February 5, 2026

Colorado’s legislative pace: 2025 update

Introduction

Colorado’s legislative activity has seen an increase in both bill volume and complexity over the past decade.

While there have certainly been positive results from certain policies, the rapid expansion places growing demands on voters to stay informed and engaged. The bills passed by the state’s legislature coincides with a rise in the number of citizen initiative ballot measures, signaling increased public involvement in the overall policymaking process.

Key Findings

• The growth of Colorado’s legislative output since 2012 is 56%—4^th-highest in the country.

• In 2025, the legislature passed 487 bills. Although this is a decrease from 2024’s 527, it is still 23% more than the average between 2012 and 2018.

• The average complexity of passed legislation has increased even faster than the count. 2025 bills were, on average, 26% more complex, as measured by word counts in each year’s Digest of Bills, than those passed between 2012 and 2018.

• The number of statewide ballot questions put before voters, including citizen initiatives and referred measures, quadrupled from 4 to 16 between 2012 and 2024.

Overview of Colorado’s Legislative Expansion

In 2024, across its regular and special sessions, the Colorado General Assembly passed 527 bills, breaking the previous record set two years before.[i] Even a significant reduction in 2025, to 487, fails to reverse the trend that began in 2021 but was foreshadowed as early as 2019, before which the longstanding norm was about 400. As in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, not one of these bills was sponsored solely by the legislature’s minority party—26% were backed by majority-party representatives and 74% had bipartisan sponsorship.

These numbers do not represent a shift towards shorter and more focused bills; instead, the average complexity of passed legislation has increased at an even faster pace than the count. Compared to the 2012–2018 averages, 2024’s count was 33% higher and its total complexity, according to word counts of each year’s Digest of Bills, was double.

[ii]

Although total complexity decreased alongside the count of bills in 2025, the former was still 54% higher than that historical average. Average complexity (total divided by the count of bills) remains 26% higher than its previous average. Much of both forms of growth since 2019 can be traced to the passage of HB19-1261, which requires the state to achieve emissions-reduction targets through policy and has since spawned dozens of bills with that purpose.

[iii]

Figure 1

Conclusion