Federal government transparency since January has eroded in spectacular ways.

The Trump administration has barred access to major news organizations it doesn’t like. It has deleted more than 100,000 pages on government websites, erasing information on health, census data, the Jan. 6 insurrection and even the country’s founding documents.

In late January, the administration halted all federal scientific communication with the public from health agencies. Not to mention one of the most alarming features of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement: Federal authorities release scant information about people they detain, often leaving community members with no idea about who’s been arrested, why they were targeted or where they are.

But Republicans in Washington aren’t alone in their hostility to open government.  Secrecy is especially likely to emerge when one party is in charge, and in Colorado, that’s Democrats in state government.

Year after year, they find new ways to conceal what they’re doing in the name of Coloradans. On the occasion of Sunshine Week, an annual recognition of the importance of open government for a healthy democracy, it’s useful to highlight ways in which state leaders are falling short of democratic ideals.

For instance, House Bill 25-1242 would have capped increasingly exorbitant hourly fees for records production and repealed provisions of brazen government secrecy legislation from last year, but lawmakers decided they were just fine with their self-assigned secrecy, and the bill never even made it out of its first committee hearing.

Disdain for transparency was displayed in other legislative actions. Senate Bill 25-77, which already passed the Senate, extends the deadlines by which public records custodians must respond to requests from members of the public. Senate Bill 25-38, which the Legislature has passed, exempts from Colorado Open Records Act requirements the names of people who file a claim for compensation if they incur damages from wildlife, such as wolves.

The debate around a student-athlete “name, image or likeness” bill was hardly the most consequential event in the Legislature this year, but it was emblematic of the low regard lawmakers have for transparency. The bill allows universities to pay student athletes for their name, image or likeness, which could translate into millions of dollars paid by public institutions to individuals.

But bill sponsors made pleas, however implausible, for the privacy of “students” and succeeded in exempting NIL deals from CORA provisions. If the governor signs the measure, which the House and Senate passed by wide margins, Coloradans will be barred from learning the details of these lucrative deals.

Legislation from last year, Senate Bill 24-157, basically exempted the General Assembly from the requirements of the decades-old Colorado Open Meetings Law. And get this — Gov. Jared Polis signed this monstrosity during Sunshine Week 2024.

The bill was only the most outrageous assault on transparency to come out of the Capitol in recent years. But maybe lawmakers have finally gone too far.

As crucial as government transparency is to democracy, it’s not the sort of topic that typically motivates voters or spurs public outcry. But a coalition of advocates has organized around a proposed 2026 ballot initiative that would amend Colorado’s constitution to ensure greater government transparency. A draft of the initiative has yet to be released, but it is expected to address the cost of public records, establish a uniform right to access government records and bolster open meeting law requirements. The tipping point for the group was SB-157. As Robert Davis reported for Newsline, the coalition comprises organizations that typically are not politically aligned.

State lawmakers appear to have learned that they will not be held accountable for chipping away at transparency, and they have shown that they cannot be trusted to enact open-government policies on their own. It seems the only way Coloradans can guarantee their own broad access to government business is to mandate it themselves.

Residents of the state came to a similar conclusion in 1972, when voters passed the Colorado Sunshine Law, which required open meetings. The law served the state well, until Democrats at the Legislature decided it was obsolete.

Residents once more could have the final say.