State lawmakers killed a bill that would have codified 41-year-old case law by making the legislature’s political party caucuses subject to the Colorado Open Meetings Law, but it also would have exempted all affinity caucus meetings from the law’s notice and minutes requirements.
Citing the separation of powers as “a core tenet of our democracy,” Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a bill that narrows the definition of “public business” in the Colorado Open Meetings Law as it applies to the legislature and lets members of the General Assembly communicate by email and text message without it being a “meeting” under the law.
A reworked Colorado Open Records Act bill endorsed by a House committee shifts the legal burden of proving that a requester of records is “vexatious” to a government entity’s records custodian.
Several key rulings in 2023 showed why courts matter so much for enforcing and interpreting Colorado’s open government laws.
The directive is the first in the nation to expressly prohibit legislators from using so-called “ephemeral messaging” apps when discussing public business.
Colorado should enact legislation like a 2021 Michigan statute that outlaws the use of disappearing messaging apps in state government, but the language should be broadened to affect all state and local officials, a law student’s report prepared for the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition recommends.
A bill requiring Colorado courts to livestream open criminal court proceedings on Webex or another videoconferencing platform won unanimous approval in the House Judiciary Committee.
Colorado’s judicial branch proposed two new chief justice directives on virtual court proceedings and asked the public to comment on them by mid-March.
Nearly three years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced Colorado courts to fundamentally change how they operate, the judicial branch is developing a policy that could make the livestreaming of court proceedings more commonplace and uniform statewide. Meanwhile, a state legislator said she will introduce a bill to make remote viewing of criminal courts the “default” in Colorado.
