, dubbed the Fairness and Transparency in Municipal Court Act, also bans city courts that don’t document their proceedings from sending people to jail.

The legislation, sponsored by four Democrats, marks a second stab at codifying protections for municipal defendants after Polis vetoed a similar bill last year.

The governor, though, took issue with the part of the bill that sought to address sentencing disparities between municipal and state courts. A Colorado Supreme Court ruling settled that issue in December, leading bill sponsors this year to focus on the transparency elements from last year’s legislation.

The bill comes after The Denver Post found multiple cities were not providing attorneys to poor people facing jail time — a right guaranteed under the Constitution.

Lawmakers made it a point to address a particular municipal court in Montrose, which had been sentencing people to jail without keeping written, audio or visual recordings of the proceedings.

Industry watchers previously said they could find no other example like it in the state. HB-1134 outlaws this practice, and Montrose city representatives say they have already taken measures to ensure the city is a court of record.

Municipal courts around the state have been adjusting to a new normal following the state Supreme Court’s ruling, which found individuals cannot be sentenced to a longer jail sentence in municipal court than they could for the equivalent charge in state court.

After the state legislature passed major sentencing reforms in 2021, municipal courts had become the state’s most punitive forums for minor crimes, The Post previously reported.

Stephen Martinez, 58, was wrongly convicted of first-degree murder in the death of 4-month-old Heather Mares, his attorneys wrote in a petition for post-conviction relief filed Friday.

Martinez was coerced into falsely confessing that he shook the baby and then received inadequate legal representation during his first trial, attorneys with the wrote.

In a response filed late Friday, prosecutors with Denver District Attorney John Walsh’s office agreed Martinez’s conviction should be vacated.

Martinez is scheduled to appear Tuesday morning in , where both sides will ask Judge Andrew Luxen to erase Martinez’s murder conviction — and the life prison sentence it carries.

“Mr. Martinez is innocent and has served over 27 years for a crime he did not commit,” his attorneys wrote in the petition for post-conviction relief.

One of his attorneys, Jeanne Segil, declined to comment Monday. She is the assistant director of the Korey Wise Innocence Project, an organization within the that provides free legal services to people who claim to be wrongfully convicted.

Matt Jablow, a spokesman for the , also declined to comment Monday.

New evidence shows that Heather died from a heart attack caused by severe respiratory illness, a condition that developed in the weeks before her death on Oct. 17, 1998, according to the petition.

Martinez’s original attorneys failed to present any evidence of that ongoing respiratory illness at his original trial in 2000, so jurors were not able to consider other explanations for the baby’s death besides abuse by Martinez.

“The People agree there is a reasonable probability that, but for that failure, the outcome of the trial would have been different,” the prosecution’s response reads. “…This court should vacate Mr. Martinez’s conviction.”

A number of convictions based on shaken baby syndrome — a term used to describe the variety of injuries caused by violently shaking an infant — have been overturned in recent years as the diagnosis . New Jersey’s state Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that expert testimony about shaken baby syndrome and could not be used in two trials.

Andre Mares, a relative of Heather’s, said Monday that their family believes Martinez’s conviction should stand and anything else would be an injustice.

“It’s almost like justice forgot about Heather,” he said. “I know that, on the one hand, they are always trying to make sure the right man is convicted, but considering the evidence and what Stephen Martinez said he did, to come back and say, ‘It’s pneumonia’ — it is mind-boggling what justice will swallow.”

Martinez, who was dating Heather’s mother, was alone with the baby for 15 minutes at their home in the 400 block of South Pecos Street on Oct. 17, 1998, when he called 911 to report that the baby was choking. Martinez told first responders that he gave Heather a bottle because she was crying, then put her down and went into another room. He returned to the infant a few minutes later when he heard her choking.

“She was gasping,” Martinez wrote in a statement during the investigation. “…I put my finger in her mouth and throat to see if there was something stuck in there. She then started spitting up blood and gasping harder.”

First responders were unable to save Heather’s life. Further investigation showed that the baby had suffered a skull fracture, ruptured blood vessels in her eyes, brain bleeding and swelling. At the time, medical and child abuse experts saw those injuries as tell-tale signs of child abuse, but now, experts recognize that many other situations can also cause those injuries, his attorneys wrote.

During a middle-of-the-night interview with a Denver police detective, Martinez confessed to shaking Heather and slamming her into a crib — a confession that he later recanted and which his attorneys say was false.

Martinez also told police he tripped while holding the baby a couple weeks before her death, which he thought might have caused her skull fracture. Heather’s mother told investigators that when Heather cried.

Martinez’s attorneys note he confessed to shaking the baby only after the detective suggested it would have been reasonable for him to shake the baby during a moment of frustration, and that by admitting to doing that, he might receive a more lenient sentence. His confession does not match the physical evidence in the case, they wrote.

During the trial in 2000, prosecutors described Heather as healthy and behaving normally until she suddenly died in the brief window she was alone with Martinez. But in reality, the girl was sick for weeks before she died, according to the petition.

Heather spent time in neonatal intensive care after her birth for trouble breathing, had a respiratory infection when she was 2 months old, went to urgent care when she was 3 months old for a fever and spitting up blood-tinged milk, was sick the night before she died, and choked on the morning of her death when her mother gave her a bottle, Martinez’s attorneys wrote.

Doctors who recently reviewed Heather’s case found that her lungs were severely damaged to the point that “she had almost no air,” according to the petition. Her lung infection could have caused the symptoms that were previously attributed to abuse, the experts found, and the fall that Martinez described a couple weeks before her death could have caused the skull fracture.

Current science does not support the notion that Heather’s injuries were caused by shaking, according to the petition.

“There is now no credible evidence that Mr. Martinez caused (Heather’s) death,” the petition reads.

Martinez has maintained his innocence for decades.

In earlier appeals, his conviction was reversed by the in 2001 over concerns about whether some expert testimony given during his trial was legally permissible. The reversed the Court of Appeals’ ruling and upheld Martinez’s conviction in 2003.

Children’s Hospital and Denver Health both suspended gender-affirming hormonal treatments to minors in January, following a threat from the Trump administration to halt payments from federal health insurance programs to hospitals that offer care . Neither hospital performs gender-affirming surgeries on patients under 18.

Both hospitals rely heavily on Medicaid, and said they had to stop offering gender-affirming medication to young people to protect their other services.

Parents of four transgender girls, identified by pseudonyms, sued a few weeks after Children’s decision, arguing that the Aurora hospital’s decision to halt care to a population based on their gender identity constitutes discrimination under Colorado law.

Those who testified earlier this year said their children had experienced stress, depression and other mental health problems after learning their care would end and they would have to begin puberty that wouldn’t align with their identities. One child received hospital care for thoughts of suicide.

Denver District Court Judge Ericka Eckhart found the plaintiffs had a reasonable chance of proving that the decision to stop their care was discriminatory, but that the potential harm from the hospital losing federal funding was so severe that it outweighed the damage to the plaintiffs. She declined to order Children’s to resume providing gender-affirming care.

The plaintiffs appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court. At Tuesday’s oral arguments, Paula Greisen, representing the families who sued, said Eckhart made a mistake by balancing the number of transgender children harmed by stopping gender-affirming care against all Colorado children who could face harm if the hospital lost funding.

If that happened, any anti-discrimination laws would fall short, because the group protected by them would be smaller than the general population, she said.

“This is much bigger than this minority group or this hospital,” Greisen said.

In 2025, the hospital treated 257 children with puberty blockers and 549 with hormonal therapy for gender dysphoria, which is distress at the gap between a person’s sense of their gender and the way the world sees them.

Patrick O’Rourke, who represented Children’s Hospital Colorado, countered that Eckhart was right in determining the harm to the hospital outweighs the plaintiffs’ loss of care, but made a mistake in concluding the decision to stop the care was likely discrimination.

Hospitals have to be able to decide what services to offer based on their budgets, political pressures and any other relevant factors, he said.

Justice Richard Gabriel expressed skepticism that the state Supreme Court should overturn a lower court’s finding that “calling the federal government’s bluff” carried unacceptable risks. But he also raised concerns that patients would have no recourse if a future “rogue administration” decided to deny care to certain patients.

“It seems they could take any number of absurd positions… and the identifiable group will have no remedy because the government holds all the cards,” he said.

Chief Justice Monica Márquez also raised concerns that the hospital could be discriminating against transgender people, but noted Children’s might not be able to effectively push back if the federal government threw the hospital out of the Medicaid program.

“All of this discussion is very interesting, but it seems to confirm the hospital’s concerns,” she said.

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that the department didn’t follow necessary procedures with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “declaration” against gender-affirming care and unlawfully intruded into regulating medical practice, which is under state control.

A federal judge in Oregon , but HHS could still appeal. prohibiting federal funds for hospitals performing gender-affirming care for minors, which would kick off another set of legal challenges.

The Colorado Supreme Court will issue a written ruling in the Children’s Hospital case.

On Monday, local leaders in Superior are set to discuss whether the town, along with Boulder County, should try to bring the so-far unsuccessful public nuisance lawsuit they filed against the airport two years ago to the Colorado Supreme Court.

“This is the issue I hear from my residents, day in and day out,” Superior Mayor Mark Lacis said. “People are concerned about the noise and people are concerned about the lead pollution.”

Things haven’t gone the way of the town or county in the legal scrum so far. A Boulder County District Court judge ruled that plane noise and aircraft exhaust were solely the province of the federal government to regulate through the Federal Aviation Administration. Last month, the the lower court’s ruling, while keeping a window of hope open for the plaintiffs.

Noise issues are under the FAA’s jurisdiction, it concluded, but the lead contamination issue needs another look at the district court level.

“We’re not trying to tell the airport how to operate,” Lacis said. “All we filed in our lawsuit was an allegation that this is a public nuisance. Courts have long had the power to address nuisances.”

The Superior Town Council’s Monday discussion is set to happen behind closed doors in an executive session, since it’s a legal matter.

The nuisance factor at Rocky Mountain airport has been all too real for Greg Tan, a nearly 20-year resident of Superior’s Rock Creek neighborhood. The community sits under the flight path of a seemingly endless daily parade of planes — many of them flight school training runs — coming from the airport just to the south.

“All of these flights taking off are going right over my house,” Tan said. “If I’m working from home, I have to put on noise-cancelling headphones or a white noise machine.”

Airport spokesperson Sydny Boyd didn’t answer specific questions submitted by The Denver Post for this story. In a statement, Boyd said the 66-year-old airport, which is owned by Jefferson County, “remains focused on initiatives that support safe operations and continued community compatibility.”

Boyd cited the airport’s voluntary noise-abatement program, the introduction of unleaded aviation fuel and its participation in an FAA-guided noise study as measures the facility has taken in recent years to address complaints.

“RMMA will continue working with stakeholders and regulatory partners as these efforts move forward,” she wrote.

In the meantime, Tan has formed an attachment to the wind that often whips through his neighborhood — since it curtails flight activity, which can often go on until 11 p.m.

“I tell you, I used to hate the wind,” he said. “But now I’d rather take the wind than the noise.”

Increasing activity at airport

Tan is convinced that Rocky Mountain airport could do better if it wanted to. For the first 15 years he lived in Rock Creek, he wasn’t bothered by the nearby airport.

“There wasn’t an issue because there wasn’t as much activity as there has been in the last three, four, five years,” he said.

Takeoffs and landings have exploded at the airport over the last decade.  show airport operations leapt from nearly 150,000 operations in 2016 to nearly double that number in 2023, the most recent year for which the county provides data on its website.

In the airport’s , the county reported that takeoffs and landings at the airport jumped from approximately 282,000 in 2023 to nearly 295,000 in 2024. And with that increase, noise complaints rose from around 5,000 in 2023 to nearly 11,400 the following year.

The lion’s share of the 2024 complaints — around 69% — came from Superior. And according to the noise report, nearly all the complaints centered on prop planes, which are popular aircraft with flight schools.

Tim Sitz, a 25-year resident of Rock Creek, said the frequency of planes flying over his house can sometimes reach as many as two or three in a minute.

“In the summer, we sleep in an internal bedroom to avoid the noise,” he said. “We don’t enjoy our backyard.”

Jefferson County, he surmised, can turn a blind eye to nearby community concerns because the airport is perched in the extreme northeast corner of the county, from where it sends the majority of its air traffic over Broomfield and Boulder counties.

“Superior and Boulder County are impacted, but Jefferson County largely is not,” Sitz said.

In Boulder County and Superior’s 2024 lawsuit, they claimed that flight school “touch-and-go” operations at the airport — during which a plane momentarily lands before taking off again without stopping or leaving the runway — are done under maximum power and at a lower altitude than typical takeoffs.

The result: “maximum lead and noise exposure” for those below, the lawsuit says.

Last June, the FAA led the nation in “potentially significant events, which include both runway incursions and airborne safety incidents.” That prompted a letter five months later sent by to Jefferson County, the FAA and , pleading for changes.

“Under federal and state law, (Jefferson County) has both the authority and the obligation to mitigate noise, pollution, and safety risks,” the letter reads. “Yet the county has repeatedly refused to act — rejecting proposals for curfews, landing fees, and operational limits while dismissing well-documented community health impacts.”

The coalition is made up of Boulder County, Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette, Longmont, Louisville, Westminster, Erie and Superior.

‘We’re going to make progress’

The March 12 appeals court decision made it clear that state courts have no authority to compel operational changes at airports — that authority rests singularly with the FAA.

But the court said Rocky Mountain airport could make adjustments to mitigate noise and emissions voluntarily under a “proprietor’s exception” in the law.

“We therefore assume, without deciding, that Jefferson County has the authority as the airport proprietor to prohibit touch-and-go operations if it chooses to do so,” the court ruled.

Lacis said the proprietor’s exception calls into question what has long been Jefferson County’s explanation for why it can’t make adjustments: The federal government has tied its hands.

“The county and the airport have long said, ‘We would love to help you, but our hands are tied by federal law,’ ” he said. “The argument they’ve been making has been dismissed by the appeals court.”

While neither the county nor the airport would answer The Post’s questions about taking voluntary measures to reduce aircraft activity and bring relief to neighbors, lawyers for Jefferson County argued in an October case filing that doing so was no easy feat for the airport.

Rocky Mountain airport, the lawyers argued, is “subject to comprehensive regulation by the FAA through the terms of its grant agreements.” That includes making the airport “available for public use on reasonable conditions and without unjust discrimination.”

“Restrictions on touch-and-go operations are expressly subject to this requirement,” the motion stated.

Regardless of the legal twists and turns, Lacis said the fight was not over. His constituents have suffered too much, he said, and he and other local officials aren’t ready to fold.

“I’m optimistic that we’re going to make progress,” he said. “We wouldn’t be continuing the fight if we didn’t think there was progress to be made.”

The ruling stems from an April 2025 lawsuit brought by former Commissioner Lora Thomas, Democratic state Rep. Bob Marshall, who represents Highlands Ranch, and Julie Gooden, an unaffiliated Douglas County voter, against the county.

The trio in their complaint alleged that the commissioners held 13 meetings between Dec. 17, 2024, and April 14, 2025, “to discuss public business without providing notice of such meetings, and without permitting the public to observe those discussions.”

They alleged the meetings included discussions about an upcoming June 2025 special election on the county adopting a home rule charter.

The trio wanted that election halted, but a Douglas County district judge declined to do so, saying he didn’t see evidence that the commissioners had violated open meetings law. Voters overwhelmingly defeated the measure on June 24, 2025.

The appellate court on Thursday disagreed with the lower court’s ruling, saying the county attorney made a presentation in one of the meetings that “included information about what a home rule county is, the advantages and disadvantages of Douglas County becoming one, the process by which a home rule charter is established, and what Douglas County could do if the voters approved the proposed home rule charter.”

The court also ruled that the commissioners improperly conducted closed-door executive sessions during that time because they “included extensive discussion about the home rule charter,” and thus were also subject to the open meetings law.

The plaintiffs released a joint statement Thursday saying that “from the beginning, this case has been about a simple but fundamental principle: the public’s business must be conducted in public.”

“We are hopeful that the county commissioners will now heed the court����ap ruling and cease and desist from meeting behind closed doors, and with no public notice, to do the people’s business,” they wrote.

Douglas County indicated on Thursday that the issue may not be over. In a , the county said that the “appellate court held that the trial court did not adequately make all the required findings.”

“The appellate court has ordered that the parties have another hearing where the trial court can hear additional evidence,” the statement read.

Douglas County is considering whether to return to the lower court for further review or take the case to the Colorado Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it would hear the companies’ arguments that such lawsuits should be heard in federal court, not state court. The companies — Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil — have argued that the case should be heard in federal court and are challenging a May decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that allowed the 2018 case filed by the City of Boulder and Boulder County to continue in state court.

“The oil companies have tried every avenue to delay our climate accountability case or move it to an out-of-state court system,” Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said in a news release Monday morning. “As everyone continues to face rising costs that put budgets under pressure, we must hold oil companies accountable for the significant harm they’ve caused our communities. We move forward with renewed energy and purpose for the next step toward justice.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Boulder case could have implications for dozens of similar lawsuits alleging that oil and gas companies knowingly lied to the public about how their production of fossil fuels contributes to climate change.

Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing it����ap necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires and severe storms worsened by climate change, along with rising sea levels.

State courts’ responses have been mixed. Some decided the cases should be heard in federal court, while Colorado and others allowed lawsuits to proceed in state court. While five of the seven Colorado Supreme Court justices said the case could stay in state court, the two dissenting justices called on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

“As our filings make clear, climate policy shouldn’t be set through fragmented state‑court actions, and we look forward to making that case before the Court,” ExxonMobil spokesman Curtis Smith said in an emailed statement.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Boulder case will resolve the conflicting court decisions, said Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the . The project is an effort by the National Association of Manufacturers to rebuff lawsuits in state courts that target industry.

The association is not a party to the Boulder case but to hear it.

“The Supreme Court����ap decision to review Boulder’s climate lawsuit is a decisive step toward resolving conflicting rulings nationwide and reaffirming that climate policy belongs with elected policymakers — not the courts,” Goldberg said in a statement. “Courts across the country have responded to these cases in divergent ways, with many dismissing them for lack of legal and practical foundation.

“Supreme Court review will bring much-needed clarity and uniformity to this issue and help ensure that fundamental policy decisions about energy and climate are made by the appropriate branches of government.”

Arguments on the case are expected in the fall.

In the Boulder case, ExxonMobil and Suncor argued emissions were a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out. The federal government has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, not state governments, the companies previously argued.

Suncor did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

President Donald Trump’s administration weighed in to support the companies and urged the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean “every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.”

Boulder officials want Suncor and ExxonMobil to pay for the impacts of climate change, including millions for recovery from extreme weather.

Boulder’s climate initiatives director, Jonathan Koehn, from Boulder city and county officials that the case “is, fundamentally, about fairness.”

“Boulder is already experiencing the effects of a rapidly warming climate, and the financial burden of adaptation should not fall solely on local taxpayers,” Koehn said. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will not hamstring our right under Colorado law to seek the resources needed to build a safer, more resilient future.”

The City of Boulder has prioritized climate adaptability in its long-term planning, with the effects of climate change directly influencing approaches to pertinent city issues such as transportation and wildfire hardening.

City and county officials said Boulder — and the rest of Colorado — was already shouldering costs from rising temperatures “that would otherwise fall on local taxpayers.”

“The lawsuit aims to ensure that the corporations that caused the harm pay their fair share, rather than shifting the burden to Colorado communities,” officials said in the release.

Tiff Boyd, the executive director for the Boulder County organization Classrooms for Climate Action, echoed Koehn’s belief that the average person has been bearing too much of the brunt of climate change. The 2021 Marshall fire’s impact is indicative of that — not just from the blaze but also from its aftermath of rebuilding and preparing for a future fire.

“The financial burden of all this adaptation is falling solely on local taxpayers,” said Boyd, who pointed toward an overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused, particularly from the burning of fossil fuels.

Jonathan Skinner-Thompson, an associate law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in administrative and environmental law, said the Supreme Court hasn’t shown interest in cases similar to the Boulder lawsuit in the past.

That, he said, raises curiosity and nerves about why the justices wanted to hear the case.

“You could read into that that maybe this Supreme Court doesn’t think it has the authority to hear these types of lawsuits, and so that would block people from bringing them in the future,” Skinner-Thompson said.

Monday’s decision to take up the case comes on the heels of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent revocation of a finding that climate change posed a threat to public health, which provided the legal underpinning for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

How the Supreme Court handles challenges to that decision may offer a window into the justices’ views on the Boulder case, he said.

“I think that����ap going to be a big issue in terms of how that impacts what the Supreme Court thinks about these types of climate nuisance cases, going forward,” Skinner-Thompson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The new map, proposed by Coloradans for a Level Playing Field, would give Democrats an advantage in seven of Colorado’s eight congressional seats — but not until 2028 at the earliest, unlike in several other states to benefit Republicans or Democrats in this year’s election. Colorado’s eight seats currently are evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with the GOP winning the only true swing district in 2024.

Curtis Hubbard, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement that the proposal seeks to push back against redistricting proposals in Republican states that have been championed by President Donald Trump.

“No one wanted to have to take this action — independent redistricting is the ideal,” Hubbard said. “But with Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans actively working to rig congressional elections, resulting in the potential gain of up to 27 seats in Congress, Colorado must join other states in countering this unprecedented power grab.”

Colorado voters approved a pair of bipartisan amendments to the state constitution in 2018 that tasked independent redistricting commissions with drawing its congressional and state legislative maps. The congressional map that took effect in 2022 has resulted in one extremely competitive seat, the 8th Congressional District; four with a Democratic advantage; and three that lean Republican.

The state is now represented by a 4-4 split of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, even as the state had trended distinctly blue in recent statewide elections.

The new proposals, which were filed for on Wednesday, would pause the independent redistricting map for the 2028 and 2030 elections. The independent commission would draw a new map following the 2030 census to be used for the 2032 election.

The move was criticized by the campaign of U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, the Republican who won the 8th District race in 2024, unseating a Democratic incumbent.

“For years, Colorado Democrats lectured everyone about the sanctity of the independent redistricting commission and claimed it was the gold standard for fairness,” spokeswoman Alexandria Cullen said. “Now that Coloradans have elected four Republicans to Congress, they want to change the rules. This isn’t about fairness — it����ap a partisan power grab to protect their failing extreme agenda from the will of Colorado voters.”

Coloradans for a Level Playing Field filed several proposed ballot measures, a common tactic by advocacy groups to ensure the title board approves one or more.

The proposed map would have seven of Colorado’s eight congressional districts reach into Denver, Boulder or their suburbs and outlying areas — all places with strong Democratic leans. It would leave Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, currently represented by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, covering the state’s Eastern Plains but ceding some of Douglas County.

Hubbard said his group hopes for an initial hearing by the state’s title board in March and for final approval in April. Backers would then have until Aug. 3 to gather to land the measure on the November ballot.

The independent redistricting commission was created via a voter-approved constitutional amendment. Hubbard’s group filed initiatives for both statutory and constitutional changes in case officials allow for the first option, which is easier to petition onto the ballot.

It would need about 125,000 signatures for a statutory change. For a constitutional change it would need that same number of signatures but with a geographic representation requirement, including support from at least 2% of all voters from each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts.

A statutory change would need majority support from voters in November to become law, while a constitutional change would require at least 55% support.

Hubbard declined to name the group’s financial supporters ahead of a May filing deadline with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.

“We believe we have the support and resources to get this passed in November,” Hubbard said in an interview.

‘We will challenge these,’ conservative group says

Michael Fields, the president of the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, promised to fight the measures.

The independent redistricting measures from 2018 had each declared that “political gerrymandering … must end,” and each was approved by more than 70% of voters, he said.

“After reviewing these hyper-partisan ballot measure proposals, we believe that they clearly violate the single-subject provision of our state constitution,” Fields said in a statement. “We will challenge these at Title Board — and up to the Colorado Supreme Court, if necessary.”

Nationally, Republicans kicked off the redistricting war last year in response to the potential of losing seats in the 2026 midterm election, and Democrats responded with their own plans.

Redistricting plans in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, with another proposal proposed in Florida. Texas lawmakers have already approved a new map that could net Republicans five additional seats in November. Republican officials in Missouri and North Carolina have also approved new maps to benefit the GOP in upcoming elections.

In Democratic states, voters in California last fall approved a new map that could net Democrats five more seats. Voters in Virginia will decide in April on letting its lawmakers redraw maps to benefit Democrats ahead of the November midterms.

Court rulings or legislative efforts also could affect congressional districts in New York, Maryland and Utah.

In all, those proposals and efforts may largely counteract each other when it comes to the congressional balance of power, according to The New York Times. by the news organization found that, taken together, the new maps could give Democrats a net advantage of two seats or Republicans a three-seat advantage, depending on how specific scenarios play out.

Hubbard also noted from the U.S. Supreme Court that could undo key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in voting. Such a ruling could open up further .

“We can sit back and do nothing, or we can take action to approve temporary maps that will help keep our elections on a level playing field,” Hubbard said of his group’s proposal.

Separately, Trump has also called for Republicans to “” voting as he continues to push disproven theories of widespread voter fraud.

Reaction to Colorado proposal

The new Colorado proposal has drawn reactions that fall along partisan lines, including from the state’s members of Congress and candidates in various races this year.

“We cannot sit idly by as a target of Trump’s retribution and depravity,” U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat who represents the 7th Congressional District, said in a statement that signaled support for the temporary map. “We must use every chance we have to stand up and fight back and ensure Colorado voters have a choice.”

Zach Kraft, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, called the proposal “gerrymandering at its worst and a blatant power grab by a sketchy, dark-money Democrat organization that refuses to disclose who its donors are.”

Besides Evans, the Republican lawmakers who would be most affected by the new map proposal — U.S. Reps. Jeff Hurd and Jeff Crank — did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday. The Colorado Democratic Party did not provide comment.

Sara Loflin from the left-leaning group ProgressNow Colorado praised the effort. Her group supported Amendment Y, which created the state’s independent congressional redistricting process, because “that was at a time when we all believed that the country was coming out of this Donald Trump, authoritarian” moment.

But she said the redistricting fight nationally, urged on by Trump, called for changes.

“We’re happy about it because Donald Trump forced our hand,” she said. She added that she thought the proposal in Colorado was more democratic than Texas’s redistricting plan, since Colorado voters would get a chance to accept it instead of the change coming through a legislative approach.

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, avoided taking a position on the redistricting effort through a spokeswoman, who said he’d review any ballot measures closer to the election.

The appointment fills an empty spot on the seven-member court left by the departure of Justice Melissa Hart, who retired Jan. 5 after taking a months-long personal leave that began in late October.

Blanco, , has served as a district court judge for nine years. A graduate of Colorado State University, the University of Colorado and Duke Law School, Blanco previously worked as a criminal defense attorney and as an attorney representing children in dependency and neglect proceedings — work that was “deeply meaningful” and allowed her to see firsthand the impact of court decisions, she wrote in her application.

“I step into this role humbled by the weight of the responsibility and inspired by the promise of our democracy,” Blanco said during a news conference Tuesday. “The law is not an abstraction. It is the shield that protects the vulnerable, the guardrails that restrain power, and the enduring promise that justice does not depend on who you are, where you come from or what resources you have.”

Polis cited Blanco’s “strong track record of innovation” as one of the traits that set her apart from other applicants for the job.

“I was looking for somebody who would be a strong operator, somebody who showed an interest, yes, of course, in the judicial work of writing decisions and making decisions, but went above and beyond that,” Polis told reporters.

Blanco has, for the last half-decade, served as the chief judge for Larimer and Jackson counties, where she co-founded a special competency court designed to support defendants who are mentally ill or mentally disabled.

The daughter of Iranian immigrants, Blanco wrote in her application that the courts’ handling of her parents’ divorce and custody case when she was a child still impacts her approach on the bench.

“Ultimately, the court awarded my father all marital assets while granting my mother custody. My childhood was split between scarcity during the week and privilege on weekends,” she wrote. “This decision shaped my identity as a jurist, deepening my respect for the law and the courts’ power to shape lives.”

Chief Justice Monica Márquez welcomed Blanco to the court on Tuesday, noting that the justices had a “big pile of work” ready for her.

Newly appointed justices serve two-year terms before going before voters for retention and an additional 10 years on the bench. The Colorado Supreme Court issues roughly 60 to 100 opinions annually, and in most situations, the justices have the discretion to choose whether or not to take up a case.

The nominating committee also put forward two other finalists: Andrea Wang, a deputy solicitor general at the Colorado Attorney General’s Office who largely handles water law, and Christopher Zenisek, a longtime district court judge in Jefferson and Gilpin counties.

She witnessed a man in his 60s with multiple trespassing and camping charges receive a 10-day jail sentence. This individual, though, did not have an attorney — a right afforded under the Constitution to anyone facing jail time.

If Jones, a volunteer court-watcher, hadn’t been observing proceedings that day, nobody outside of the people involved with the case would have known what happened.

That’s because Montrose Municipal Court is not a “court of record” — meaning it keeps no written, audio or visual recording of court proceedings. The public, civil rights organizations and members of the media cannot watch court hearings virtually, or access video after the fact, and cannot request any transcripts or audio of the day’s docket.

It’s not clear how many municipal courts in Colorado are not courts of record. But court watchers say they believe Montrose to be the only court in the state that sentences people to jail and isn’t a court of record.

It’s examples like these that spurred Colorado lawmakers this month to introduce a bill that would bar municipal courts that are not courts of record from sending people to jail. , titled “Fairness and Transparency in Municipal Court,” also clarifies that municipal court defendants have a right to counsel and that in-custody proceedings must be livestreamed for the public to view.

The legislation marks a second stab at codifying protections for municipal defendants after Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a similar bill last year. The governor, though, took issue with the part of the bill that sought to address sentencing disparities between municipal and state courts. A Colorado Supreme Court ruling settled that issue in December, leading bill sponsors this year to focus on the transparency elements from last year’s legislation.

“Justice dies in the dark,” said Rebecca Wallace, policy director for the , an organization that helps people pay bail. “Montrose Municipal Court needs a light on it — this bill provides some of that light.”

If municipal courts have the same power to put people in jail as state courts, they must provide the same due process protections, said Rep. Javier Mabrey, a Denver Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors.

Access to counsel is already a right for municipal defendants facing jail time — but that doesn’t mean it always happens.

In October 2024, The Denver Post reported that poor and unhoused individuals in custody in Grand Junction Municipal Court were frequently appearing in court without attorneys. This came to light because the Colorado Freedom Fund obtained hours of recordings of court proceedings. If Grand Junction hadn’t been a court of record, that would not have been possible.

Alida Soileau, a defense attorney who practices in Montrose, said she’s never heard the municipal court say that someone’s case qualifies for court-appointed counsel. She said she’s witnessed one occasion in which a defendant facing jail did not have an attorney.

“It’s the wild west,” she said in an interview.

Without recordings or transcripts, Wallace said it’s impossible for watchdog organizations like hers — or members of the media — to confirm such accounts and investigate further.

Chris Dowsey, Montrose’s city attorney, said the municipal court directs people to a written advisement on the right to an attorney when a case involves a possible jail sentence, and follows that up with an oral advisement.

“For each case, the judge confirms that the defendant has received one of those advisements of rights,” he said in a statement. “If they have not received such an advisement, the judge would give another oral advisement to that individual.”

Montrose city officials say they’re working on becoming a court of record.

Municipal Judge Thomas LeClaire told the City Council during a January meeting that he recommended the court make the change. Councilmembers supported the idea, saying the pending state legislation made it a good time to get ahead of the curve. Officials estimated it could happen as soon as this spring.

Montrose Municipal Court needs only minimal investment to make itself a court of record, including some staff time and equipment modifications, Dowsey said in a statement.

As to why the city waited so long to make this happen?

“At the time, there was no business reason to do so, there was no mandate to do so, and there was no push by the state legislature or the courts to do so,” Dowsey said.

The Post, over the past two years, has detailed numerous examples of municipal courts around the state not following the law. The reporting showcased how Colorado’s more than 200 municipal courts operate with little oversight and scrutiny, since they run independently from the state judicial department.

The newspaper found a judge who improperly threatened to call immigration authorities on a defendant in his courtroom and a court that illegally used contempt of court to dramatically inflate jail sentences for poor and unhoused individuals.

Meanwhile, municipal courts around the state are adjusting to a new normal after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that cities cannot punish lawbreakers beyond what state statute would allow for the same offenses. This decision has led city councils to adopt new ordinances, judges to adjust their advisements for defendants and prosecutors and defense attorneys to negotiate plea deals under new guidelines.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came after The Post detailed how municipal courts had become the state’s most punitive forums for minor crimes, with people convicted of low-level offenses facing exponentially more jail time in city courts than they would if convicted of the same offense in state court.

The state’s high court in December ruled unanimously that cities cannot punish lawbreakers beyond what state courts would allow for the same offense.

The set a precedent for municipal courts around the state, forcing city councils to alter their ordinances, judges to change their advisements to defendants, and shifting the landscape of plea agreements between defense attorneys and city prosecutors.

Aurora officials on Monday filed a petition for rehearing with the state Supreme Court, saying they don’t contest the ruling but “remain concerned about the potential breadth of the decision beyond the facts of the case itself.”

In the petition, the city asks the court to provide clarity on how far the ruling’s legal precedent extends.

“To be clear — Aurora is not asking the court to change its ultimate holding in the case,” Aurora City Attorney Pete Schulte said in a statement Tuesday. “The city is committed to following the holding and will not sentence any individuals beyond what is allowed under state law for comparable state offenses. Aurora is only asking the court to consider providing more clarity and guidance to cities on its effect on other areas of Colorado law.”

Schulte has been a vocal critic of the Supreme Court’s decision. In a statement after the ruling, he questioned whether Colorado municipalities should continue to prosecute criminal offenses when they become “de facto extensions of state and county courts at a cost to municipal taxpayers without reimbursement.”

The city attorney told Aurora lawmakers earlier this month that the ruling had raised concerns about how a variety of existing city laws might be affected, including zoning, land use and other regulations unrelated to criminal penalties, the Sentinel newspaper in Aurora .

The Supreme Court ruling centered on two cases involving low-level prosecutions in Westminster and Aurora municipal courts in which the alleged offenders faced significantly more jail time after being charged in city court than they would have if they had been charged in state court.

Westminster officials said they don’t plan to file a similar petition.

The December ruling came on the heels of The Denver Post’s reporting last year that found municipal courts had become the state’s most punitive forum for minor crimes.

In 2021, on the heels of nationwide protests for racial justice, Colorado lawmakers  that significantly lowered the potential penalties for misdemeanor and petty offenses in Colorado’s state courts. But those reforms didn’t impact municipal courts, which are not part of the state judicial system.

As a result, the potential jail sentences for minor crimes in city courts now often far outpace the state’s limits, The Post reported last year. The newspaper found defendants across 10 of Colorado’s largest cities served, on average, five times more jail time in municipal court cases — though the difference was just a matter of days.

Cities across the state are changing procedures and ordinances to come into compliance with December’s ruling. The Denver City Council said it hoped to have updated language by the end of the month, while the city of Littleton passed an emergency ordinance prohibiting city judges from punishing people beyond what state statute would allow for the same offense.