Colorado General Assembly v. Owens

MULLARKEY, Chief Justice.

I. Introduction

Because of the great public importance of this dispute between the Governor and the General Assembly, we exercised our authority under C.A.R. 50 to review Colorado General Assembly v. Owens, No. 03CV3700 (Denver Dist. Ct. Sept. 29, 2004). This case concerns the Governor’s line item vetoes of definitional headnotes in two General Appropriations Bills, also known as the “long” bills, and the Governor’s line item veto of an appropriation in a separate substantive bill. The trial court upheld the Governor’s line item vetoes in the two long bills, but…