[1] Article V, section 1 of the Constitution of the state of Colorado allows its citizens to place particular initiatives and referendums on the electoral ballot, thus directly creating new laws.

Chief Judge Matsch of the district court agreed with them, declaring several provisions and restrictions "invalid because they are in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution".

In a 6–3 decision, the Court affirmed the opinion of the Tenth Circuit, holding that the name, badge, and disclosure requirements were unlawful.

The final report, at the time of filing, would still note the amount paid per petition signature, as well as the names of proponents and their ballot measures, akin to the mandatory disclosure requirements in Buckley v. Valeo (1976).

Ultimately, the majority opinion held that there were "less problematic measures" that allowed Colorado to satisfy its interest in protecting the initiative process, but that "the restrictions in question significantly inhibit communication with voters about proposed political change, and are not warranted by the state interests (administrative efficiency, fraud detection, informing voters) alleged to justify those restrictions."

In his view, the badge requirement directly regulated the content of speech, and was too overly broad to satisfy narrow tailoring.

In addition, the compelling government interest at hand, the prevention of fraud and misconduct, had not been sufficiently shown to exist as a real problem.

Second, the registration requirement operated much like Colorado's ban on paid circulators — which the Court had struck down in Meyer v. Grant (1988), ten years before.