Colorado governor forms panel to recommend replacement for criminal justice commission shut down by statehouse Democrats
Gov. Jared Polis issued an executive order Monday forming a task force charged with recommending a replacement for a panel that helped guide the Colorado legislature on criminal justice policy for more than a decade before it was shut down this year by Democratic state lawmakers who said it wasn’t operating as intended.
The governor’s task force is also charged with filling the policy-recommendation void left when the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice stopped operating earlier this year and until a replacement is created.
“We want the work to continue,” Polis said in an interview with The Colorado Sun.
The CCJJ, formed by the General Assembly in 2007 and the brainchild of then-Gov. Bill Ritter, was intended to help remove partisanship from the process of drafting criminal justice reform policy. The 30-member panel was made up of legislators, prosecutors, representatives of the court and community members.