The Denver Gazette: A new office of judicial discipline — independent of the Colorado Supreme Court that currently presides over it — would be created under a sweeping Senate bill that includes a yearlong legislative inquiry into whether the process of investigating jurists has been effective or not.

Citing more than two years of jarring newspaper reports about allegations of covered-up judicial misconduct and other improprieties that resulted in several resignations and at least six investigations, bill sponsors said it was “important to establish a commission on judicial discipline that is independent from the judges and justices who are subject to the commission’s oversight.”

Senate Bill 22-201 would dissolve the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline that sits within the Judicial Department and create the new independent body with $400,000 in initial funding from the state’s general fund. Currently the commission is funded from attorney registration fees doled out by the Supreme Court.

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