Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court decided a highly anticipated campaign-finance case, Unite for Colorado v. Colorado Department of State.
The case exposed a remarkable four-way split among Colorado’s governmental actors on how to define “major purpose” under Article XXVIII, § 2(10)(a)(I) of the Colorado Constitution, which determines when an organization’s ballot-measure spending triggers issue-committee registration, reporting, and disclosure obligations. In deciding against Unite, the Court of Appeals had crafted a novel seven-factor test that allowed the state to aggregate Unite’s spending across multiple ballot measures—even though no single measure exceeded roughly 10% of the organization’s $17 million budget—to conclude Unite qualified as an issue committee. That approach conflicted with the earlier Cerbo standard (which required ballot-measure spending to constitute “a considerable or principal portion” of total activities), the statutory thresholds enacted in 2022 (20% for a single measure, 30% for multiple), and the Secretary of State’s own regulatory framework. The Supreme Court resolved the confusion by reversing the Court of Appeals’ judgment.
This decision carries significant First Amendment implications. As the petition for certiorari framed it, the major purpose standard is the constitutional narrowing mechanism that ensures electoral disclosure requirements reach only speech that is “unambiguously campaign related” under Buckley v. Valeo. Without meaningful limits, overbroad disclosure rules can chill political speech, discourage participation in the ballot-initiative process, and incentivize weaponized campaign-finance complaints by political adversaries—burdens the Colorado Supreme Court itself recognized in Common Sense Alliance v. Davidson. By rejecting the Court of Appeals’ expansive multi-factor test, the Court reaffirmed that the state cannot compel sweeping donor disclosures from organizations whose primary mission is not ballot-measure advocacy.
Looking forward, the decision may not end the debate. The General Assembly’s 2022 numerical thresholds (S.B. 22-237) remain in place for future elections, and the tension between voter transparency and donor privacy will likely prompt renewed legislative attention. But for organizations navigating Colorado’s campaign-finance landscape, Unite for Colorado provides critical clarity: the major purpose test must function as a genuine limiting principle, not an elastic tool for compelling disclosure from any organization that participates in the political process.
Read Opinion Here: Unite for Colo. V. Colo. Dep’t of State.pdf