Colorado Courts Deliver Split Decisions on TABOR in 2025

By Rob Natelson | Commentary, Complete Colorado

During 2025, Colorado appellate courts issued two important decisions construing the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR. One continued the judiciary’s long practice of defeating and weakening TABOR. The other decision, however, was a rare victory for Colorado taxpayers.

Background

The Colorado Constitution, like the charters of almost all other states, includes terms restricting public debt, taxes, and spending. Such terms are called “tax and expenditure limitations” or “TELs.” State constitution-writers started to insert TELs during the mid 19th century, after several states went bankrupt from overspending. This helps explain why the Colorado Constitution, as adopted in 1876, included some very strict TELs. One limited the state only to property taxes and mandated their gradual reduction over time. Others allowed voters to review certain financial decisions.

In the years after 1876, constitutional amendments and judicial pronouncements weakened Colorado’s TELs. So in 1992, voters added Article X, Section 20 to the state Constitution. This is the section we call the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

Article X, Section 20 features several kinds of limits, but best known are the mandatory referendum rules. Most new debt, new taxes, tax increases, and certain spending hikes must be approved by the voters.

Modern state courts have proven hostile to TELs. This certainly has been true in Colorado. In 2016, I researched and wrote an Independence Institute study of the TABOR law. Although the study is now out-of-date, it showed that Colorado’s two primary appellate tribunals—the court of appeals and the supreme court—have issued many times more anti-TABOR rulings than pro-TABOR rulings.

With that background, let’s examine the two most important judicial pronouncements of 2025.

Americans for Prosperity v. Colorado

The Colorado constitution requires each lawmaker to take an oath “to support the constitution of the United States and of the state of Colorado” (Article V, Section 2(2)). Because TABOR is part of the state constitution, every lawmaker thereby swears solemnly to support it.

Since 2019, however, the Colorado legislature has been in the control of leftist zealots who have declared open war on TABOR. Earlier this year, for example, 44 of them sponsored a bill, since abandoned, to sue the taxpayers for a federal court order voiding TABOR. Another common tactic is to label tax hikes as “fees” to evade the need for voter approval. Still another is to abuse TABOR’s exemption for state enterprises.

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