Colorado lawmakers convened Wednesday with one week left in this year’s session of the General Assembly, giving them limited time to pass final bills on land-use reform, gun regulation, property tax relief, tax credits and other priorities. Here are updates on major action and key developments.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
Updated at 11:31 a.m.: A bill to prohibit landlords and property owners from using commercially available algorithms to set rents died Wednesday morning when the House and Senate could not reconcile their differences on the bill.
After House Bill 1057 passed the House, the Senate added an amendment that allowed landlords to use algorithms as long as the data was publicly available. House Democrats and progressives felt it undercut the intent of the bill, and its House sponsors — Denver Reps. Javier Mabrey and Steven Woodrow — criticized their Senate colleagues Tuesday afternoon. The algorithms are simply a more sophisticated version of collusion to push rents higher, they argued, and they pointed to lawsuits and investigations into the algorithm’s developer for alleged price-fixing.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Julie Gonzales asked the Senate to accept the House version. That request failed by one vote. Democratic Sens. Kyle Mullica, Chris Hansen, Dylan Roberts, Kevin Priola, Rachel Zenzinger, and Joann Ginal (who introduced the amendment weakening the bill) joined Republicans to reject the House version and kill the bill.
After the vote failed, Gonzales popped her head into the antechamber where lobbyists watch proceedings.
“You made your money today,” she told them.
Updated at 11:25 a.m.: House Republicans warned about the need to address property tax early Wednesday morning — and not going too far astray from the Property Tax Commission’s recommendations.
Lawmakers convened a bipartisan commission at last November’s special session to address long-term fixes to the state’s property tax system. It’s been meeting regularly since then. A draft bill to implement some of those ideas was informally introduced last week but was quickly sent back for edits to address concerns from commissioners about caps to property tax increases versus cuts to collections, and how involved the state should be in replacing lost property tax revenue.
House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese said Wednesday morning that, while there’s been lots of work on the issue, “we’re finally at the point where we need to bring something forward.”
Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and chair of the commission, said they are still working to incorporate more ideas from the commission into the draft before it is formally introduced either at the end of this week or early next week.
House Republicans, who are in a super minority in the chamber, last year walked out of the Capitol in protest over the bill that became Proposition HH. The caucus argued it was a last-minute policy being rammed through the General Assembly. Some Republican members didn’t write off the possibility of another walkout but also didn’t want to make it a routine protest. Instead, they put the ball in the court of Democratic majorities and hoped ideas that come forward have already been floated generally.
“If Democrats ramrod another major property tax measure where they’re dropping it three days before the end of the session, I think you will see us use every tool in our chest — even though it’s a small chest with few tools — available to us to push back and to show just how angry we are,” Rep. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, said. “I would hope they don’t do that. I would hope what’s in the ether is already out there, but I also know how this building works.”
House Republicans also didn’t knock down rumors of another special session if property tax reforms aren’t addressed legislatively, which Pugliese said “nobody thinks is a great idea.” In particular, lawmakers want to stop Initiative 50, which would create a hard cap on property tax increase, because they worry it would blow a hole in state and local budgets.
Updated at 11:08 a.m.: Shortly after the House began its work Wednesday morning, a group of Democrats — mostly progressive legislators of color — walked off the floor over how their leadership has managed the calendar and how they’ve responded to social media attacks from Republican lawmakers.
The walkout, which involved a dozen House Democrats, led to an off-floor meeting with House Speaker Julie McCluskie and House Majority Leader Monica Duran. During that meeting, the legislators questioned why House Bill 1460, which seeks to address police misconduct and protect whistleblowers, was pulled from Wednesday’s calendar, and what Duran and McCluskie are doing to address abusive tweets from Republican lawmakers.
House Bill 1460 was pulled from Wednesday’s calendar, Duran told Democratic legislators, because she still had questions about it and because the bill, which has been castigated by law enforcement groups, would likely trigger a lengthy floor fight for which she needed to plan. But with a week left in the session, the bill’s backers said that time was running out.
“This is not about a lack of appreciation of you and your work. This is about bringing to your attention the urgency of loops that need to be closed,” Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat and the co-sponsor of House Bill 1460, told Duran and McCluskie. ” … This is not an indictment of you and your leadership; this is us saying that we have things on the table that we need to understand how we’re going to resolve because of the consequences of how it’s impacting us.”
Rep. Naquetta Ricks, of Aurora, also advocated for House Bill 1373, which would change what types of businesses can sell liquor.
Rep. Stephanie Vigil, of Colorado Springs, asked why House leadership was allowing votes on bills sponsored by House Republicans who’d been abusive on social media.
In particular, Democratic legislators called out Republican Reps. Brandi Bradley and Ryan Armagost (who is the chair of the House committee charged with investigating workplace harassment). Bradley, of Littleton, has repeatedly falsely accused her Democratic colleagues of supporting pedophiles, comments that Democrats have said have spurred death threats. Over the weekend, Bradley also questioned the faith of two Jewish Democrats who signed a letter calling for immunity for protesters on the Auraria campus.
Armagost recently falsely linked a separate Democratic lawmaker to the terror organization Hamas.
“It’s the reality that our workplace harassment policy does not cover any activities outside of this building. I think decorum means absolutely nothing in these halls anymore, and that is a travesty,” Rep. Jenny Willford, who’s been specifically targeted by Bradley on social media, told leadership.
“I’m going to be really clear: We are holding our schools to a higher account when it comes to bullying and harassment than we are holding ourselves,” added Denver Rep. Leslie Herod.
The meeting comes as time runs down on the legislative session, which ends May 8, and as long-simmering frustration about social media attacks reach a boiling point. Compounding the tension in the Capitol is the introduction of several complex policies in the final days, including the long-awaited property tax measure.
McCluskie, who’s been on the receiving end of criticism on social media from one of the meeting’s attendees, Rep. Elisabeth Epps, said the social media comments from some Republicans “have been awful.”
“We’ve been very challenged to address the social media issue in this chamber,” she said. “So I will ask you all to rise above. We have been working on it. We will continue to work on it.”
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