DENVER (Legal Newsline) - On April 1, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that an order in the Colorado Constitution that restricts regular legislative periods to 120 consecutive days, with the exception of declared public health emergency such as COVID-19, is constitutional.
In situations like the current widespread of the coronavirus, which has been declared a public state of emergency, the legislature has permission to solely count days when a chamber is in session, Justice Monica Márquez ruled, answering the question from the General Assembly as it relates to article V, section 7 of the state’s Constitution.
Ultimately, the General Assembly wanted to know if the “working calendar day” was allowed to go toward the 120-day limit amid the pandemic.
“The supreme court concludes that article V, section 7 is ambiguous as to whether the 120 calendar days allotted for a regular legislative session must be counted consecutively,” wrote Márquez.
The Supreme Court added that this regulation, along with Joint Rules 23(d) and 44(g) have already determined this, with the exception of state of emergencies.
“Because the General Assembly’s interpretation is consistent with the constitutional text and fully comports with the underlying purposes of article V, section 7, we conclude that Joint Rules 23(d) and 44(g) are constitutional,” wrote Márquez.
This means a hiatus is possible from the consecutive 120 days of legislative activity if there is a state of emergency.
While Márquez said that the clauses are constitutional, Justice Carlos A. Samour, Jr. dissented. Chief Justice Nathan B. Coats and Justice Brian D. Boatright dissented in the same opinion.
Justice Samour pointed to the world-changing pandemic of all things COVID-19, but said that the condition shouldn’t be strong enough to change the legislature. He suggested that the court has previously ruled that “there has never been, and can never be, an emergency confronting the state that will warrant the servants of the Constitution waiving so much as a word of its provisions,” wrote Samour.