Colorado has a rich history of protecting the right of the public to know what our government is doing. In 1972, Colorado Common Cause was instrumental in passing our nation’s first “Sunshine Law,” which requires all meetings of two or more members of any state public body to be open to the public (if public business is being discussed). We have also worked to vastly improve the Colorado Open Records Act (commonly known as CORA), which guarantees the right of every Coloradan to gain access to public records.
While Colorado has a firm grounding in our open records and meetings laws, many of these laws were written before the 21st Century, and must be modernized. In 2017 we took the first step by giving the public access to government records in a digital format. This allows the public to request and receive a digital file (such as an Access database), as opposed to a 1,000-page printout. We will continue our work to improve our open records and meetings laws in the coming years.