The Colorado Supreme Court unanimously blocked the Initiative 240 ballot-measure package on 29 June, ruling it breached the state's single-subject rule by trying to change the constitutionally mandated redistricting cycle. Initiative 240 would have let voters redraw Colorado's eight congressional districts. Chief Justice Monica Marquez wrote that the proposed maps would have favoured Democrats in seven of eight seats, up from four; the delegation stays split 4-4.
The ruling closes the last live Democratic redistricting track anywhere in the country for 2026. Maryland, Virginia, New York and California had already lost their mid-decade routes to a Senate veto, a court strike-down and constitutional bars, which left the Colorado ballot initiative as the only exotic path still open.
This block came on a procedural doctrine, the single-subject rule, rather than the Voting Rights Act or Callais reasoning that decided the Republican-drawn maps. The same run of summer rulings that turned away the DOJ subpoena also shut this Democratic counter-move. No mid-decade map for 2026 now remains in play.
