If Colorado Democrats win a legislative supermajority in November, they would unlock two new political powers: the ability to refer constitutional amendments to the ballot, and to override a gubernatorial veto without Republican help.
Democrats need one more state Senate seat to achieve that goal. But they’d have to do it without losing ground in the House, where a number of incumbents face close races for reelection — including in some traditionally Republican strongholds like Colorado Springs, where they won by just a few hundred votes in 2022. If Democrats lose three seats in the House, their existing supermajority in the chamber is gone.
But lawmakers and political observers say voters shouldn’t expect a Democratic supermajority to use those powers often.
For one thing, their caucus includes a number of moderate Democrats who would be just as likely to side with Gov. Jared Polis on a potential veto of progressive legislation. For another, changing the constitution without bipartisan support is exceedingly difficult in Colorado. To refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot, Democrats would likely need unanimity or close to it from their ranks, then they’d have to get 55% of the electorate to agree — a tall task if Republicans are opposed.
Instead, it’s far more likely that the effects of the November election will be felt in other ways.
A mandate for change, or a shift toward political “balance”
It wasn’t that long ago that Colorado had a divided government.
From 2015 to 2018, Republicans led the state Senate, while Democrats controlled the House and governor’s office. The result was a constant balancing act, in which urban Democrats had to appeal to rural Colorado Republicans to get anything done.
For those on the political left, however, a divided government meant there was little ability to achieve the sort of major changes they saw as needed on a variety of issues, such as climate change, gun control and the social safety net.
Conservatives point to a March 2024 polling question to back up their argument that Democrats have pulled Colorado too far to the political left. In a poll of likely voters, the Colorado Polling Institute found that 58% agreed with the statement: “Colorado has changed so much that I sometimes feel like a stranger in my own state.”
“This is a huge fork in the road in Colorado and which way we move,” said conservative operative Tyler Sandberg, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan polling group, who also works as a consultant for the House Republican campaign arm. “We are a blue state — we’re not a liberal state.”
Today, lawmakers in both parties acknowledge that Republicans aren’t retaking control of a chamber any time soon. They also agree that the margins of the Democratic majority have a tangible effect on what gets done day to day at the state Capitol.
When the House achieved a supermajority in recent years, it gave Democrats a three-seat edge in most committees, a change that allowed more liberal legislation to reach the floor.
“I think that’s where the bulk of the real-life impact plays out,” said Democratic state Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, the outgoing House Speaker Pro Tem. “Having the larger majority means more stuff makes it out of committee and gets a vote in front of the full House.”
Those majorities helped Democrats pass major changes to land use laws this legislative session aimed at alleviating the state’s housing affordability crisis. They also enabled perhaps the largest changes to the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in nearly 20 years, with more liberal Democrats striking a deal with Polis to cut income taxes in exchange for a major expansion of tax credits for the low-income workers.
Tighter majorities, on the other hand, can give one moderate committee member a veto over something that might have the majority it needs to pass a floor vote.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, says a few seats here and there can matter for another reason, too.
The fewer Republicans there are, the less their input is sought by Democratic bill sponsors, he says.
“It’s a game of inches,” Lundeen said. “Relationships matter. The further and further you get away from balance, the less meaningful those conversations are.”
If Democrats had larger majorities, he believes the major bipartisan tax deals passed this year on income and property taxes would’ve delivered smaller tax cuts — if they’d gotten done at all.
Fewer conversations also means less chance for those affected by a bill to have a say.
Larger majorities can also pave the way for those in charge to evade public accountability. In the 2024 legislative session, Democrats passed a bill to make fewer legislative meetings subject to the state’s transparency laws, over the lockstep opposition of Republicans.
“It’s the old saw about ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ ” Sandberg said. “I think it’s very, very valuable for Democrats to understand they can lose elections.”
TABOR and the state budget
In theory, a legislative supermajority could lead to Democrats catching their proverbial white whale: a referred constitutional measure to amend TABOR, which was adopted by Colorado voters in 1992.
That could come in the form of relaxing its restraints on public spending — TABOR’s revenue cap, which triggers taxpayer refunds when certain tax and fee collections exceed the combined rate of inflation and population growth.
More likely, Democrats could attempt to repeal TABOR’s prohibition of a progressive income tax structure, allowing the state to raise tax rates on higher earners in order to raise funding for public services. Currently, everyone pays the same 4.25% tax rate regardless of income.
“We know how TABOR ties our hands in so many ways, and that’s why we’ve had to be creative when it comes to funding,” said House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat. “I think it really does open up the possibilities to be able to figure out how we can make some of these changes if we have the right numbers in the Senate and continue to have those in the House.”
Lundeen put it more bluntly: “I think TABOR is on the chopping block if Democrats have total control in a supermajority fashion in both chambers.”
But deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat who now leads the Bell Policy Center, a liberal fiscal policy think tank, isn’t so sure. He sees a citizen-led initiative as the more likely route to instituting a tiered income tax.
“When the rubber hits the road, you’ve got politics, you’ve got pressure from the lobby, you’ve got pressure from the governor,” deGruy Kennedy said. “There certainly will be some ambitious proposals, I am sure of that. But at the end of the day, the legislative path for referring anything to the constitution, unless it’s bipartisan, is very hard.”
Instead, deGruy Kennedy says larger Democratic majorities would mean more leverage for the political left to influence tax policies that the legislature can pass without voter approval — like this year’s effort to steer taxpayer refunds toward lower-income families through tax credits, and the series of property tax cuts passed by the legislature.
“At the end of the day, what we’re really in for this year is budget cuts,” deGruy Kennedy added, alluding to the state’s $900 million projected budget deficit.
“I do think that if the Republicans picked up some seats, that it probably gives them a little bit more room to push for the kind of cuts that they want to see in the budget,” he said. “I think that if Democrats are making those cuts, there may be different choices than if the Republicans have a louder voice.”
The spending gap is likely to mean cuts to Medicaid, higher education and K-12 programs, to name a few. It’s also sure to send budget writers scrambling for financial solutions, whether that’s new taxes or fees, or exempting existing ones from TABOR’s restrictions — ideas that Republicans are more likely to balk at.
“The budget is structurally out of balance right now, whether or not you think that’s a revenue problem or a spending problem is the debate,” said Scott Wasserman, a liberal political consultant and the former head of the Bell Policy Center. “It could be a major opportunity for major structural reforms, but I don’t know how you get there.”
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