by Alana Rosen

Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023).

On June 27, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision on Counterman v. Colorado, a case focused on a Colorado stalking law that prohibits repeated communications that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress and that do, in fact, cause a person to suffer emotional stress.[1] The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Colorado man’s conviction for stalking a local musician, saying the state did not sufficiently establish the defendant’s actions as a “true threat” to the victim. 

In this case, from 2014 to 2016, Billy Counterman sent hundreds of Facebook messages to C.W., a Colorado musician. The two had never met and C.W. never responded to Counterman’s messages. C.W. tried to block Counterman but he created a new Facebook account each time and continued contacting C.W. Some of Counterman’s messages contemplated violent harm befalling C.W., which put her in a constant state of fear and anxiety, affecting her day-to-day life. C.W. stopped walking alone and attending social engagements. She also canceled music performances, causing financial strain. Eventually, C.W. contacted law enforcement. In 2016, Counterman was arrested and charged with one count of stalking (credible threat), one count of stalking (serious emotional distress), and one count of harassment.

Counterman moved to dismiss the charges on First Amendment grounds, arguing that his messages were not “true threats” pursuant to section 18-3-602 (1)(c), C.R.S. The trial court decided, however, Counterman’s statements did rise to the level of a “true threat” and ruled that the First Amendment posed no bar to prosecution. The trial court sent the case to a jury, which found Counterman guilty and sentenced him to four-and-a-half years in prison. On appeal, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. The Colorado Supreme Court subsequently declined to review the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear the case because courts have been divided on whether the First Amendment requires proof of a defendant’s mindset in “true threat” cases. This is known as a “mens rea“ standard.[2] 

In a 7-2 decision, Justice Kagan authored the majority opinion. She stated that while the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, there are a few limited, “historic and traditional categories” of speech—incitement, defamation, and obscenity—that are not protected.[3] “‘True threats’ of violence” Justice Kagan stated, are “serious expression[s] conveying that a speaker means ‘to commit an act of unlawful violence.’” The Court noted that in previous cases, the Court has stated that the existence of a threat depends on the recipient’s perception and not the speaker’s intent.

The Court acknowledged that the First Amendment may still demand a true threat to be subject to a subjective mental-state requirement that may shield some true threats from liability. In her concurrence, Justice Sotomayor stated that society’s discourse occurs more frequently on the Internet, specifically on social media. The rapid changes to communication and information transmission has changed what society accepts as acceptable behavior. Justice Sotomayor went on to say that online communication can lack context clues, such as who is speaking, the tone of voice, and expression. She noted that without sufficient protection for unintentionally threatening speech, comments made in the heat of the moment online could lead to criminal prosecution.

Justice Kagan noted the reason the First Amendment may demand a subjective mental state requirement relates to what is known as a “chilling effect on speech.” The Court further reasoned that a prohibition on speech may result in self-censorship of speech. One tool to prevent that outcome is to require the State to establish that a defendant acted with a culpable mental state. The Court recognized that this requirement comes at the cost of shielding threatening speech when the State cannot prove what a defendant thought. However, doing so reduces the prospect of chilling fully protected expression. The Court recognized that even though a culpable mental state may lessen the chill of protected speech, it makes prosecution of certain types of communications harder. To balance these two concerns, the Court considered the appropriate mens rea standard to apply.

The Court held that among mens rea standards, a determination of recklessness offers a suitable standard. Recklessness is morally culpable conduct involving a “deliberate decision to endanger another.” The Court stated that in a “true threat,” a speaker is aware that others could regard their statements as threatening violence and but delivers the statements anyway.

The Court held that in Counterman’s case, the Colorado district court failed to consider Counterman’s understanding of his statements as threatening, and in doing so violated Counterman’s First Amendment rights. The Court therefore vacated the judgment of the Colorado Court of Appeals and remanded the case back to the Colorado district court for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s opinion.

---

[1] Section 18-3-602 (1)(c), C.R.S.

[2] Mens rea is the state of mind statutorily required to convict a defendant of a particular crime.

[3] Justice Kagan was joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Jackson, Sotomayor, and Gorsuch. Justice Sotomayor and Justice Gorsuch concurred in part and concurred in the judgement. Justices Thomas and Barrett dissented.

By Alana Rosen

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. ___ (2022).

In many states, high school football is seen almost as an unofficial religion. On June 27, 2022, the United States Supreme Court brought high school football and religion even closer by announcing its decision in favor of Mr. Joseph Kennedy in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.

Mr. Kennedy worked as a football coach for Bremerton High School in Washington State from 2008 to 2015. Since his hiring in 2008, Mr. Kennedy engaged in a practice of “taking a knee at the fifty-yard line to say a quiet prayer at the end of football games for about 30-seconds.” Initially, Mr. Kennedy prayed on his own but, over time, some players asked whether they could pray alongside him. Some players invited opposing players to join too. Mr. Kennedy began giving motivational speeches, with a helmet held aloft, and would deliver speeches with “overtly religious references,” which Mr. Kennedy described as prayers, while players kneeled around him. On September 17, 2015, after learning of the post-game prayers, the Bremerton School District (District) asked Mr. Kennedy to stop the practice of incorporating religious references or prayer in his post-game motivational talks on the field because the District did not want to violate the Establishment Clause. [1]

On October 14, 2015, Mr. Kennedy sent a letter to school officials through his attorney, stating that he would resume his practice of praying at the 50-yard line because he felt “compelled” by his “sincerely-held religious beliefs” to offer a “post-game personal prayer.” He asked the District to allow him to continue the “private religious expression” alone and stated that he would wait until the game was over and the players had left the field.

Thereafter, Mr. Kennedy and his attorney had a back-and-forth with the school district. Mr. Kennedy wanted to exercise his sincerely-held religious beliefs to offer a post-game prayer and the school expressed concern that such a prayer would lead a reasonable observer to think that he was endorsing prayer while on duty as a District employee. The District also offered accommodations for religious exercise that would not be perceived as endorsing religion or interfere with his job performance.

Undeterred, Mr. Kennedy continued to pray at the 50-yard line while post-game activities were still ongoing, and as a result, the District placed him on paid administrative leave for violating its directives by thrice kneeling on the field and praying immediately following games before rejoining the players for post-game talks. On August 9, 2016, Mr. Kennedy filed suit in the Western District of Washington contending that the District violated his rights under the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.

In this case, the United States Supreme Court considered whether a public school employee who says a brief, quiet prayer while at school and visible to students is engaged in government speech, which is not protected by the First Amendment. And whether, assuming that such religious expression is private and protected by the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses, the Establishment Clause compels public schools to prohibit religious expression.

Since the founding of this country, the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment—the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause—have been understood to jointly demand government neutrality towards religion. The Free Exercise Clause recognizes the right to believe and practice a faith, or not. The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” The Free Speech Clause protects religious speech.

A plaintiff bears a certain burden to demonstrate an infringement of rights under the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses. In this case, the Court held that Mr. Kennedy discharged his burdens under the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause, which were “sincerely motivated religious exercises.”

To determine whether the government violated the Free Exercise Clause, the Court considered whether a government policy is neutral and generally applicable. Justice Gorsuch, writing for the six-member majority, stated that a government policy will not qualify as neutral if it is specifically directed at a religious practice. Additionally, a government policy will fail the general applicability requirement if the policy prohibits religious conduct while permitting secular conduct that undermines the government’s asserted interests in a similar way or if it provides a mechanism for individualized exemptions.

Here, the Court determined that the District’s challenged policies were neither neutral nor generally applicable. The Court held that the District’s policy was not neutral towards religious conduct. The Court further held that the District’s challenged policy failed the general applicability test because the District had advised against renewing Mr. Kennedy’s contract because he “failed to supervise student-athletes after the game.” The Court noted that any sort of post-game supervision requirement must be applied evenly across the board, and while other coaching staff briefly visited with friends or took personal calls, Mr. Kennedy chose to briefly pray at the 50-yard line.

The Court then analyzed whether the District violated Mr. Kennedy’s freedom of speech. The Court held that Mr. Kennedy offered his prayers in his capacity as a private citizen, which did not amount to government speech because the prayers were not ordinarily within the scope of Mr. Kennedy’s duties as a coach. To come to this conclusion, the Court applied the “Pickering – Garcetti” two-step test.[2] The first step of the test is to determine whether a public employee is speaking as a the public employee doing official duties or whether the public employee is speaking as a citizen addressing a matter of public concern. The second step of the test is that the government may seek to prove that its interests as an employer outweigh an employee’s private speech as a matter of public concern.

In applying the “Pickering-Garcetti” test, the Court first determined Mr. Kennedy was speaking as a private citizen as “Mr. Kennedy’s prayers did not ‘owe [their] existence’ to Mr. Kennedy’s responsibilities as a public employee.” The Court stated that the timing and circumstances of Mr. Kennedy’s prayers confirm this point because the prayer was conducted during the post-game period. Justice Gorsuch stated that “[t]eachers and coaches served as vital role models, but [the District’s] argument commits the error of positing an excessively broad job description by treating everything teachers and coaches say in the workplace as government speech subject to government control.” In the dissent, however, Justice Sotomayor argued that Mr. Kennedy was on the job as a school official on government property when he incorporated a public, demonstrative prayer into government-sponsored school related events as a regularly scheduled feature to those events.

The District argued that it was essential to suspend Mr. Kennedy to avoid violations of the Establishment Clause and relied on the Lemon test—a three-step test established in Lemon v. Kurtzmann—and its progeny to determine Establishment Clause violations. [3] Justice Gorsuch, however, said that the Court had abandoned Lemon and the related endorsement test. The Court argued that these tests invited chaos and led to differing results in materially identifiable cases. Instead, in place of Lemon, the Court instructed that the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by “reference to historical practices and understandings.” Justice Sotomayor questioned the Court’s new “history and tradition” test because the Court did not provide guidance on how to apply the test, potentially causing confusion to school administrators, faculty, and staff trying to implement it.

What does Kennedy mean for Colorado?

Right now, it is unclear how Kennedy will affect Colorado and education law. While teachers or school personnel could bring forth similar arguments for their religious conduct, courts will ultimately have to determine what the “history and tradition” test is in order to answer whether religious conduct violates the Establishment Clause. Because the Court did not provide guidance on how to apply the “history and tradition” test, it will be up to the lower courts to decide.

 

---

[1] The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion” and it bars the government from taking sides in religious disputes or favoring or disfavoring anyone based on religion or belief (or lack thereof).

[2] Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006) (holding the First Amendment does not prohibit managerial discipline of public employees for making statements pursuant to employees’ official duties); Pickering v. Bd. of Ed. of Township High Sch. Dist. 205 Will Cty., 391 U.S. 563 (1968) (holding a teacher’s right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment).

[3] Lemon v. Kurtzman, 401 U.S. 602 (1971) (establishing a three-part test to determine First Amendment Establishment Clause violations).

by Jacob Baus

“Unremarkable”

Is this a judgmental slight from Downton Abbey’s Mr. Carson, or a harsh but fair critique from TV personality Carson Kressley? Neither! This is how U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts described the holding in a recent case, Carson v. Makin.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; . . .”, and these clauses are commonly referred to as the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause. Carson is the latest case concerning the provision of public money to a religious-affiliated school and how states have attempted to navigate the issue with respect to these clauses.

Maine is a sparsely populated state, and many of its school districts do not operate a secondary school. Consequently, Maine created a tuition assistance program for families whose resident school district does not provide a secondary school education. An eligible family chooses a school, and the resident school district sends tuition assistance payments to the school, if the school is eligible.

To be eligible, a school must satisfy certain education-related requirements, may be public or private, and must be nonreligious. Maine excluded religious schools from the program based on a position that the provision of public money to religious schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Eligible families sued Maine’s Commissioner of Education, arguing the program’s nonreligious requirement violated the Free Exercise, Establishment, and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

Applying principles from the related Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue cases, the Court arrived at a similar conclusion in Carson; that is, excluding religious schools from program eligibility because of their religious character violates the Free Exercise Clause. This reliance on consistent and recent precedent may explain why Chief Justice Roberts found the conclusion in this case to be unremarkable. Nevertheless, the Court addressed a few significant considerations and arguments in reaching its conclusion.

First, the Court noted that the flow of public funds to a religious institution through the independent choice of a benefit recipient does not offend the Establishment Clause. Consequently, excluding religious schools from program eligibility promotes stricter separation between church and state than the Establishment Clause requires. And, the Court continued, a state’s interest in separating church and state further than the Establishment Clause requires is not sufficiently compelling in this case to justify a Free Exercise Clause violation to deny a public benefit because of religious character.

Second, Maine argued that the benefit at issue was providing the “rough equivalent of a public school education” and therefore must be secular. The Court rejected this argument, citing numerous facts about the program undermining this assertion. The Court ultimately concluded that the only real manner in which an eligible private school is the “equivalent” of a public school under the program is that it must be secular, thereby supporting the Court’s position that the program excludes based upon religious character.

Third, Maine argued that the nonreligious requirement was not religious character-based, but rather religious use-based. Maine argued that because religion permeates everything a religious school does, the nonreligious requirement was effectively use-based and therefore permissible. Maine argued this distinction because the Court has previously held that a state’s religious use-based exclusion was constitutionally permissible.[1] The Court rejected this argument, concluding that a prohibition on character-based discrimination is not grounds for engaging in use-based discrimination.

What does Carson mean for Colorado?

Nothing in the Carson decision requires Colorado to provide public money to support private schools. The Carson decision reaffirms an important point of clarity from the Espinoza decision:

[A] State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.

It is not novel to state that the General Assembly must be cautious if a public program or benefit appears to categorically exclude a religious school or institution. It appears from Carson, Espinoza, and Trinity, that the Court is likely inclined to find that religious exclusions are character-based, and therefore in violation of the Free Exercise Clause, even if a state has a no-aid provision similar to article IX, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution.

Although it is always difficult to predict what happens next, the Court will likely have future opportunities to examine whether there is a meaningful constitutional distinction between exclusions that are character-based versus use-based in nature and how states should consider issues that fall in an often-found tension between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses.

 

---

[1] Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712 (2004) (A publicly funded Washington scholarship excluded the use of the scholarship for a degree in theology. The United States Supreme Court concluded the exclusion was not unconstitutional.)

by Julie Pelegrin

This week, we’re looking at the second set of interrogatories that the General Assembly sent to the Colorado Supreme Court during the 2021 legislative session. House Joint Resolution 21-1008 asked the court to determine whether the changes made in Senate Bill 21-247, concerning the procedures of the independent redistricting commissions, would be constitutional if adopted. The court held that the changes in the bill would not be constitutional and clarified a limit on the plenary authority of the General Assembly.

To understand the questions and the answers, we’ll start with some background on the redistricting process in Colorado.

Every 10 years, in the year following the U.S. Census, the boundaries for congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn to ensure equal population as required by the federal constitution. In 2018, voters passed Amendments Y and Z, codified in sections 44 to 48.4 of article V of the Colorado Constitution, which create the independent congressional redistricting commission and the independent legislative redistricting commission to draw the congressional and legislative district maps.[1] The amendments also provide instructions for how to draw the maps (usually called redistricting plans), including criteria to apply in determining the district boundaries and very specific timelines for proposing the redistricting plans, getting public feedback on the plans, and submitting the plans to the Colorado Supreme Court for final approval.

These timelines are based on an initial triggering event: Receiving the “necessary census data,” presumably by April 1 of the year following the census. This year, however, due mainly to the COVID-19 pandemic, the states are not receiving the census data until much later. At this point, the anticipated date for receiving the data is August 16, 2021, more than four months late. And the data released by this date won’t be tabulated and user-friendly for data access. That data won’t be available until September 30, 2021.

Obviously, this delay wreaks havoc with the timelines specified in the constitution, which require:

• Preliminary redistricting plans to be prepared by early May;
• The commissions to hold several public hearings on the plans before July 21;
• The commissions to consider up to three staff plans that are prepared after the public hearings are complete;
• Each commission to submit an approved plan to the Colorado Supreme Court by September 15;
• The court to either approve each commission’s plan or sends the plans back for reconsideration by November 15; and
• The court to finally approve plans for both congressional and legislative districts no later than December 29, 2021.

If the independent commissions cannot meet this timeline, there’s a strong likelihood that the deadlines for the 2022 election cycle will need to be delayed. To avoid that situation, the General Assembly introduced SB21-247 to make it clear that the commissions could begin their work using preliminary census data, but that the final plans must be based on the final census data. Also, to avoid protracted legal challenges to the process that the commissions follow, SB21-247 provided that a court, in considering a challenge to the plans on technical grounds, would apply a substantial compliance standard; that is, the plans would not be found to be unconstitutional on technical grounds so long as the commissions substantially complied with the technical constitutional requirements.

The constitution uses the term “necessary census data” to describe the data the independent commissions must use to create the redistricting plans. That term isn’t defined in the constitution, but it is defined in section 2-2-902 (1)(c), C.R.S., as the federal decennial data published for the state by the United States Census Bureau and adjusted by the General Assembly’s nonpartisan staff to reflect changes concerning the residential addresses of incarcerated persons. This, of course, is the data that the commissions will not receive until August or September this year – much too late to begin the process of preparing plans.

SB21-247 redefined “necessary census data” for this year only, to include population estimates from the census data and other data selected by the independent commissions. The bill also required the final plans to be based on “final census data,” defined as the data the commissions will receive in August and September of this year. The bill also included provisions concerning how and when the commissions will release the plans that are based on the final census data, including the requirement to hold at least one public hearing after receiving the final census data.

As faithful LegiSource readers will recall, the General Assembly has plenary legislative authority, meaning it may enact legislation with regard to any issue or subject, so long as the legislation is not prohibited by or in conflict with the constitution. Amendments Y and Z specifically instruct the General Assembly to set compensation for the persons who assist in selecting the commissioners, appropriate money for commission expenses, and provide a per diem allowance for commissioners. But the amendments do not appear to specifically limit the plenary authority of the General Assembly, and the provisions of SB21-247 do not conflict with any provision of the amendments. The General Assembly therefore was arguably acting within the boundaries of its plenary authority in enacting SB21-247 to facilitate the work of the independent commissions. However, to avoid any legal challenges to the redistricting plans based on the provisions of SB21-247 that would cause delay to the 2022 election cycle, the General Assembly asked the Colorado Supreme Court for its opinion as to whether the provisions of SB21-247 are constitutional.

The court held in a 5-2 opinion that they are not.

The court reviewed Amendments Y and Z and concluded that by their terms they do not require the independent commissions to use only final census data when creating the preliminary and staff plans. Thus, the commissions can begin their work without waiting to receive the data that are scheduled to be delivered in August and September. However, for the final redistricting plans to comply with the criteria specified in the constitution, those plans likely must be based on the final census data received in August and September.

The court also concluded that the General Assembly’s grant of plenary authority actually does not extend to legislation concerning Amendments Y and Z; the General Assembly does not have authority to direct the actions or operations of the independent redistricting commissions, except as specifically stated in the amendments. The court held that, in adopting Amendments Y and Z, the voters specifically intended to “divest the legislature” of authority over the redistricting process and especially over the independent commissions. Any authority of the General Assembly over those commissions must be specifically stated within the amendments. And in this case, Amendments Y and Z give the independent redistricting commissions and their staff “sole constitutional authority to conduct all of the key tasks in the redistricting process.” In adopting Amendments Y and Z, the voters put the redistricting process “beyond the power of the legislature.”

Finally, the court held that the General Assembly cannot define the standard that a court applies when reviewing compliance with constitutional requirements, even if those requirements are purely technical. The General Assembly may establish the standard for determining compliance with statutes that the General Assembly enacts, but it cannot set the standard for determining compliance with constitutional provisions that the people enact. That decision lies solely with the courts.

While the court was considering the interrogatories, SB21-247 rested on the third reading calendar in the House of Representatives. After the court announced its decision on June 1, 2021, the House effectively killed the bill by agreeing to lay it over until July 8, 2021.

 

 

---

[1] Before 2018, the General Assembly was charged with congressional redistricting and a redistricting commission appointed by the Governor, the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, and legislative leadership created the legislative redistricting plans.

by Julie Pelegrin

For the second session in a row, the General Assembly sent interrogatories to the Colorado Supreme Court to ask whether pending legislation is constitutional. This session, the General Assembly actually sent two request for interrogatories to the Court: One regarding House Bill 21-1164, which concerns the number of mills that a school district must levy; and the other regarding Senate Bill 21-247, which addresses certain redistricting issues. And for the first time in recent memory—maybe ever—the Court agreed to answer the questions with regard to both bills.

This article provides some background to HB21-1164 and explains the question asked and the Court’s answer. A future article will cover the request for interrogatories regarding Senate Bill 21-247. In a nutshell, the Court held that the General Assembly can constitutionally require school districts to increase their property tax mill levies over time up to the number of mills that they levied when their voters waived the revenue limits in the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR).

Colorado funds its school districts by calculating how much each school district should receive based on a formula that takes several factors into account. The amount that each school district receives is paid for by a dual funding system; the statute specifies how many property tax mills each school district must levy, and if the amount of property tax revenue received from that levy isn’t enough to completely pay for the district’s formula funding, then the state pays the rest.

In 1994, when the state passed the current school finance act, each school district was required to levy the lesser of: 1) The number of mills required to fully fund the school district’s formula amount; 2) The number of mills that would generate tax revenue within the limits imposed by TABOR; or 3) The number of mills levied in the previous property tax year. So, if a school district’s assessed property value increased in one year, the school district would likely have to reduce its mill levy to stay within TABOR revenue limit. But if the property values went down in next year, the school district could not increase its mill levy back to the previous number of mills because the statute would not allow it to levy more than it levied in the previous year.

Shortly after the voters approved TABOR, school districts started asking their voters to waive the revenue limits, a request TABOR allows school districts to make. Eventually the voters in 174 of the 178 school districts authorized their districts to continue collecting and spending revenue in excess of the limit. Under the mill levy statute, this should have meant that, once a school district had this approval from its voters, the school district’s mill levy would never have to decrease because the revenue limit imposed by TABOR would never apply. But that’s not what happened.

The department of education advises school districts concerning the number of mills the school district is required to levy under the statute. If a school district doesn’t levy the required number of mills, then it can affect the amount of money the school district receives from the state to fully fund the school district’s formula amount. The department continued to advise school districts to lower their mill levies to stay within their TABOR revenue limits, even after the school districts’ voters had waived those limits. As explained above, this meant that school district mill levies went down, and the statute would not allow those levies to go back up. The result? The state paid more and the school districts paid less. In 1994, all of the school districts combined paid about 47% of the total formula funding in the whole state, and the state paid about 53%. By 2007, the school districts were paying 36% and the state was paying 64%.

In 2007, the General Assembly changed the statute to stop the reduction of mill levies for school districts that were no longer subject to the TABOR revenue limits. Starting in the 2007 property tax year, school districts were required to levy the lesser of: 1) The number of mills required to fully fund the school district’s formula funding; 2) The number of mills required to stay within the TABOR revenue limit, but only if the school district was still subject to that limit; 3) The number of mills levied in the preceding property tax year; or 4) 27 mills. With this change, the mill levies stopped going down, but they didn’t go back up.

In the 2020 legislative session, the General Assembly decided to do something about raising the school district mill levies back to the levels that were in effect when school district voters agreed to waive the TABOR revenue limits. They enacted [House Bill 20-1418] enrolled bill, which reset the school district mill levies for school districts that are no longer subject to the TABOR revenue limits. Starting in the 2020 property tax year, the school districts are required to levy the lesser of: 1) The number of mills required to fully fund the school district’s formula funding; 2) The number of mills the school district would have been levying if not for the reductions required by the department of education; or 3) 27 mills. But when the bill passed, the state was in the middle of a pandemic, so rather than actually require tax payers to pay more in 2020, HB20-1418 also said that each school district that was increasing its mill levy would grant a temporary tax credit for the full amount of the increase. So, even though the mill levies were reset to the previous levels, taxpayers paid the same amounts they paid in 2019.

That brings us to now. During the 2021 legislative session, the General Assembly introduced HB 21-1164, which directs the department of education to adopt a schedule to reduce the temporary tax credits by no more than one credit per year, until each school district’s tax credit is removed. At this rate, most school districts will have completely removed the tax credits by about 2024.

There was some question, however, as to whether reducing the tax credits—and thereby increasing the school districts’ mill levies—is constitutional. In addition to imposing revenue limits, TABOR requires a school district to obtain voter approval in advance for “…a mill levy above that for the prior year…”. Even though HB20-1418 and HB21-1164 are together correcting an error and restoring the school district mill levies to the levels that would have been in effect without the error, this restoration does result in school districts assessing mill levies that are higher than those assessed in the previous year. Rather than require the school districts to risk litigation, the General Assembly sent an interrogatory—a question—to the Court. Is it constitutional for the General Assembly to require school districts to eliminate the tax credits and restore the mill levies without seeking voter approval?

The Court, by a vote of 6-1, said yes, resetting the mill levies without additional voter approval is constitutional. The Court concluded that, when voters waived the revenue limits for their school districts, they essentially approved the mill levies that were in effect at the time of the election, and they expected those mill levies to continue. Since the voters had already approved those mill levies, correcting the error and resetting the mill levies to those levels does not require the voters to approve them for a second time.

Next, we’ll discuss the Court’s answers to the questions concerning SB21-247. Spoiler alert, they were not in the affirmative.

by Jessica Wigent

Editor’s note: This article was originally posted December 31, 2015. Because the impact of federalism on our judicial system is still relevant, we decided it would be helpful to post it again.

In a recent webcast presented by the Council of State Governments, Lisa Soronen, executive director of the State and Local Legal Center, and Paul Clement, a former U.S. Solicitor General, discussed federalism, how it guides our complex judicial system, and how courts’ decisions impact state governments. It’s a useful review as we come to the close of 2015 and look ahead to court cases in the coming year.

Federalism, from the Latin root foedus, or “formal agreement or covenant,” is a system of government where authority is allocated between national and state governments— and for our purposes here, state and federal courts.

Alexander Hamilton, “the ten dollar founding father without a father,” as he is described in the celebrated Broadway play named for him, summed up the usefulness of our system, calling it “a double security to the people,” because if our rights “are invaded by either [our state or federal government], [we] can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.”

So how does this intricate balance of power work?

The federal courts:

• Answer constitutional questions (Was a fundamental liberty at stake in the gay marriage debate? The Supreme Court said yes in Obergefell v. Hodges)
• Handle interstate tussles (The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to hear Oklahoma’s and Nebraska’s lawsuit against Colorado over recreational marijuana)
• Step in when Congress passes a law some say is murky (What did Congress really mean to say about subsidies and federal and state health exchanges in the Affordable Care Act? The Supreme Court answered this question in King v. Burwell)
• Hear cases where the United States is suing or being sued (Remember when then-President Richard Nixon tried to tell the New York Times and the Washington Post they couldn’t publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers? In New York Times Co. v. United States, the Supreme Court said the First Amendment protected the paper’s right to publish the documents detailing the country’s involvement in Vietnam)

And the state courts? Well, they decide (almost all of) the rest—from traffic tickets to whether awarding state-funded tuition scholarships to students who attend sectarian schools violates the Colorado Constitution. (Whether the latter violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is an issue the federal courts would have to decide.)

The structures of the federal and state courts are fairly similar:

Level	Colorado State Level Courts	Federal Level
Lower courts (hold trials, make findings of fact and law)	County and district courts, scattered throughout 22 judicial districts across the state, and specialized courts (like our seven water courts)	U.S. District Court, District of Colorado
Intermediate courts (hear appeals from the lower courts)	Colorado Court of Appeals	10th Circuit Court of Appeals
The high court (hears appeals from the intermediate courts, sometimes)	Colorado Supreme Court	U.S. Supreme Court

So we’ve got the levels down; we know which cases end up in which court. Now, how do cases get decided?

Again, both state and federal courts work similarly. As Soronen explained, the courts use a hierarchy of laws when making their decisions. First, they look to the (federal and/or state) constitution, then to statutes passed by the Congress/legislature, then to rules and regulations created by administrative agencies (like the I.R.S. or the Colorado Department of Education), and, finally, they look to case law and common law.

The law develops through the expansion of case law—as courts answer more and more questions and make rulings on certain issues, they have more and more references to turn to and follow when considering their decisions. This is called applying precedent—or stare decisis, meaning Let it Stand!—and it is (usually) the guiding principle of our judicial system, aiding both we the people and the courts in many ways:

• It’s efficient
• It’s fair
• It gives the system predictability
• It’s a check on arbitrary behavior

So when does precedent apply? Lest you think we forgot the title of this post (we are supposed to be talking about federalism after all) the precedent of a state court applies just to that state’s courts. If the Colorado Supreme Court says it tastes like chicken, so do the Colorado Court of Appeals and the county and district courts. But whatever it tastes like in California or New Jersey or Texas doesn’t affect what it tastes like in Colorado. In the federal system, the same hierarchy applies within the districts and circuits, except that, when the U.S. Supreme Court says it tastes like chicken, every court in our fair land—state and federal— says it does too.

Soronen explained that state courts are not bound by interpretations of federal law made by the federal district courts or federal courts of appeals, even in the same state! And this means? Judges in state courts throughout Colorado aren’t bound by rulings made by a judge from the U.S. District Court, District of Colorado or the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. This can get confusing fun (States interpret state and federal law! Federal courts can’t tell state courts what to do!) and is a product of the philosophical compromise of our Founding Fathers that led to our federalist system of government.

We Coloradans would do well to understand how federalism and the courts work, so we can better understand why TABOR has been challenged in both state and federal courts, why our friendly state neighbors to the east and southeast are suing us over marijuana in federal and not state court, and why, at least for now, our school voucher cases have only been heard in state court.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Delaware Delegate John Dickinson famously said: “Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits.” What we ended up with is more complicated than what he envisioned, but it’s a system, and it’s ours.

by Jason Gelender

The Colorado Open Meetings Law (OML), sections 24-6-401 to 402, C.R.S., declares that it is “a matter of statewide concern and the policy of this state that the formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.” The OML also declares that “[a]ll meetings of two or more members of any state public body” or of “a quorum or three or more members of any local public body, whichever is fewer, at which any public business is discussed or at which any formal action may be taken are … public meetings open to the public at all times.”

However, the OML includes an exception to the general open meetings requirement, allowing state and local public bodies to consider specified types of matters in a closed “executive session” if certain requirements are met. The OML has substantially similar notice of executive session requirements for both state and local public bodies. It requires a state or local public body to identify the particular matters to be discussed in an executive session “in as much detail as possible without compromising the purpose for which the executive session is authorized.”

During four public meetings held in 2016, the Basalt town council went into executive sessions to discuss matters related to four topics for which the OML allows executive session discussion: property interests, receipt of legal advice on specific legal questions, determination of negotiating positions, and addressing of personnel matters. In its required public notices of the executive sessions (notices), the town council simply cited the appropriate statutory authority and generic purposes (e.g., receiving legal advice) for the executive sessions without providing any information about what property interests, legal advice, negotiations, or personnel matters would be discussed.

Plaintiff Theodore Guy applied to the district court for an order declaring that the notices failed to adequately identify the particular matters to be discussed as required by the OML and requiring disclosure of the records of the executive sessions. The district court granted plaintiff the requested relief with respect to the matters relating to property interests and negotiations but concluded that the notices were not required to include any specific information about the legal and personnel matters because of the nature of the attorney-client privilege and the subject employee’s privacy interests. Guy appealed.

In Guy v. Whitsitt, the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the district court and held that the notices had not provided adequate notice of the legal and personnel matters. With respect to the legal matters, the court of appeals concluded that it was possible, without compromising the purpose of the executive session, and therefore legally required, for the notices to have identified at least the subject matter of the legal matters to be discussed because the attorney-client privilege does not ordinarily prevent mere identification of the subject matter of an attorney-client communication. With respect to the personnel matters, the court of appeals concluded that the notices were required to at least identify the subject employee because: (1) a public employee has a narrower expectation of privacy than other citizens; and (2) the town’s argument that disclosure could violate the terms of its employment contract with the employee was not relevant because a town may not, by contract, evade its statutory obligations.

The upshot of this decision is that it is now clear that when a public body (e.g. a legislative committee) gives notice that it intends to consider a matter in an executive session, the OML requires that it do more than simply cite the applicable statutory authority and generically state an authorized purpose such as “receiving legal advice” or “addressing a personnel matter.” The public body must instead at least identify the person who is the subject of a personnel matter or the “subject matter” about which it is receiving legal advice.

For more general information about the OML and executive sessions, please see the Legisource article “The 411 on Executive Session under the Colorado Open Meetings Law.“

by Brita Darling

Loyal readers of LegiSource[1] are already aware of the evolving body of law concerning the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the religious “no-aid” provisions contained in many states’ constitutions, including Colorado’s.[2] The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue,[3] while not declaring these state no-aid provisions unconstitutional, significantly narrowed the instances in which state aid may be restricted from flowing to religious schools.

The case concerns a tax credit program created by the Montana legislature. Under the program, a person donating to a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to low-income students to attend secondary schools may receive an income tax credit of $150 for a contribution of $150 or more. Upon award of a scholarship from the nonprofit organization, the parent and student decide which private school to attend. The school must meet the broad statutory definition of a “qualified education provider,” which definition includes religious and nonreligious schools.

Montana has a constitutional no-aid provision, similar to Article IX, Section 7 of the Colorado Constitution, which prohibits the state from providing aid to a school that is controlled by a “church, sect, or denomination.” While the Montana statute creating the tax credit program did not exclude religious schools from the broad definition of qualified education provider, the statute specifically states that the program must be administered by the state’s Department of Revenue in compliance with the constitutional no-aid provision. To that end, the department adopted a rule that prohibited a parent and student from using the scholarship at a religious school.

Three parents sued to challenge the rule that excluded religious schools from the program. The Montana Supreme Court held that the department exceeded its authority in promulgating the rule, because the rule conflicted with the statutory definition of qualified education provider. The court also held that the program was unconstitutional because, by including religious schools in the definition of qualified education provider, the statute violated the state’s no-aid provision. Because the court had no mechanism to bring the program into compliance with the no-aid provision, the court invalidated the entire program.

In a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court held that Montana’s application of its no-aid provision violated the Free Exercise Clause because it excluded aid to certain schools based purely on their status as religious schools. Citing the Court’s 2017 holding in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer,[4] “[t]he Free Exercise Clause, which applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, ‘protects religious observers against unequal treatment’ and against ‘laws that impose special disabilities on the basis of religious status.”‘ In Trinity Lutheran, the Court’s holding was limited to religious status discrimination in a playground resurfacing program, with the Court specifically declining to decide the issue of religious use of state aid.

Acknowledging the Court’s distinction between religious status and religious use in Trinity Lutheran, the Court noted that concerns about religious use of the money were not the basis on which the Montana Supreme invalidated the program. Similar to the reasoning in Trinity Lutheran, the Court stated, “[t]his case also turns expressly on religious status and not religious use.” Discrimination based on religious status must satisfy the strict scrutiny standard of legal review. Applying that standard, the Court found that Montana failed to show sufficiently compelling state interests to justify its discrimination against religious schools. Further, the Court reinstated the program, explaining that the Montana Supreme Court should have recognized that applying the no-aid provision violated the federal Free Exercise Clause and should have therefore “rejected the invitation” to do so in favor of deciding the case under federal law as required by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.[5] Had it done so, the Court stated, it would not have invalidated the scholarship program under state law.

However, similar to Trinity Lutheran, the Court did not declare Montana’s no-aid provision unconstitutional on its face, but only as applied in this case. This leaves Colorado’s constitutional no-aid provision technically intact for now. And the Court seems to leave some room for constitutionally denying aid to a private organization on the basis that the aid will be put to a religious use.[6] However, it is difficult to predict what this type of exclusion would look like or how it could be implemented while still avoiding government’s excessive entanglement with an organization’s religious practices, which has been prohibited in earlier cases.[7]

What does Espinoza mean for Colorado?

Does the holding in Espinoza mean that the state is required to fund religious organizations or schools – or any private organizations or schools? The short answer is, “No.”

Nothing in the Espinoza decision requires the state to fund private education or school choice scholarships, tax credits, or other programs that have the effect, directly or indirectly, of supporting private organizations or schools, whether religious or nonreligious. The Espinoza Court states this clearly:

The State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.

The state may continue to use 100% of available public money to support public institutions and public schools and, in fact, the Colorado Constitution requires the state to establish and maintain public schools.[8] Further, the General Assembly remains free to weigh policy decisions regarding the best use of public funds, whether to forego tax revenue, and whether to condition the receipt of public funds on compliance with participant qualifications, program outcomes, and financial reporting.  However, Colorado should be cautious if religious organizations or schools appear to be categorically excluded from sharing in the same opportunities or benefits that flow to nonreligious private organizations or schools, whether due to statute or the application of the no-aid provision.

 

 

---

[1] U.S. Supreme Court Resolves a Playground Fight, August 3, 2017; Missouri Tires – Colorado Schools, March 10, 2017.

[2] Article IX, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution prohibits the state from using public funds in aid of a church, or for a sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain a church school. Colorado’s provision and other states’ provisions are also referred to as “Blaine amendments” after a failed effort by U.S. Representative James Blaine to include similar language in the U. S. Constitution.

[3] Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, et al., No 18-1195 (2020).

[4] Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 582 U.S. ___, 137 S. Ct. 2012.

[5] Id. at 22.

[6] Id. at 11-12. However, the Court recognized that some Court members “have questioned whether there is a meaningful distinction between discrimination based on use or conduct and that based on status.”

[7] See, e.g., Colorado Christian University v. Weaver, 534 F.3d 1245 (10^th Cir. 2008).

[8] Article IX, section 2 of the Colorado Constitution.

by Jason Gelender

The Colorado constitution requires a petition for a proposed ballot initiative to be signed by registered electors “in an amount equal to at least five percent of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for the office of the secretary of state at the previous general election” before the initiative can be placed on the ballot.[1] If the proposed ballot initiative amends the Colorado constitution, the petition must also be signed by at least two percent of the registered electors residing in each of the state’s 35 Senate districts.[2]

The Colorado constitution also imposes requirements regarding the manner in which an initiative petition must be signed, stating that a petition “shall be signed by registered electors in their own proper persons only,” and that each petition must include “an affidavit of some registered elector that each signature thereon is the signature of the person whose name it purports to be and that, to the best of the knowledge and belief of the affiant, each of the persons signing said petition was, at the time of signing, a registered elector.”[3]

Accordingly, the implementing statutes that govern the qualification of proposed initiatives for the ballot require initiative petitions to be signed in person by registered electors while in the physical presence of a petition circulator. In 2020, government, business, and individual efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through mandatory and voluntary social distancing have made in-person ballot petition signature gathering considerably more challenging for proponents of proposed ballot initiatives than it typically is.

The Colorado Disaster Emergency Act, §§ 24-33.5-701 to 24-33.5-717, C.R.S., (CDEA), authorizes the Governor to declare a disaster emergency during which the Governor may “suspend the provisions of any regulatory statute prescribing the procedures for conduct of state business or the orders, rules, or regulations of any state agency….” On March 10, 2020, the Governor declared a disaster emergency as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic. On May 15, 2020, recognizing the challenges to in-person ballot petition signature gathering posed by social distancing resulting from the disaster emergency, the Governor issued Executive Order D 2020 065 (EO 65), which, among other things: (1) suspended the requirement of section 1-40-111, C.R.S., that initiative petition signature collection take place in person; and (2) authorized the Secretary of State to create temporary rules to permit signature gathering by mail and email.

On May 18, 2020, petitioners Colorado Concern, a self-described “alliance of top executives with a common interest in enhancing and protecting the Centennial State’s business climate,” and Colorado Concern board member Daniel Ritchie filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court against the Governor and the Secretary of State seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of EO 65 and a declaratory judgment finding EO 65 unconstitutional under the Colorado constitution and unauthorized under the CDEA. On May 27, 2020, after ordering expedited briefing and holding a hearing, the district court issued an order [https://www.courts.state.co.us/Media/Opinion_Docs/20cv31708%20-%20Ritchie%20v%20Polis%20-%20FINAL%20as%20filed.pdf] denying the injunction and declaratory judgment. The petitioners appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court.

On July 1, 2020, the supreme court reversed [https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2020/20SC453.pdf] the district court, unanimously holding that article V, section 1 (6) of the Colorado constitution requires initiative petition signatures to be executed in person in the presence of a petition circulator and that the Governor cannot issue an executive order that suspends that requirement. The supreme court concluded that, by adopting the phrase “in their own proper persons,” the voters who approved article V, section 1 (6) intended that petition signatories sign for themselves rather than permitting someone else to sign for them. The supreme court further concluded that this requirement, read together with the additional article V section 1 (6) requirement that a registered elector attest to the validity of petition signatures, also requires that the in-person signing occur in the presence of the person circulating the petition. The supreme court supported these conclusions by observing, as the U.S. Supreme Court in Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414 (1988), had observed, that Colorado’s initiative process is interactive and involves direct engagement.

In light of its holding that article V, section 1 (6) requires in-person collection of initiative petition signatures, the supreme court did not determine whether EO 65 complied with the requirements of the CDEA. Instead it simply concluded that while the CDEA authorizes the Governor to suspend certain types of statutes, rules, and regulations during a declared disaster emergency, it does not authorize the Governor to suspend constitutional provisions.

The supreme court’s decision that initiative petitions must be signed in person and in the presence of a petition circulator dissuaded the proponents of at least one proposed initiative from even attempting to qualify the initiative for the 2020 ballot. Before the court issued its decision, the Secretary of State had authorized email and mail signature collection for six of the sixteen initiatives that had been approved for circulation: initiatives numbers 174, 271, 283, 292, 300, and 301. On July 2, 2020, the day after the supreme court announced the decision, the proponents of initiative #174 (“Setback Requirement for Oil and Gas Development”) announced that they would end their signature collection efforts because they were left with no safe way to proceed.

The proponents of at least one other proposed initiative also cited the decision as a factor in their inability to collect the required number of signatures. On July 31, 2020, three days before the August 3, 2020, deadline for turning in signatures, the backers of initiative #271 (“Policy Changes Pertaining to State Income Taxes”) announced that they had been unable to collect the required signatures because “we could not overcome the effects of a global pandemic and a Supreme Court decision that did away with a viable alternative to traditional signature collection.” However, despite these challenges, three initiatives have qualified for the ballot and four others have turned in enough signatures for the Secretary of State to review them for signature sufficiency.

 

 

---

[1] Colo. Const. Art V, § 1 (2). For the 2020 general election, 124,632 verified signatures must be collected to qualify a proposed initiative for the ballot.

[2] Colo. Const. Art. V, § 1 (2.5).

[3] Colo. Const. Art. V, § 1 (6).