Thread by @IJSanders

1. Got a Rocky Mountain High? Forget any other intoxicant, Coloradans have been high on their state constitution for almost 150 years. But it wasn’t easy at first. #50Weeks50Constitutions tells a story beyond the document’s (& the state’s) four corners.

2. Originally entirely part of Mexico, by 1858 what is now Colorado was split between the Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, & Utah territories.

3. As often happened out West, things got interesting once someone struck gold, which happened in 1858. Prospectors then flooded into an area that included what would become the city of Denver.

4. Miners agitated for recognition from Congress & even statehood. A group met at Uncle Dick Wootton’s Tavern to hatch a plan. They dreamed of a state called “Jefferson” & set an election for delegates for a constitutional convention.

5. Those delegates in a fairly fly-by-night setting essentially copied the 1857 Iowa Constitution & slapped a new name on it. However, voters then rejected the document, as the mood seemed to favor territorial status rather than jumping directly to statehood.

6. A new convention later in the year drew up a territorial constitution & proclaimed a new Jefferson Territory. Voters then approved this version. The problem was, Congress hadn’t sanctioned any of this.

7. In fact, Denver residents outright resisted and wrote their OWN constitution the next year, 1860. They proclaimed a “People’s Government of Denver” separate from the “Jefferson Territory.” And this was while the Denver area was still officially part of the Kansas Territory!

8. All this became moot when Congress created the state of Kansas in early 1861 & needed to park its western most county. So they lumped it w/ other land & the Colorado Territory was born. As w/ Nevada it helped that southern Senators had left DC.

https://twitter.com/IJSanders/status/1262725403854229504

9. Colorado could have become a state shortly thereafter as Nevada did, to help w/ Lincoln’s reelection. And it would have, under an act of Congress, if it had adopted a constitution in 1864. Alas, it was not to be.

10. Residents elected delegates who proposed a constitution, largely modeled on Kansas’s. But voters overwhelmingly rejected it. One reason: Colorado was like Canada in the Vietnam war. Federal conscription laws did not extend to the territory, but would if it became a state.

11. A year later the war was over, so they tried again. Another convention proposed another constitution which the voters passed! (By 200 votes.) But the new President, Johnson, was fighting w/ the Republicans in Congress & not eager to add likely Republican Senators.

12. So Johnson came up with excuses to not accept the constitution. Republicans in Congress tried to admit Colorado anyway, but failed to override Johnson’s vetoes.

13. Politicians in DC didn’t try for statehood again until the coming 1876 election, which promised to be extra-close. Hey, how about those electoral votes in Colorado? So Congress & President Grant authorized another try.

14. A convention met in late 1875 to write what would finally become a state constitution. The biggest priority was protecting the future state government from the corrupting influence of big business, especially railroads & mining companies.

15. The government couldn't grant special favors of various kinds. (Unfortunately, state courts later watered these protections down.) The constitution also prohibited aid to religious schools, in line with the anti-Catholic #BlaineAmendments movement.

ij.org/issues/school-…

16. Women’s suffrage was debated, but women were only given the right to vote in school elections. Also, whether to refer to God in the preamble was hotly contested. Eventually the compromise was to refer to the “Supreme Ruler of the Universe.”

17. For whatever reason the constitution wasn’t at all modeled on the earlier tries from the 1850’s & ’60. Votes adopted the new draft by a huge margin on July 1, 1876, & President Grant proclaimed statehood a month later. The timing lead to the “Centennial State” nickname.

18. The constitution was printed in English, Spanish (for the many former Mexicans in southern Colorado) & German (for the largest immigrant population in the territory). However, it seems most of the later two copies were never widely distributed.

19. The constitution was on the long side, and it has only grown longer since. Initiative & referendum was added in 1910, & amending the constitution w/ long new provisions became common, especially in recent decades.

20. A recent amendment, just upheld by the 10th Circuit, requires 2% of voters in *each* county to sign a constitutional initiative (so, for example, no loading up in Boulder or Denver), to get on the ballot. So future amendments may be more sporadic.

harvardlawreview.org/2020/04/semple…

21. Sources:

Oesterle & Collins, The Colorado State Constitution (2011)
coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colora…
du.edu/ideas/media/do…
9news.com/article/news/w…