It’s Budget Crunch: Part II in the state Capitol this week, as the state budget and several dozen spending measures hit the House.
The proposed budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which starts in July, cleared the state Senate in perfunctory fashion last week. Now it begins what will likely be a more tense journey through the House. That means there will be few committee meetings on this side of the Capitol as House members spend most of the week debating the budget — known as the “long bill” — and its cluster of 60-some related measures, known as “orbitals.”
The long bill is, well, long, and the orbitals revolve around it. The legislature is a clever place.
If all goes to plan, the budget will be on the House floor Wednesday, Thursday and — if need be — Friday for a parade of amendment proposals from Democrats and Republicans alike. It’ll then likely go to a conference committee of House and Senate legislators to resolve amendments made in each chamber before going to Gov. Jared Polis for passage into law.
The reason the budget’s visit to the House may be more tense is because there are rumors, just as happens every year now, that House Republicans may request that the long bill be read aloud. It’s a constitutionally protected procedural move that would essentially halt all other business while the budget — all of its many, many pages of mumbo-jumbo numbers and line items — is read out in monotone by a computer.
Doing so would take the better part of an entire calendar day.
House Republicans spokeswoman Laurel Boyle said Monday morning that the caucus was still sorting out its budget plans but added that its members would generally advance amendments challenging what Republican lawmakers consider “waste, fraud and abuse” in the budget.
The budget debate comes after a tense few days in the House. On Friday and Sunday, House Democrats limited and, for some measures, completely ended debate on four bills related to abortion and transgender rights. Limiting or ending debate are tools rarely deployed against filibusters or — in this case — heated debates.
We’ll see if that has consequences for the budget in a few days. Speaking of the budget: The school funding bill is also moving this week. After negotiations with nervous school districts, House Speaker Julie McCluskie unveiled her proposal last week, and it will be in the House’s Education Committee on Monday.
Here’s what else is happening in the Capitol this week, with votes subject to change:
Labor bill inches closer to finish line
Senate Bill 5 — Democrats’ and labor unions’ marquee bill of the year — passed a final committee vote last week and is now scheduled for House floor work this week. That might happen Tuesday or Friday.
We say “might” for two reasons: One, the budget is a floor-work blackhole from which no other bills can escape. And two — and more critically — is that negotiations around the bill are ongoing. The bill would eliminate a provision of labor law that requires a second union election before organized workers can fully negotiate a part of their contracts dealing with dues and fees. It’s backed by legislative Democrats and opposed by businesses and Polis, who has gestured at vetoing the bill should it pass without successful negotiations with businesses.
Such a deal hasn’t happened yet, though McCluskie is pushing. But time is running out: The bill now needs two votes in the House before moving to Polis, and there’s just one month left in the session.
Vacancy committee bonanza
Before the budget crunch begins, the House’s State, Civic, Military & Veteran Affairs Committee will hear five — F-I-V-E — bills Monday afternoon dealing with vacancies in elected offices. Typically that means vacancy committees — the process by which a small group of party officials and volunteers select a replacement when an elected official leaves office early.
The process has drawn intense scrutiny in recent years — roughly a third of the legislature earned a vacancy appointment at one point or another, and rumblings about backroom deals marred a recent process late last year and prompted renewed calls for reform.
Two of the bills focus on replacing county commissioners, and three deal broadly with vacancy committees. There’s an intraparty kerfuffle there, too, over competing bills on the latter topic. We’ll have more on that later today.
Housing vote — and a porn bill — in the Senate
Fresh from Budget Crunch: Part I, the Senate will have little time to catch its breath. Of many votes scheduled in that chamber this week, several are for housing bills. That includes House Bill 1169 — the so-called YIGBY bill, for “Yes in God’s Backyard” — which would make it easier for houses of worship and educational institutions to build housing on their land. That’s up for a first floor vote.
House Bill 1240 is also up for a floor vote, possibly as early as Monday. The bill would, among other things, give tenants more time to pay back-rent before their landlords can try to evict them.
House Bill 1108 will get a committee vote Thursday. That bill would block landlords from charging fees when one of their tenants dies in the middle of a lease.
Outside of the housing world, Senate Bill 201 is up for a first floor vote this week, too. That bill, which has bipartisan support, would require pornographic websites to check users’ ages before they’re allowed to access the material within. Similar policies have been adopted in other states.
Brace for more bill signings
On a final note: The tail end of the legislative session means Polis begins signing bills into law in earnest. That’s been happening for a few weeks now, of course, but as heaps of legislation crosses the line, expect to see more stories from us and others about proposals moving into state statute.
On Monday morning, Polis signed a bill eliminating anti-same sex marriage language from state law. Voters eliminated the defunct constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in November, and this bill conforms state law to the constitution — and to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated our marriage bans.
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