On Friday, the budget bill officially passed the Colorado Senate, meaning one of the legislature’s few constitutionally required actions is nearly complete.
Both the House and the Senate tacked on amendments to the budget, so the next step is for members of the Joint Budget Committee to meet and hash out the changes. Nearly all amendments may be axed before lawmakers take a final vote on the budget.
After that, it’ll go to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.
The budget passing the legislature typically fires the starting pistol for the final sprint of session. Part of that is legislators on the House and Senate appropriations committees taking a hefty pair of hedge clippers to legislation that costs the state money. There’s a finite amount of cash left for lawmakers to spend on their own bills (beyond the billions of dollars set aside for state programs in the budget), and there are scores of bills jockeying for a slice of that comparatively bite-sized pie.
To sort out which bills get a share, legislators have been tasked with filling out a Google form to prioritize spending. The results of that work will be made public Tuesday and will help inform decisions made by lawmakers on the appropriations committees in the coming days.
Some bills will get killed, while others will be significantly pared back to lighten their fiscal load.
Here’s what else is happening this week in the legislature:
A doomed impeachment bid against Jena Griswold
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee will begin formal impeachment proceedings against Secretary of State Jena Griswold. The effort was launched by House Republicans who say Griswold, a Democrat, should be removed from office because of comments criticizing Donald Trump amid the unsuccessful lawsuit in Colorado to keep Trump off the ballot.
Republicans claim that Griswold’s public statements — specifically her posts on the social media platform X — undermine the public’s trust in elections. House Republicans also have voted previously to thank the crowd at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and have supported Tina Peters, the disgraced former Mesa County Clerk who has spread baseless election conspiracies.
In any case, the impeachment effort is doomed to fail in the Democratic-majority House.
The House Judiciary Committee is stacked with Democrats, some of them the most progressive legislators in the Capitol. The event will provide a platform for Republicans to defend Trump and criticize the effort to keep him from office, while Democrats will likely use it to highlight Republicans’ recent history of election denialism.
The hearing is set to begin at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Capitol building. House Republicans can call four witnesses to make their case, against four selected by the committee’s Democratic chair (in consultation with Griswold’s office). Griswold herself is also allowed to testify.
Gun bills
An immediate caveat here: The legislature’s calendar is not always gospel, and bills scheduled for one day often get moved forward and back as needed.
That being said, there are a slew of gun bills calendared for this week. Chief among them is the bill to ban the sale, transfer and purchase of so-called assault weapons in Colorado — HB24-1292. The bill cleared its committee vote in the House last month, but House leadership had held off on scheduling the bill for floor work because it didn’t have a Senate sponsor.
That’s changed now, with Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, agreeing to lead the charge in the Senate.
Now the bill has a good chance of a first vote in the full House this week, the House’s majority leader said early Monday morning. That debate would likely take up an entire day, depending on whether Democrats decide to limit how long Republicans can filibuster.
Other gun bills scheduled for House debate this week include SB24-066, which would put a specific vendor code on the sale of firearms and ammo so they could be better tracked. That bill needs one more vote in the House, which may come Monday. HB24-1270 — requiring gunowners to have liability insurance — is also scheduled for its first full House vote this week.
HB24-1353 — which would require gun shops to have a state license on top of their federal one — is set for a second committee hearing in House Finance on Monday afternoon. SB24-003, which would direct money to state law enforcement to better investigate gun crimes, will be heard in House Judiciary on Wednesday. HB24-1348 (seeking to better regulate how guns are stored in vehicles) and HB24-1174 (adding more requirements to conceal-carry permit trainings) will both be heard in the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Thursday.
Other notable bills
As always, there is no shortage of housing bills up this week. The House is set to hold final votes on HB24-1175 (which would give local governments a right of first refusal to buy for-sale subsidized housing units) and SB24-094 (improving the state’s safe-housing laws, which are intended to ensure rental units are safe and livable).
A bill granting right of first refusal to local governments to help them buy affordable housing properties still needs to clear the Senate next, where it squeaked by last year before being vetoed by Polis.
HB24-1311, which would direct hundreds of millions in TABOR money to tax credits for lower-income families, is scheduled for its first vote in the House Finance Committee on Monday. HB24-1239, which would allow for more single stair-style development in Colorado, is going to get a first vote in House Transportation, Housing and Local Government on Wednesday.
That bill’s on life support after fire officials came out against it, and its sponsors postponed a first committee vote so they could work to assuage safety concerns.
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