Composition
The General Assembly is bicameral, composed of the Colorado House of Representatives and the Colorado Senate. The House has 65 members and the Senate 35. Members of the House are elected to 2-year terms, and members of the Senate are elected to 4-year terms.
General legislative elections are held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in each even-numbered year. The entire House is elected in each general election. Senators are elected in two classes such that, as nearly as possible, one-half of the senators are elected in each general election.
House members are limited to 4 consecutive terms in office, and Senators are limited to 2 consecutive terms. However once term-limited former members can run again after a 4 year break. Senators who have served the limit can run again after 4 years.
The vast majority of members of the General Assembly who are ultimately elected (in excess of 90% of members ultimately elected in all recent sessions) are nominated through a major political party caucus process that places candidates on a primary ballot for the position sought in their political party, which generally requires 30% support from delegates to the relevant nominating body of the political party. It is also possible for individuals who have been registered to vote and affiliated with the political party in question for at least a year to gain access to a partisan primary ballot by petition. Minor party candidates can gain access to the general election ballot through a minor party caucus process. Unaffiliated candidates can gain access to the general election ballot by petition. Rep. Kathleen Curry of House District 61 is now registered as "unaffiliated" and will be the first unaffiliated member of the Colorado General Assembly since 1891, according to the clerk of the house.
Vacancies in legislative offices are generally filled by political party vacancy committees, rather than by-elections. Vacancy appointees who fill the first half of a state senators term must stand for election at the next even year November election for the remainder of the state senate term for the seat to which the state senator was appointed.
The state auditor is appointed by the General Assembly, as are many members of independent boards and commissions.
Read more about this topic: Colorado General Assembly
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“There is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and all of them then different from other generations and this is what makes everything different otherwise they are all alike and everybody knows it because everybody says it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.”
—Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)