DENVER—As the 2025 legislative session gets underway it appears majority Democrats will continue practicing closed door governance, while Republicans have pledged to be more transparent, saying Colorado voters have right to know what is going on under the gold dome of the state capitol.
Both Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie (D-Dillon) and Senate President Steve Fenberg (D-Boulder) have made it clear that Democrat caucus meetings will no longer be open to the public or the media.
The two started closing meetings last August after a new bill they both supported went into law that exempted the legislature from portions of Colorado’s open meeting laws. Senate Bill 24-157 was passed after another bill sponsored by Democrats allowing legislators to block people from their social media pages was passed earlier in the session.
Colorado’s open meetings law says that public meetings are “the formation of public policy” and that public policy is “public business and may not be conducted in secret.”
However, Democrats supporting the bill say that the formation of public policy isn’t subject to open meetings until a bill is put forth. In other words, the behind the scenes wheeling and dealing and debate over the language of the bill does not concern the public or the media. Only lawmakers can n propose changes, once the bill has been introduced, and with Democrats holding the majority, those amendments fail more often than they pass.
McCluskie told the Colorado Sun that the closed Caucus meeting was not “looking at bills” or “taking votes,” and therefore it was not public business, and thus could be held in private. She added that “the new law isn’t set in stone forever,” and that the bill requires a review on an annual basis.
“I think we have seen what happens when members don’t talk to each other and try to understand different perspectives,” McCluskie said. “We worked very, very hard to ensure that transparency and that openness, while still remaining committed to being able just to talk with one another and understand each other and learn from each other.”
Republicans, who voted unanimously against the open meetings exceptions, have said their caucus meetings will remain open to the public in both the House and the Senate.
Republican Senate Minority Caucus Chairman Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, said his caucus will continue to have an open-door policy. The public is welcome to attend any caucus meeting. They cannot participate; however, anyone is free to observe and listen.
“Senate Republicans will continue to believe in transparency; we work for the public,” Pelton said. “Our caucus meetings will remain open as they have in the past.”
There may be a reprieve in the near future. A coalition of media outlets and other organizations led by the Independence Institute* and including the Colorado Press Association, the Colorado Broadcasters Association, the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and the League of Women Voters, among others, are meeting to develop a ballot measure to put before voters that would not only repeal the legislature’s open meetings bill but also enshrine government transparency in the Colorado Constitution.
*Independence Institute is the publisher of Complete Colorado.
