Colorado’s Democratic leaders promised Friday to keep plugging away at the state’s affordability crisis when they gavel the legislature back into session next week — but the cost of living is just one of a slew of issues they’ll contend with in the coming months.
The majority Democrats are also bracing for challenges during a second Trump administration. Among other issues awaiting them: a budget with a shortfall of at least $670 million, a housing crisis that rages on, and fresh fights over labor law, gun control and the environment.
A wave of new freshman legislators will arrive at the Capitol when this year’s session begins Wednesday, while a rash of veterans are eying moves to other elected offices with two years to go before the next statewide election.
Though House Republicans won back a handful of seats in the November election, Democrats still control significant majorities in both chambers — 43-22 in the House and 23-12 in the Senate.
They will look to balance a blue Colorado against a Republican — and active — federal government. That could spell abrupt policy pivots in the statehouse as incoming President Donald Trump promises significant action on immigration and the environment, among other issues.
Republican leaders have not yet publicly unveiled their 2025 priorities. In a statement announcing the Senate’s committee assignments, Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen of Monument said his caucus “looks forward to working to save Coloradans money and making life more affordable for every Colorado family in the 75th General Assembly.” House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese of Colorado Springs said in a separate statement after the election that GOP members were “ready to work to cut costs and help Coloradans get ahead and will stand and fight when (Democrats) try to raise costs for families and businesses.”
In a news briefing Friday, returning House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, and new Senate President James Coleman of Denver laid out some of their caucuses’ priorities and expected hurdles during the 120-day session.
Housing and affordability
Coleman and McCluskie both highlighted the need for the legislature to address affordability, particularly when it comes to housing. Colorado voters consistently rank the cost of living and the cost of housing as their top concerns, and the state is coming off another year of record-high evictions in Denver and a broader surge statewide.
Coleman said Democratic lawmakers would focus on expanding modular housing, lowering construction costs and addressing increasingly expensive property insurance. Legislators have also discussed bringing back policy proposals related to construction defects, a contentious — and bipartisan — fight stemming from condominium development.
Democratic legislators will also seek to regulate the use of algorithms by landlords to determine rents, Coleman said, while also pursuing ways to “ease red tape” to make it easier to build housing near places of worship.
That policy — dubbed YIGBY, or “Yes In God’s Backyard” — generally seeks to reduce zoning restrictions and allow for housing on or near church properties and other worship sites. The proposal’s launch in Colorado follows recent efforts by the legislature to ease other zoning restrictions in a bid to develop more housing.
Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat who represents District 13, speaks to legislators during the start of a special legislative session at the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Aug. 26, 2024. The lawmakers were working to address property taxes issues in Colorado. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Tight state budget
As lawmakers juggle new priority bills, they’ll also need to contend with an estimated $670 million budget hole this legislative session. McCluskie called it “the single biggest rock we need to move this entire session.”
She lamented that, despite the state’s sturdy economic position, the legislature must still make cuts because of restrictions placed on budget growth by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR. Democrats broadly criticize it as an artificial barrier to the state meeting the needs of its residents, but McCluskie said there was no plan to try to raise its revenue caps this year.
The shortfall is largely driven by increases in Medicaid costs and slowing population growth and inflation, the two key factors in determining the state budget cap. Figuring out how to rein in those costs without cutting open the safety net or gashing other services will be a priority, she said.
In particular, she said, lawmakers want to preserve funding for K-12 education after finally plugging the decades-old funding gap, known as the budget stabilization factor.
“I’m really proud of the investments that we’ve made these past few years in K-12 and higher education, in early childhood education,” McCluskie said. “But with a budget in the status that it is, we’ve got to work to protect those investments now.”
The Trump factor
Democratic legislators have been preparing for Trump’s second term since shortly after his electoral victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November. House members formed four working groups — focused on civil rights, the environment, immigration and education — to begin coordinating potential responses to what may come from the federal government.
In December, they met with Attorney General Phil Weiser — now a candidate for governor in the 2026 election — to discuss legal avenues.
“I think what we’ve tried to do these past couple of months is get a very good understanding of what current law is in our state,” McCluskie said Friday, referring specifically to protections for LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and reproductive health. “… We want to make sure that we understand fully what Colorado already has in place. Then, as we meet (Trump’s) administration in the middle of January, we’re prepared to know where we may have gaps.”
Still, though Coleman said the legislature would work on civil and voting rights legislation in response to concerns from the federal government, he and McCluskie said they would remain focused on the needs of Colorado voters and their own legislative agendas first.
McCluskie said it was “premature” to launch specific Trump-related proposals now, “when we’re not clear what will actually be coming down from the administration.”
New labor fight
Coleman and McCluskie both declined to take a formal position on a coming legislative showdown that is set to pit Democratic lawmakers and unions against businesses and Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat.
In November, Democratic lawmakers from both chambers unveiled legislation that they cast as a party litmus test: a proposed change to an 80-year-old provision in labor law. It would remove the requirement for a second, more difficult election that unions must pass before workers can begin fully bargaining a contract with their employers.
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Supporters say the measure, which they’ve dubbed the Worker Protection Act, will remove an unnecessary part of Colorado law that doesn’t exist in any other state. Critics, including the business community, argue the bill needlessly unspools a decades-old agreement between labor and business.
A Polis spokeswoman said at the time that the governor was “deeply skeptical” of the bill, unless the process ended with a “heavily negotiated” deal between the two sides.
Coleman and McCluskie said Friday that they were still working to help negotiate and vet the bill with groups from both sides. McCluskie noted that an anti-union “right-to-work” initiative had been filed preliminarily with legislative staff — a first step on an eventual path to the ballot — though it has since been withdrawn. Advocacy groups have used ballot measures in recent years to force legislators to the negotiating table.
McCluskie said she supported unions that have stepped up “to say, ‘We can be the voice of our workers in the workplace, we can help make sure that our workers are earning living wages and good benefits.’ And I think we have to do that in partnership with our business community.”
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