The Colorado Senate slowly waded through debate on the first of two Democratic priority bills on labor union organizing and guns Thursday afternoon — with one of the measures, a bill to limit the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, facing another potential delay.
The Senate was supposed to first debate the gun measure, Senate Bill 3, which promised lengthy opposition from Republicans. But shortly before debate began Thursday morning, chamber leaders bumped the bill — which would ban the sale of many firearms that accept detachable magazines — to second in the queue.
Instead, they started with Senate Bill 5, which would eliminate a provision of the state’s labor law that requires unions to pass another election before they can fully negotiate their contracts.
They were still debating the labor bill, amid a Republican filibuster, in the mid-afternoon.
As for the gun bill, the situation remained fluid even into the afternoon, and it was unclear if the measure was going to be heard later in the day — though it was still technically on the schedule. Supporters have said they have just enough votes to pass it. However, one Democratic lawmaker, embattled Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, didn’t show on Thursday.
“Not everybody’s here today, so we’re figuring it out,” Sen. Julie Gonzales one of the bill’s sponsors, said Thursday morning. The Denver Democrat reiterated the “figuring it out” position a few hours later.
Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat, did not return a text seeking comment on her absence Thursday morning. Sen. Robert Rodriguez, the Senate’s majority leader, said Jaquez Lewis had a “medical thing.”
Jaquez Lewis is under investigation by a Senate ethics committee for allegedly mistreating her aides. That committee is chaired by Gonzales.
A small group of Democratic senators have said they won’t support the bill, which supporters say is both a method to enforce the state’s decade-old magazine ban and a way to prevent mass shootings. Gonzales was walking the Senate floor counting votes and speaking with Democratic colleagues earlier in the day.
The gun bill, which would effectively ban many of the weapons colloquially considered assault weapons, has lived in a strange state since its introduction last month. Gun control is a key priority for large chunks of the Democratic base, and the measure has enough Democratic co-sponsors to pass the Senate and the House.
But lawmakers delayed a first scheduled floor vote last week to allow for more negotiations with Gov. Jared Polis, and Senate President James Coleman told reporters Tuesday that the governor “is not on board” with the bill.
Its sponsors have been negotiating with Polis’ staff for the past week.
In a statement to The Post after the first delay Friday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said that while the governor supported gun-violence prevention legislation, he also wanted to ensure “that we are protecting Coloradans’ Second Amendment rights and respecting our state’s long standing traditions of hunting and sport shooting.”
Neither lawmakers nor the governor’s office have been willing to say what Polis wants, though he has sought changes to gun control bills in the past. Either way, supporters say no deal was reached before the Senate began work Thursday, and Sullivan and Gonzales still planned to run the bill, up until Jaquez Lewis’ absence.
The labor bill — SB-5 — is also opposed by Polis. He’s told lawmakers that, short of them striking a deal with equally opposed business groups, he will veto the bill should it pass (as it’s expected to do). He has said that the state’s second-election barrier to contract negotiations — pertaining to a union’s ability to negotiate the collection of dues and fees — represents a compromise between workers and their employers. The provision is unique in the United States.
Rodriguez, who is co-sponsoring the union bill, said Tuesday that negotiations had opened three weeks ago and that the two sides had exchanged offers. On Wednesday, five previous U.S. labor secretaries released a letter supporting the bill.
Still, no deal had been reached as of Thursday.
Staff writer Nick Coltrain contributed to this story.
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