Judicial outcomes are shaped long before cases reach the courtroom

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

A leopard doesn’t change its spots, Polis’ judicial board stuffing shows he doesn’t either.

I thought a follow up on an older Sun article (see the first link below) would be in order.

Let’s go back before going forward. The 2023 Sun article details how Polis has stuffed judicial appointing boards with Democrats and Unaffiliateds that (in a startling coincidence) donate to Democrats.

I wanted to share an update on the Sun’s numbers from 2023, now that we’ve had about 2 1/2 years more of Polis under our belts. I also wanted to look beyond simply the State Supreme Court nominating commission that the Sun examined.

The second link below is to the state’s website for Judicial Nominating Commissions. It gives an overview, rules, and a roster of each judicial nominating commissions by state judicial district. You’ll also find that info for the appellate courts, and some lesser info for the court of appeals and the Colorado Supreme Court.

These are the people that Polis appoints who, in turn, nominate the potential judge candidates that Polis picks among to be judges in this state.

I’ll skip a lot of detail which you can find in the second link (and in the one I’m about to reference), but in 1966, our state constitution was amended (see the third link below) to replace what were partisan judicial elections with a system thought would be more fair. Judicial candidates (often 3) would be selected by nominating committees, and then said candidates would be picked by the governor without further vetting. That is, unlike at the Federal level where a judicial candidate is nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate, Colorado judges are picked by a panel and then directly appointed by the governor.

A couple non-contiguous quotes from our Colorado Constitution give us the relevant info we’ll need for this post:

“Each judicial district nominating commission shall consist of a justice of the supreme court designated by the chief justice, to serve at the will of the chief justice who shall act as chairman ex officio, and shall have no vote, and seven citizens residing in that judicial district, no more than four of whom shall be members of the same political party and there shall be at least one voting member from each county in the district.”

and

“Members of each judicial nominating commission selected by reason of their being citizens admitted to practice law in the courts of this state shall be appointed by majority action of the governor, the attorney general and the chief justice. All other members shall be appointed by the governor. No voting member of a judicial nominating commission shall hold any elective and salaried United States or state public office or any elective political party office and he shall not be eligible for reappointment to succeed himself on a commission. No voting member of the supreme court nominating commission shall be eligible for appointment as a justice of the supreme court or any intermediate appellate court so long as he is a member of that commission and for a period of three years thereafter; and no voting member of a judicial district nominating commission shall be eligible for appointment to judicial office in that district while a member of that commission and for a period of one year thereafter.”

Clearly great care is taken here to try and keep politics out of the commissions and the process.

Unfortunately, as has been the case with most appointed commissions (and I say that without regard to party because Republicans are just as apt to do it as Democrats), they didn’t stay that way.

In my sweep of Colorado’s current nominating commissions, I found a great example of Obama’s saying about elections having consequences. Yes indeed they do. Years of Democrat rule, and a trend seemingly accelerated under Jared Polis’ rule, have taken what was meant to be a process guarding AGAINST partisan politics in the court, and have turned it into what we see (at least at the appellate level and above in Colorado) now: a judiciary that is as partisan and left-leaning as the other two branches of our state government. Following their playbook in other parts of state government, Colorado Democrats and Jared Polis have not only changed the surface features of the judiciary, they have changed the foundations.

As always, the numbers say it more eloquently than I could. The fourth link below is to a public, shareable spreadsheet where I went district by district through the judicial nominating commissions, counting the number of Democrat, Unaffiliated, and Republican members. I noted two other things. I noted whether there was a vacancy, and I noted the number of members (by affiliation) who have been appointed since 2023.

Screenshot 1 attached is the result of the counting as a stacked bar graph. Judicial district is the horizontal axis, the blue bars are the percentage (by district) of Democrat members, the green bars are the percentage of unaffiliated members, and the red bars are the percentage of Republican members.

Couple quick notes: Any stacked bar not making it to 1.000 means there is a vacancy, and note that there are multiple commissions with no red at all.

I might have missed one or two, but I don’t recall a single commission member across any of the districts or the appellate commission that has held their seat prior to 2019. That means that we can be confident in saying that the appointees you see in the graph are all Polis appointees.

The pattern here is clear. Polis has a definite bias to his own party in appointments and a definite bias against Republicans (with less of one for Unaffiliateds). Despite the fact that Republicans are about 23% of voters, few if any districts hit the 23% mark. Despite the fact that Democrats make up 25% of voters, the vast bulk of the districts greatly exceed 25% Democrat. And, despite the fact that unaffiliated voters make up about 50% of registered voters, few districts hit 50% of Unaffiliateds.

Returning to the numbers, I totaled the number of appointees since 2023 that Polis has appointed. You see a similar pattern to above. Since 2023, Polis has appointed 80 people. 30 of them (37.5%) are Democrats. 34 (42.5%) are Unaffiliated. 16 (20%) are Republican. A leopard doesn’t change his spots and neither does Jared Polis.

Go back and visit the provisions from our state constitution outlining who is to be on these commissions. Then go look in the spreadsheet. Polis does what he has always done: honored the letter of the law to avoid a lawsuit, while completely sidestepping the intent.

And he does this while bloviating about how he didn’t just do exactly what you saw him do. Taking his spokesperson’s statement from the Sun article:

“’The governor takes the responsibility of appointing boards and commissions seriously and is not interested in playing politics,’ said Conor Cahill, a spokesman for Polis. ‘These appointments represent distinguished public servants and thoughtful Coloradans, some of whom happen to be Republicans, some Democrats and some unaffiliated. Many of them have served our state for decades, and he trusts them to continue to serve the people of Colorado as they have throughout their careers and select excellent judicial candidates who will help make Colorado safer.’”

I’m sorry. “Many” Republicans? “Some” Democrats.

Polis’ choices are bad enough. The insult of telling us that the reality we can witness is not actual reality is simply insulting.

Asking future gubernatorial candidates (Bennett and Weiser, I’m looking in your direction) what they think about the partisan nature of our state courts and what they would do re. judicial nominating committees would be a great idea. If you get the chance, do it. If I get the chance I will.

https://coloradosun.com/2023/08/29/colorado-judicial-nominating-commission-jared-polis/

https://www.coloradojudicial.gov/supreme-court/judicial-nominating-commissions

https://codes.findlaw.com/co/colorado-constitution-of-1876/co-const-art-vi-sect-24/#:~:text=Judicial%20nominating%20commissions,the%20date%20of%20his%20appointment.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_zjaHlMiyqFr7DmByevROUOblGoBQu3a/view?usp=sharing

Related:

With one of the Colorado Supreme Court Justices stepping down, Polis’ and Weiser’s lefty nominating commission will forward 3 liberal names for Polis to appoint.

You know, the kind of judge who would blithely make comments such as the below.

“’I remain deeply committed to the work that is central to Colorado’s Judicial Branch — preserving the rule of law and serving the public,’ [Colorado Supreme Court Justice Melissa] Hart wrote. ‘As you know, I am especially concerned about access to civil justice for low and middle-income Coloradans and making the family law system work for unrepresented litigants. … I joined the bench because I felt called to address these issues, and I plan to continue this work after retirement.’”

More on the justice stepping down below.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2025/12/19/justice-melissa-hart-to-step-down-from-colorado-supreme-court

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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