A legislative effort to strengthen Colorado’s two-year-old law requiring the livestreaming of criminal court proceedings ended with Gov. Jared Polis’ veto of House Bill 25-1147.
Lawmakers made another unsuccessful attempt to weaken the Colorado Open Records Act during the 2025 state legislative session.
Gov. Jared Polis’ veto of a bill to extend Colorado Open Records Act response deadlines for requests made by the public and businesses will stand after legislators abandoned their effort to override it.
Colorado senators narrowly defeated a bill to create an online clearinghouse of pre-introduced legislative proposals in between sessions of the General Assembly.
Legislative leaders again discussed providing video coverage of Colorado General Assembly committee meetings, possibly starting with a pilot program.
Writing that “all legitimate requests for public transparency” under the Colorado Open Records Act “should be treated equally under the law,” Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday vetoed a bill that gave government entities more time to respond to requests made by the public and businesses but kept deadlines the same for journalists.
A bill close to passage in the Colorado legislature requires most metropolitan districts to post online “in plain, nontechnical language” information about their debt, mill levies and how residents can serve on their boards.
Although some provisions in SB 25-077 would help requesters of public records in small ways, overall the bill creates additional unnecessary barriers for people seeking to gain a better understanding of state and local government activities in Colorado, which is the very purpose of CORA.
A bill that extends Colorado Open Records Act response times for public and commercial requesters is headed to Gov. Jared Polis.
Gov. Jared Polis noted an “unfortunate trend of legislative proposals that ultimately impede access to official records” when he signed House Bill 25-1041, which makes name, image and likeness contracts between public universities and student athletes confidential.
