A bill aimed at barring landlords from using algorithms to set rents died in the Colorado Senate on Wednesday after a group of moderate Democrats joined Republicans to reject a more forceful House version of the measure.
The crux of the disagreement was an adopted amendment that bill backers charged had been written by a software company fighting the bill.
“I’m grateful for my colleagues who sided with renters, but ultimately too many Democrats sided with a corporation under investigation for price fixing against Coloradans who are feeling the worst of the housing crisis,” said Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat and one of the sponsors of House Bill 1057, in a statement.
Supporters had pitched the legislation as a way to stop property owners and landlords from harnessing software to collude and fix rent prices. The bill was targeted at RealPage, a software developer that has reportedly been part of a federal probe for its alleged role in facilitating price fixing among property owners.
A 2022 ProPublica investigation found that thousands of clients use the software and that company officials stated their technology was “driving” higher rents. The company also faces a class-action lawsuit in Colorado.
The bill passed the House in early March and moved to the Senate. But disagreements over an amendment added in the Senate underscored tensions between the progressive House and the more moderate Senate.
Those divisions ultimately sank the algorithm bill by a one-vote margin Wednesday. And they resulted in more cross-chamber sparring.
On the Senate floor last week, Sen. Joann Ginal, a Fort Collins Democrat, had put forward an amendment that would allow the rent-setting algorithms to be used so long as the data was publicly available. That version of the bill then passed the Senate.
On Tuesday, Ginal told The Denver Post that it was a “free country” and that people should be able to use apps and algorithms they pay for. The allegations against RealPage hadn’t been proven, she said, and lawmakers should wait for the results of ongoing litigation and investigations.
Denver Democratic Reps. Javier Mabrey and Steven Woodrow, the bill’s House sponsors, rejected the Senate’s changes Tuesday, saying they undercut the intent of the bill.
The House then voted to strip the amendment. As a result, the Senate needed to vote either to accept the House’s version — without the amendment — or to kill the bill.
That set up Wednesday’s vote. Together with the Senate’s minority Republicans, Ginal and five other Democrats — Sens. Kyle Mullica, Chris Hansen, Dylan Roberts, Kevin Priola and Rachel Zenzinger — voted to stick to their version, meaning the bill was dead.
Mabrey accused Ginal of adopting an amendment requested specifically by RealPage, which had lobbied against the bill.
Ginal told The Post on Tuesday that, as far as she knew, the amendment didn’t come from the company and that the change was in line with her own philosophy. RealPage did not return a request for comment Wednesday afternoon about the amendment. It has elsewhere denied allegations of any past wrongdoing.
But Gonzales told The Post on Wednesday that the amendment came from RealPage. She said the lobbyist hired by the company had offered her the exact same amendment a few weeks ago.
After she rejected it, she said, Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, supported the amendment during a committee hearing.
Pelton told The Post that he was given the amendment by the lobbyist registered to represent RealPage.
“To be clear, this means that several Senate Dems sided with a company that is being criminally investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for price fixing in the rental market,” Mabrey said in a statement, referring to allegations reported by Politico earlier this year. “If the price of rent is our main priority, why side with a company that brags about driving up the price of rent?”
After Wednesday’s fatal vote, Gonzales poked her head into the antechamber outside the Senate, where lobbyists watch the chamber’s proceedings.
“You made your money today,” she told them.
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