting frequency, which represented a major alteration to Colorado’s redistricting system.
• The group behind the measures had spent over $2 million and gathered tens of thousands of signatures but was blocked by Republican legal challenges; it is now too late to place the measures on the November ballot.
• In response, Republicans have proposed their own ballot measures requiring judicial and commission review of any congressional maps redrawn outside the independent process, which may appear on the November ballot.