The Government of Colorado is the governmental structure as established by the

Constitution of the State of Colorado The Constitution of the State of Colorado is the foundation of the laws and government of the U.S. state of Colorado. The current, and only, Colorado State Constitution was drafted on March 14, 1876; approved by Colorado voters on July 1, 1876 ...

. It is composed of three branches: the

executive branch The Executive, also referred as the Executive branch or Executive power, is the term commonly used to describe that part of government which enforces the law, and has overall responsibility for the governance of a State (polity), state. In poli ...

headed by the

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

, the

legislative branch A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known as ...

consisting of the

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...

, and the judicial branch consisting of the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

and lower courts. The constitution also allows direct participation of the electorate by initiative, referendum,

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...

and ratification.

Executive

The statewide elected officers are: The Lieutenant Governor is elected on a ticket with the Governor. All statewide elected officers serve four-year terms. There are also elected members of the Colorado State Board of Education, and the Regents of the University of Colorado are elected from districts coterminous with Colorado's congressional districts or at large. As a result, the Governor does not have direct management authority over either the Department of Education or any of the state's institutions of higher education. The executive branch is otherwise composed of the principal departments: *

Department of Agriculture An agriculture ministry (also called an) agriculture department, agriculture board, agriculture council, or agriculture agency, or ministry of rural development) is a ministry charged with agriculture. The ministry is often headed by a minister f ...

(CDA)

* Department of Corrections (CDOC) * Department of Early Childhood (CDEC) * Department of Education (CDE) * Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) * Department of Higher Education (CDHE) *

Department of Human Services A Department of Human Services (DHS) or Ministry of Human Services (MHS) is a national or subnational umbrella agency which is responsible for providing public assistance programs to the population they serve. Various aspects or alternate names i ...

(CDHS) *

Department of Labor and Employment The Department of Labor and Employment ( fil, Kagawaran ng Paggawa at Empleyo}, commonly abbreviated as DOLE) is one of the executive departments of the Philippine government mandated to formulate policies, implement programs and services, an ...

(CDLE) *

Department of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

(DOL) * Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) * Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA) * Department of Natural Resources (CDNR) One Civic Center Plaza, NE corner

* Department of Personnel and Administration (DPA) * Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) * Department of Public Safety (CDPS) * Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) * Department of Revenue (DOR) *

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

(DOS) * Department of Transportation (CDOT) * Department of the Treasury (CDT) Regulations are published in the ''

Colorado Register Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of th ...

'' and codified in the ''

Code of Colorado Regulations In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter (alphabet), letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes data compression, shortened or secrecy, secret ...

'' (CCR).

Legislature

The legislative body of Colorado is the Colorado General Assembly made up of two houses, the House of Representatives and the

Colorado Senate The Colorado Senate is the upper house of the Colorado General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Colorado. It is composed of 35 members elected from single-member districts, with each district having a population of about 123, ...

. Members of the House are elected for two year terms from single-member, equal population districts. Approximately half of the members of the state senate are elected each two years to four year terms from single-member, equal population districts. The House of Representatives has 65 members and the Senate has 35 for a total of 100 legislators in Colorado. The session laws are published in the ''

Session Laws of Colorado The law of Colorado consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory, local, and case law. The ''Colorado Revised Statutes'' form the general statutory law. Sources The Constitution of Colorado is the foremost source ...

''. The laws of a general and permanent nature are codified in the '' Colorado Revised Statutes'' (C.R.S.).

Direct democracy

In addition to providing for voting, the people of Colorado have reserved to themselves the: * initiative of laws, * referendum of other legislative acts,Constitution of Colorado, article V, section 1 and *

of office holders.

Judiciary

The

judiciary of Colorado The Judiciary of Colorado is established and authorized by Article VI of the Colorado Constitution as well as the law of Colorado. The various courts include the Colorado Supreme Court, Colorado Court of Appeals, Colorado district courts (for each ...

is defined by Article VI of the Colorado Constitution as well as the

law of Colorado The law of Colorado consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, regulatory, local, and case law. The ''Colorado Revised Statutes'' form the general statutory law. Sources The Constitution of Colorado is the foremost source ...

. The administration of the state judicial system is the responsibility of the

Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

as its executive head, and is assisted by several other commissions. Colorado courts include the: Colorado Supreme Court courtroom

* Colorado Supreme Court, * Colorado Court of Appeals, * Colorado district courts, * Colorado county courts, * Colorado water courts, *

Colorado municipal courts Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. All of the courts above, other than municipal courts and Denver's county court, are part of the state court system. In Denver, county and municipal courts are integrated and are not part of the state court system for administrative purposes, and the Denver Probate Court and the Denver Juvenile Court have jurisdiction over probate and juvenile matters, respectively. Outside Denver, these matters are within the jurisdiction of the district courts. Most crimes in Colorado are prosecuted by a

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

. One district attorney is elected for each of the state's 22 judicial districts in a partisan election. The state attorney general also has power to prosecute certain crimes, and in rare circumstances a special prosecutor may be appointed to prosecute a crime on a case by case basis. Municipal ordinance violations are prosecuted by city attorneys.

Local government

Denver, CO, City and County Building IMG 5541

Colorado is divided into 64 counties. Counties are important units of government in Colorado since the state has no secondary civil subdivisions, such as townships. Two of these counties, the

City and County of Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unite ...

and the

City and County of Broomfield Broomfield is a consolidated city and county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. Broomfield has a consolidated government which operates under Article XX, Sections 10-13 of the Constitution of the State of Colorado. The Broomfield population ...

, have consolidated city and county governments. A municipality may extend into multiple counties. The 272 Colorado municipalities operate under one of five types of municipal governing authority: * 2 consolidated city and county governments * 61 cities and 35 towns that are home rule municipalities * 12 statutory cities * 161 statutory towns * 1 territorial charter municipality There are no township governments in Colorado, but there are more than 4,000 special districts. Se
Active Colorado Local Governments
Other political subdivisions include the

University of Colorado Hospital Authority UCHealth (University of Colorado Health) is a not-for-profit health care system, headquartered in Aurora, Colorado. The system includes hospitals and facilities throughout Colorado, along with affiliated hospitals in Wyoming and Nebraska. The ...

which supports education, research, and public service activities, and which provides patient care through

UCHealth UCHealth (University of Colorado Health) is a not-for-profit health care system, headquartered in Aurora, Colorado. The system includes hospitals and facilities throughout Colorado, along with affiliated hospitals in Wyoming and Nebraska. The s ...

(University of Colorado Health).

Other governments

There are two federally recognized tribes that overlap Colorado: the

Southern Ute Indian Tribe The Southern Ute Indian Reservation ( Ute dialect: Kapuuta-wa Moghwachi Núuchi-u) is a Native American reservation in southwestern Colorado near the northern New Mexico state line. Its territory consists of land from three counties; in descend ...

and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. There are no other known state-recognized tribes.

References

External links

Colorado.gov

Colorado Information Marketplace

State of Colorado
recipient profile on

USAspending.gov ttp://www.usaspending.gov USASpending.govis a database of spending by the United States federal government. History Around the time of the Act's passage, OMB Watch, a government watchdog group, was developing a site that would do essentially eve ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Government Of Colorado Colorado