In a wide-ranging discussion last week at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez spoke to her own views on the proper role of government, describing her belief that all branches should adhere to their designated “lanes.”

“It requires every part of democracy to kind of play its role in that system. And when we start pulling at those threads and people start either not upholding their end of the bargain or trying to do the role of another branch of government, I think we’re at risk of the whole thing just unraveling,” she said.

Márquez participated on March 6 in the “Fireside Chat” speaker series hosted by MSU Denver President Janine Davidson. She described her upbringing in Grand Junction, her time as a schoolteacher before becoming a lawyer and her experience in Germany around the time the Berlin Wall fell.

Davidson asked Márquez to weigh in on how she thinks about current developments in the U.S. legal system in light of her varied experiences.

“There’s a lot of talk today about the Constitution under threat and our democracy,” said Davidson. “I’m wondering how you’re thinking about what you would say to students who are thinking about constitutional law or the role of the courts in a time like today.”

Márquez’s appearance occurred one day after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld a trial judge’s order for the Trump administration to unblock payments to foreign-aid programs funded by Congress and for which work had already occurred. While not addressing any of the recent instances in which federal judges have found the administration likely violated the law, Márquez said her own philosophy about government can be characterized as “stay-in-your-lane.”

“When the judiciary starts filling in the blanks of words that might be missing in a legislative design, we start drifting out of our lane into the legislative lane and you get called activist judges because you’re starting to write the laws,” she said. “That’s not your role.”

Márquez described her previous experience in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, in which she sometimes argued to defend laws she believed were “wildly unconstitutional.” As a member of the state’s highest court, Márquez said she also cannot correct oversights in laws that the legislature may have made.

“I have to work with the words that are handed to me, even if I don’t like the outcome,” she said. “And what I can do to try to solve that problem is to point that out in my opinion. ‘I’m following the words you gave us. Here’s the result. Now, if y’all don’t like that, change the law. Maybe you can hold up your end of the bargain and rewrite the law and fix the law.'”

Márquez added that the difficult part of her job is not necessarily deciding the case in front of her, but ensuring the Supreme Court writes an opinion that can work for future cases, given the binding nature of Supreme Court decisions.

“I spend so much time in chambers and up at night at 2 o’clock in the morning thinking, ‘What about this scenario? What about this scenario? Are we writing this in a way that’s not gonna cause unexpected mischief?'” she described. “That’s the hard part. And that’s where having a diverse set of experiences helps cover each other’s bind spots.”

Her comments echoed remarks another member of the court, Justice Melissa Hart, made in late January at New York University’s law school. Addressing broadly the topic of potential changes to legal institutions and education, Hart said it was important to recognize “our diverse backgrounds and experiences and what they bring to the table.”

Speaking one week after the Trump administration issued an executive order deeming diversity initiatives “illegal and immoral,” Hart advocated for maintaining “a commitment to inclusion and belonging as we try to improve our legal institutions. These are values are so important. I do not believe that we can solve the problems we confront if we put them behind us. It’s something I think we need to continue to say.”

During her MSU talk, Márquez cited a specific instance in which her upbringing afforded her additional context to a case her court was deciding. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled, by 5-2, that a car need not emit only red from its taillights under state law, and that slight defects were not illegal.

“I grew up on the Western Slope. Not a particularly wealthy community. People have broken taillights. When you do, you go to the auto parts store, you get some red tape and you fix your taillight. Everybody does that, right?” she said. “I had a couple colleagues that were absolutely baffled that anyone would put red tape over their taillight. That just reflects a different set of experiences.”

Márquez also recalled that upon her appointment to the court in 2010, her relative youth — more so than her status as the first Latina or openly gay justice — affected how others treated her.

“I had some colleagues that I was the age of their grown daughter. And they could not wrap their heads around having an equal seat at the table with this kiddo,” she said.

Finally, Márquez commented on the “interesting trend” of litigants bringing constitutional rights cases based not on the U.S. Constitution, but on similar provisions of state constitutions. She pointed to the example of reproductive rights, where the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 eliminated its longstanding recognition of the federal constitutional right to an abortion.

“For many years at the federal level, I think SCOTUS set the federal level so high it kind of covered anyone. Now, there’s kind of a shift in philosophy happening at the federal level and that floor is ‘dropping,’ so to speak,” she said. “So, people are turning to the state courts to fill in.”