DENVER – Despite new laws governing vacancies in the Colorado legislature, Democrat statehouse member Shannon Bird has still found a workaround that throws a wrench into her constituents’ ability to choose their representative at the ballot box.

Bird announced earlier this month she would be stepping down from her seat in House District 29 on Jan. 5 to focus on her bid for the US Congressional District 8 seat, currently held by Republican Gabe Evans.

Bird’s unique timing for vacating HD 29, which includes parts of Adams and Jefferson counties, takes advantage of a quirk in the law allowing for her replacement to serve possibly an entire extra year more than state statute sets forth for House members.

The meaning of ‘half’

State representatives are allowed to serve up to four consecutive two-year terms, or eight years total. However, Article V, Section 3, Subsection 2 of the Colorado Constitution defines a term even further as: “Any person appointed or elected to fill a vacancy in the general assembly and who serves at least one-half of a term of office shall be considered to have served a term in that office for purposes of this subsection.”

A “vacancy committee,” which is usually made up of less than 40-45 party insiders who live within the district, hand pick a replacement.

State vacancy laws dictate that the vacancy committee chairman must give at least a 10 day notice of a meeting to select a vacancy, cannot meet more than 20 days prior to the resignation date (first possible date to meet was Dec. 16), and must have the appointment certified to the secretary of state’s office no more than 30 days after the resignation (February 4) but not before the resignation (January 5). However, it is not effective until the first day of the legislative session (January 14).

There is legal precedence in Colorado for such a scenario. In 2006, then Sen. Joan Fitz-Gerald announced her intention to run for re-election. However, Republicans sued in Denver District Court saying Fitz-Gerald, who was originally appointed to her seat in 2000, after Sen. Tony Grampsas died just a few months after he was elected in 1998, had served more than half the term, and therefore was not eligible to run in 2006.

The argument was over how to define “half.” Mark Grueskin, who represented Fitz-Gerald, said it was the number of days in the term, divided in half, while Republicans argued it was simply two legislative sessions.

Denver District Court judge Catherine A. Lemon’s said political manipulation was not a factor in the case, according to a Denver Post article from 2006.

“Indeed,” Lemon wrote, “Senator Fitz-Gerald is the beneficiary of opening days set by a Republican majority, which caused her partial term to be less than one-half of a term.”

Slap in the face to voters

The same principle holds true with Bird’s departure.

Bird’s term runs from Jan. 8, 2025 – Jan. 13, 2027 (735 days). The official 2027 legislative session start date has yet to be announced, but is usually the second Wednesday of January each year.

Therefore, Bird’s Jan. 5 departure means her replacement will not technically serve a “term of office,” since any appointment to HD 29 cannot officially take place before January 14. If a replacement is sworn in on January 14, that person will only serve 364 days. So, whomever is appointed and regardless of when sworn in, that person will fall at least four days short of the state’s definition of a “term of office,” which appears to allow eligibility to run for four, two-year terms upon competition of the 2026 legislative session.

Bird said her departure from her House seat was because “The people of House District 29 deserve a representative who will be fully focused on legislative matters – and the voters of the 8th Congressional District deserve a candidate who is able to put in the 70-plus hours a week of work that it will take to flip this seat from red to blue.”

Yet, political insiders say, this is another slap in the face to the electorate. Bird’s resignation comes not even a year after lawmakers passed new laws designed to stop the onslaught of appointments, mostly by Democrats moving up the ladder.

The vacancy appointment shuffle

When the 2025 legislative session started, nearly two dozen of the 100 lawmakers were appointed rather than elected. The year before, there were 30 – all but three were Democrats.

In some cases, representatives have stepped down to be appointed to fill state senate seats after that official stepped down for other reasons.  In other cases, resignations were tendered to take on other more lucrative careers. In one case, two Democrat lawmakers resigned their seats soon after being elected in 2024, but before the 2025 session could begin.

State Rep. William Lindstedt was just recently tapped by a vacancy committee to fill the seat left open by Sen. Faith Winter, who was killed in a car crash while driving drunk, leaving yet another statehouse seat to be filled via appointment.

Although the new law includes a one-year clause that requires an election after the appointment serves just one year, doubles the number of committee members, forces vacancy candidates to follow state campaign finance laws, and requires the elections be livestreamed for the public, former Colorado Republican Party state chairman and GOP political consultant Dick Wadhams was not surprised by Bird’s timing, adding it’s just another example of why bigger changes are needed.

“This underscores why we need a total revamp of the vacancy process,” Wadhams said. “It’s too easy for political parties to manipulate and exploit the current process.”