Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Boatright on Thursday acknowledged “inadequacies” in the state’s system for disciplining judges and said he welcomed reform while stopping short of fully supporting the current effort by lawmakers to remake the system.

“From everything I am aware of, I think judicial discipline works,” Boatright said, adding later, “I don’t think the system is broken. But with that said, I am completely supportive of looking at any reforms that would make the system better.”

During a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Boatright listed several concerns with the bipartisan bill, SB22-201, which aims to reform the state’s system for disciplining judges who violate ethical and professional rules. The measure was introduced Monday by Sen. Pete Lee, D-El Paso County, Sen. Bob Gardner, R-El Paso County, and Rep. Mike Weissman, D-Arapahoe County.

Boatright has publicly said he and the state Supreme Court support the reform effort, but he and Justice Monica Márquez also personally lobbied lawmakers over concerns about the bill and its timing, The Denver Post found. Boatright sent an email Wednesday to judges across the state in which he said the bill has “serious flaws.”

The reform bill aims to give the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline more independence from the Colorado Supreme Court and would also create a special committee to consider how to best overhaul the judicial discipline system.

The bill follows reporting by The Post on an alleged blackmail scandal within the Colorado Judicial Department in which a top administrator allegedly threatened to make judges’ unaddressed misconduct public unless she was given a $2.75 million contract.

“The public will not have faith in a system in which those charged with assessing misconduct of judges are overseen by judges, where judges screen all complaints against judges and select which complaints move forward for investigation,” Lee said Thursday. “If the judges control the budget, the rules, the appeals, the outcome, the system is at best suspect and at worst fundamentally flawed.”

Boatright told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that the bill does not give enough independence to the Commission on Judicial Discipline because it requires the Judicial Department to do some investigation of complaints before turning the complaints over to the commission, an extension of the current system that Boatright would like to see end.

“We want to remove any appearance of (attempted control by the Judicial Department) at all,” Boatright said. “It’s difficult because they would be a very small office, but by the same token, they need to be independent. Not kind of independent, or mostly independent. Our position is they should be completely independent.”

Boatright said the blackmail scandal — which includes allegations that the Judicial Department failed to report judges’ misconduct to the Commission on Judicial Discipline as they are required to do — shows “inadequacies” in the current system.

“What I am trying to do is avoid that allegation,” Boatright said. “Because we have seen the harm that just allegations can make… The allegations have been as damaging, and made this year probably the most difficult year for me in my professional life, for me. So would I like to get out of that? Yes.”

The legislative reform effort is constrained by the Colorado Constitution, which says that the Commission on Judicial Discipline must keep the majority of its work confidential and also gives the State Supreme Court the authority to set rules for the group. Under the constitution, only the Colorado Supreme Court — not the commission — can censure, remove or suspend judges.

Lawmakers cannot change those tenets through the reform bill; only the state’s voters can change the constitution.

“The challenge of this bill… is for us to navigate and find an accommodation between an independent commission and another complete branch of our government and what their respective roles are with respect to accountability and transparency to the people of Colorado,” Gardner said.

He said Thursday he was unsure about the bill as written, despite being a sponsor, and said he’d been in contact with members of the Judicial Department about the bill. He saw nothing “inappropriate” about those conversations, he said.

Colorado judges and justices are allowed to lobby lawmakers over some legal issues, though it is highly unusual for state Supreme Court justices to personally meet lawmakers.

Boatright on Thursday directly addressed his and Márquez’s personal lobbying of lawmakers over the bill, and in particular a meeting in early March with Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“When we met, we had a real fear that something vast was going to happen,” Boatright said. “These are really complicated issues and I think the interim summer group that would be created by the bill) is going to be an excellent way to sort throughout a number of these things… when we met, it was a very different bill.”

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