Live updates: Colorado lawmakers kill new car insurance fee, send voting rights bill to Gov. Polis

The Colorado legislature has eight days until the end of the 2025 session and is working Tuesday to push bills through committee and take floor votes. Several ongoing debates remain unresolved, including on taxes, labor unions and other matters.

This story will be updated throughout the day.

5:04 p.m. update: The Colorado legislature officially passed a bill aimed at protecting voting rights Tuesday afternoon, sending it to Gov. Jared Polis for his signature.

The Senate voted to accept amendments from the House. Sponsor Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, said the tweaks in that chamber were made in consultation with county clerks to make sure Senate Bill 1 was “manageable, implementable and doable.”

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, who is Black, tied it to the federal Voting Rights Act and its importance in “transforming democracy and ensuring equal access to the ballot for Black Americans.” The bill was pitched in part as an attempt to protect voting rights as President Donald Trump attempts to remake elections to his liking across the country.

“With voter suppression and voter dilution tactics being used throughout the country, it’s imperative that we act now to protect the constitutional right to vote,” Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said in a statement after her chamber passed the bill Monday. “This bill makes it clear to Coloradans that, while the federal government continues to chip away at the Voting Rights Act, Colorado Democrats are committed to protecting voting rights.”

The bill passed along party lines in both chambers.

Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, said he appreciated the sponsors working with his group on its concerns about the measure intruding on home-rule cities’ conduct of local elections. But he said the league still had “significant issues” with it. The disagreement could lead to a city challenging the bill in court, he warned.

“(The bill) purports to solve a statewide problem without applying to statewide elections,” Bommer said, referring to its focus on local elections. “That’s all well and good if we want to talk about statewide election issues. But then we should probably talk about all the statewide elections.”

4:58 p.m. update: The Senate Finance Committee, after voting on the audits bill Tuesday afternoon, killed House Bill 1303, which would have added a $3 annual fee on Coloradans’ car insurance premiums to pay for efforts to prevent vehicle crashes. The bill’s sponsors, Democratic Sens. Faith Winter and Dylan Roberts, requested that the bill be shelved — a sign that it lacked the needed votes.

The request may have been made voluntarily, but it wasn’t enthusiastic.

“Twenty-five cents a month — $3 a year — for something we know would save Coloradans’ lives,” Roberts lamented before the vote. “I’m very saddened that the Senate Finance Committee did not have enough support to move that proposal forward. There’s also not a lot of times where bills like this have the full support of (state agencies), of the governor — and no opposition from any major industry.”

4:31 p.m. update: After weeks of drafting and gnashing of teeth, a Chamber of Commerce-backed bill that would order audits of some state regulations is finally moving with purpose.

Senate Bill 306 passed the chamber’s Finance Committee on Tuesday afternoon, after an initial vote was delayed amid skepticism from environmental and labor groups (and after an earlier idea was largely scrapped entirely).

With that opposition in mind, bill sponsor Sen. Robert Rodriguez unveiled amendments to expand the proposal’s aperture before the vote Tuesday. The bill initially would have directed the state auditor to conduct performance audits on the state’s air pollution and labor standards divisions. Rodriguez’s amendments shifted the latter target to the state’s unemployment insurance program.

Another amendment directed the auditor to consider whether the divisions’ funding and staffing were sufficient, how any funding and staffing changes would impact the programs, and if their benefits were accessible.

The amended bill then sailed through the committee vote. It now heads to the Senate floor and is on a glide path to the House.

2:03 p.m. update: Single-stair reform is coming to Colorado.

The Senate passed House Bill 1273 on Tuesday morning. It now needs some quick procedural work in the House before moving to Gov. Jared Polis, who gave the proposal a shout-out in his January State of the State address and is expected to sign the bill.

Single-stair reform is a cousin to the pro-housing land-use reforms championed by Polis and most legislative Democrats in recent years. HB-1273 would require local governments in cities of 100,000 residents or more to allow new apartment buildings up to five stories tall that have only one exit. That essentially means only one stairwell — hence the name “single stair.” Currently, single-exit apartments are generally capped at three stories.

The policy has been adopted elsewhere in the country, most notably in Seattle, and Colorado lawmakers made an initial — and brief — effort to bring the reforms here last year. Proponents argue that single-stair buildings makes it easier to build more housing in tight urban lots. They also contend that the change alters the very nature of community spaces in those buildings.

“Coloradans sent us here to pass policy that will make our communities more affordable,” Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat co-sponsoring the bill, said in a statement earlier this month, “and this bill would help open up more housing opportunities that work for every budget.”

Opposition from fire chiefs sank the proposal last year. This year, additional requirements around the size and accessibility of the affected buildings bumped the chiefs to neutral. Rank-and-file firefighters — who, skeptics pointed out, are the ones who have to enter burning buildings — still opposed the bill, though additional safety amendments moved them to a neutral position Monday.

The bill, which requires local governments to comply by Dec. 1, 2027, passed 23-9 in the Senate. House sponsors now must accept the changes — which they plan to do — before HB-1273 moves to Polis. In addition to Woodrow, the bill is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Andy Boesenecker and Sens. Matt Ball and Nick Hinrichsen.

11:58 a.m. update: Colorado lawmakers are poised to pass a bill banning the use of algorithms that state and federal officials say are used to artificially hike rents in the Denver metro area. But the proposal has received a lukewarm reception from Polis, who will soon decide whether to sign it into law.

Barring a perfunctory procedural vote in the House, House Bill 1004 is on a glide path to Polis’ desk after clearing the Senate on Monday. The bill’s Senate sponsors had temporarily delayed the vote to continue discussions with Polis’ office, Senate leadership said Tuesday morning, but then pushed the bill through as the session winds down. Read more here.

Gov. Jared Polis’ support uncertain as ban on rent-setting algorithms nears finish line

11:19 a.m. update: Colorado lawmakers have voluntarily tabled proposals that would’ve banned certain credit card fees and would’ve required gas pumps to feature climate change warning labels.

Each bill passed the state House a few weeks ago, only to hit roadblocks in the Senate. Each of the bills’ sponsors agreed to kill their proposals in initial committee votes in recent days, amid uncertain support and a crunching end-of-session calendar.

House Bill 1282, which would have generally prohibited credit card companies from charging swipe fees on taxes or tips, was backed by restaurants and some business groups as a way to save those companies money.

But it was intensely opposed by credit card companies, airlines and the unions that work with them, among others. They promised legal challenges and warned of a litany of consequences should the bill pass.

The bill’s sponsors, Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer and Democratic Sen. Lindsey Daugherty, had delayed a first committee vote in a bid to shore up support. But that backing didn’t materialize.

“This is a pretty complicated bill, and there was a lot here,” Kirkmeyer, of Brighton, told the Senate’s Judiciary Committee on Monday. “And sometimes it takes more than a year, more than one session, to get through it all.”