Live updates: Lawmakers debate whether Colorado is inviting Trump’s retribution with immigration bill
4:52 p.m. update: After its morning scuffle and some quicker floor work, the House has been debating an immigration bill for much of the afternoon.
Senate Bill 276 would expand state law that prohibits state employees from working with federal immigration authorities to include local officials, agencies and law enforcement. Among other changes, the bill would prohibit immigration authorities from entering nonpublic areas of public buildings without a warrant. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could enter a hospital waiting room, for instance, but not a hospital room.
Live updates: Gov. Polis signs law requiring public schools to set book-removal policies; hospital showdown in legislature
3:15 p.m. update: Gov. Jared Polis today signed Senate Bill 63, which requires public schools’ libraries to create policies for deciding which books to keep on their shelves and which ones to remove.
Under the new law, public schools can remove a book only if it’s been reviewed under that policy. The new bill was inspired in part by controversial book-removal decisions like the Elizabeth School District’s recent removal of books deemed “highly sensitive” from its library shelves; the school district has faced a lawsuit and court orders to restore them.
Colorado lawmakers strip trans rights bill’s most controversial provisions before overnight vote
Legislation that would enact new antidiscrimination protections for transgender Coloradans passed a Senate committee early Thursday morning after its backers altered the most controversial provisions to assuage advocacy groups’ concerns.
House Bill 1312 is now two votes and some procedural smoothing away from Gov. Jared Polis’ desk. The proposal would expand the state’s antidiscrimination law to include intentionally, repeatedly “deadnaming” or misgendering a transgender person.
The measure passed the House a month ago but has since hit whitecaps: Two weeks ago, some prominent LGBT+ groups began to hedge their previous support over fears of legal backlash.
Those concerns prompted significant changes to the bill early Thursday, after hours of testimony in a marathon hearing that had begun Wednesday afternoon. HB-1312 passed Senate Judiciary on a party-line 5-2 vote just before 1 a.m.
Live updates: Colorado trans rights bill is set for changes, sponsors say as Senate committee hears testimony
7:12 p.m. update: The Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the transgender rights bill is ending its fourth hour, with testimony expected to continue late into the evening or longer. Once testimony ends, the committee is set to consider amendments and then vote on full bill.
With drop in Medicaid-covered patients, Colorado safety-net clinics seek help from lawmakers
Over the last 18 months, the nonprofit Jefferson Center for Mental Health has seen a 50% increase in patients without insurance. They’re people who still need and receive care — only now, the nonprofit center has 75 fewer workers to provide it.
The behavioral health center, like health care providers across the state, has felt the financial strain of more than 500,000 Coloradans losing Medicaid coverage following the end of the COVID-19 public emergency. The so-called unwind hasn’t just cost those individuals vital health care coverage — it’s cut off the flow of federal money that many such safety-net clinics rely on to care for the state’s most vulnerable residents.
The resulting cuts have affected therapists, counselors and administrative roles. The center has fewer people who can travel to meet patients with mobility issues. Technology and physical infrastructure needs have been kicked down the priority list, Jefferson Center President and CEO Kiara Kuenzler said.
Gov. Jared Polis’ support uncertain as ban on software used by landlords to set rents nears finish line
Colorado lawmakers are poised to pass a bill banning the use of algorithms that state and federal officials say are used to artificially hike rents in the Denver metro area.
But the proposal has received a lukewarm reception from Gov. Jared Polis, who will soon decide whether to sign it into law.
Barring a perfunctory procedural vote in the House, House Bill 1004 is on a glide path to Polis’ desk after clearing the Senate on Monday. The bill’s Senate sponsors had temporarily delayed the vote to continue discussions with Polis’ office, Senate leadership said Tuesday morning, but then pushed the bill through as the session winds down.
If passed, the law would become the first of its kind in the country, supporters said.
Live updates: Colorado lawmakers kill new car insurance fee, send voting rights bill to Gov. Polis
5:04 p.m. update: The Colorado legislature officially passed a bill aimed at protecting voting rights Tuesday afternoon, sending it to Gov. Jared Polis for his signature.
The Senate voted to accept amendments from the House. Sponsor Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, said the tweaks in that chamber were made in consultation with county clerks to make sure Senate Bill 1 was “manageable, implementable and doable.”
Colorado lawmakers drop effort to override Gov. Polis’ veto of social media bill amid intense lobbying
The Colorado House declined to pursue an override of Gov. Jared Polis’ veto of a social media regulation bill Monday, three days after the Senate voted to bypass the governor’s rejection and after a weekend of intensive lobbying.
Rep. Andy Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat, told House leadership early Monday afternoon that he wanted to table the vote on Senate Bill 86 until after the legislative session ends, effectively abandoning the override effort.
A few moments later, he told colleagues on the floor that the “votes are not here in this chamber” to match the Senate’s override.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signs budget with more than $1 billion in cuts — doing “the least amount of harm”
Gov. Jared Polis signed Colorado’s $44 billion spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year on Monday — placing an emphasis on what the final budget protected, not the $1.2 billion in cuts needed to close a gap facing the state.
Lawmakers split from Polis in numerous ways between his November budget proposal and the spending bill he signed Monday morning: More money for the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program. More money for higher education and the Colorado departments of transportation and public safety.
And the legislature left alone Pinnacol Assurance, the quasi-governmental insurance company, despite Polis’ proposal to spin it off and reap a potential nine-figure windfall.
As the six lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee stood behind him, Polis praised their work. The budget struggle is somewhat of a return to normalcy, Polis said, after recent boom years.
Colorado lawmakers may table attempted TABOR reckoning as labor union, hospital fights linger in final days
Just over a week remains in the Colorado legislature’s 2025 session — and a number of the Democratic majority’s marquee proposals remain in limbo.
Big tax and labor bills are still unresolved as the end of the session approaches. Time pressure is mounting in other fights, including one between hospitals and the drug industry over how the proceeds from a prescription drug program can be spent. And top lawmakers already have punted on other priorities or scaled them back.
Limbo doesn’t mean death in the legislature, but every flip of the daily calendar puts more pressure on a bill’s backers, opponents and interested parties to find a resolution to their liking. In some cases, bills have lingered as negotiations proceeded in the background. Other deals have been hinted at but haven’t yet emerged.
But the clock is ticking.
Veto overrides, an Uber pressure campaign and a race to get bills to the floor in the Colorado legislature this week
One hundred and some days after Colorado lawmakers convened, Monday begins the final full week of the 2025 legislative session.
Rarely do the final 10 days of the session mean a lessening of tensions or a lightening of loads. So it is this year: In a story this morning, we described some of the outstanding debates and decisions looming, including a tax reckoning that may never come and the muddy future of session-long labor and health care negotiations.
There may be some clarity on those fights in the next few days. The health care fight — over a discount drug program — will play out in the House’s Health and Human Services Committee on Monday. Two competing bills, one backed by hospitals and the other by pharmaceutical companies, will both be up for debate.
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