Governor signing executive order creating the Women’s Vote Centennial Commission

Colorado Women’s Vote Centennial Commission

On Thursday, January 3, 2019, former governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order creating the Women’s Vote Centennial Commission, which will lead efforts to commemorate 100 years since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and recognize women’s suffrage in Colorado. The amendment, certified on August 26, 1920, bars states from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex. Previously, in 1893, Colorado was the first state in the country to grant women the right to vote via state referendum.

Read the full executive order here (amended here), and see lists of commissioners appointed January 2019, March 2019August 2019, and February 2020.

The commission, with support from History Colorado, will engage the residents of Colorado in the rich history of women’s suffrage in the state. The commission will celebrate and explore the stories of bold women who worked for equality and the opportunity to participate in democracy as voters and as elected officials. Suffrage changed the course of history and lit a spark that continues to inspire us today. Colorado was the first state in the nation to grant women the right to vote, and Colorado continues to chart new records in our current day with one of the largest percentages of female state legislators in the nation.