This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at coloradosun.com.
By Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun
State lawmakers appointed to fill vacancies in the Colorado legislature would have to run in an election to keep their seat after about a year under a newly introduced bipartisan bill.
Under House Bill 1315, introduced Monday, vacancy-appointed lawmakers would either have to seek election during the regular general election in even years or a special vacancy election that would take place during the November statewide election that happens in odd years. They would run in whichever election would give them about a year at the Capitol.
In the special odd-year vacancy elections laid out under House Bill 1315, only voters from the political party of the lawmaker who vacated their seat, as well as unaffiliated voters, would be allowed to cast ballots.
Since unaffiliated voters make up the largest share of the electorate in almost every state legislative district, the voters eligible to cast ballots in the special vacancy elections would typically represent the majority of the district’s electorate. But voters of the opposite party would be excluded from the special elections.
Currently, unaffiliated voters and voters from the party opposite the lawmaker who is being replaced are left out of the vacancy process altogether.
Candidates could make the special vacancy election ballot created by House Bill 1315 by getting the support of their party through a special nominating convention, the same process currently available to Democratic and Republican candidates trying to make the primary ballot, or by collecting signatures from at least 200 voters in the district from their party.
The legislation is a response to the growing calls for vacancy appointment reform that began in 2018 when The Colorado Sun first highlighted how many lawmakers were making their way into the legislature or advancing from the House to the Senate through the vacancy process. Since then, lawmakers have taken some small steps to make the process more inclusive, but the demands for change have only gotten louder.
House Bill 1315 would mark an overhaul.
Here are the details of how it would work: The measure would require that vacancy-appointed lawmakers filling the seat of a state legislator who leaves their seat between July 31 of an even-numbered year and July 30 of an odd-numbered year seek reelection in a special contest. That vote would be held during the next odd-year November statewide election.
Lawmakers appointed to their seat before July 31 of an even-numbered year and after July 31 of an odd-numbered year would have to run to keep their seat in the general election that happens in November of even-numbered years anyways.
The effect of the bill would be that a vacancy-appointed lawmaker would only get to serve at the Capitol for one regular lawmaking term before they had to go before voters. (There are occasionally special legislative sessions called by the governor to address specific issues that happen outside of the regular lawmaking term.)
Shad Murib, chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party, was heavily involved in the drafting of the measure. He said it’s modeled after the system used in Tennessee.
The lead sponsors of House Bill 1315 are Rep. Emily Sirota, D-Denver; House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs; and Sens. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, and Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton.
Murib said that while the Colorado GOP wasn’t consulted on the measure, top Republican state lawmakers were, referencing Pugliese and Kirmeyer’s involvement.
“I actually think, in general, even the way we do it now is better than a lot of states, where you might have a governor appoint or you might have a small group of county commissioners select someone,” Sirota said.
She said House Bill 1315 seeks to keep the spirit of Colorado’s current vacancy process while getting more people involved.
Sirota said the bill’s sponsors didn’t consult with the governor about the measure before introducing it. His signature would be needed to make the bill law should it clear the legislature.
“We'll see what his reactions are,” she said.
Polis was noncommittal on the bill Tuesday, though he seemed supportive.
“Gov. Polis wants to ensure that Colorado’s legislature represents the people it serves, and is supportive of special elections or other ways to involve more voters in the process for filling vacant positions created by retiring legislators,” a spokeswoman said. “The governor will review this legislation if it reaches his desk.”
The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Pugliese declined an interview request Tuesday on the bill. But in a written statement she said the legislation comes in response to concerns she’s heard across the state.
“Vacancies in the General Assembly are an issue I heard about as I traveled the state as the minority leader,” she said. “The people want to preserve the vacancy committee process while also having the opportunity to vote for their legislators. This bill will do both.”
Separately, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a resolution Monday seeking to ask voters to amend the state constitution to prohibit vacancy-appointed lawmakers from running for a full term in their seats after they are appointed. The measure appears destined to fail as a similar resolution failed last year.
About half of U.S. states use an appointment process to fill legislative vacancies and the other half hold special elections.
Standalone special elections to fill vacancies have not been pursued in Colorado because each year’s legislative session is only 120 days long and because special elections are expensive to run. But because Colorado already has statewide elections in odd years each November, adding special vacancy elections wouldn’t add as much cost as running a standalone special vacancy election.
House Bill 1315 would also change vacancy elections in a few other notable ways:
- Vacancy committees would include any county commissioners who live in a legislative district where there is a vacancy and who belong to the same political party as the lawmaker leaving office. Vacancy committees would also generally double in size. Right now, vacancy committees can be made up of as little as a few dozen party insiders.
- It would mandate that vacancy elections be livestreamed, via video or audio, in a way that is accessible to the public.
- It would impose campaign finance limits on vacancy candidates and require them to report donations and spending. Right now, vacancy candidates are not subject to any campaign finance reporting rules.
House Bill 1315 wouldn’t affect the vacancy appointment process that happens when someone running for a legislative seat drops out of the race after a primary but before a general election.
There are 22 members of the Colorado General Assembly this year who at some point were appointed to the House or Senate via a vacancy committee. That means that more than 1 in 5 state lawmakers in Colorado owe their positions to the vacancy process.
House Bill 1315 was assigned to the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Its first hearing hasn’t been scheduled yet.
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS, and The Colorado Sun, and shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state. Funding for the Alliance is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
