Lawmakers in the Colorado House and Senate face a time crunch as the end of the legislative session approaches on Wednesday and are working to pass bills on property tax relief, gun regulations, housing, land-use policy, transportation and other priorities.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
Updated at 3:15 p.m.: Colorado Concern, a nonprofit representing business interests, said that while it has been negotiating over property tax reform, it has not agreed to pull its support for proposed ballot initiatives that would cut property tax collections in the state. State leaders held a press conference earlier Monday announcing Senate Bill 233, a compromise measure to lower property tax rates that they hoped would head off initiatives 50 and 108.
“Colorado Concern and its leadership have worked in good faith with the legislature for months toward meaningful and long-term property tax relief,” Dave Davia, president and CEO of Colorado Concern, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, SB 24-233 does not represent material tax relief for Colorado homeowners and small business owners. A deal has not been reached at this time. We are committed to continuing to work toward a legislative solution in the final days of the session but have not removed our support for Initiatives 50 and 108.”
His statement sent a jolt through some lawmakers who thought they had reached a deal. Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat and key proponent of the bill, called it “alarming.”
Minority Leader Rose Pugliese said she, too, thought they had a deal, based on conversations she had with Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a fellow Republican. Pugliese said Colorado Concern’s position didn’t change her support for SB-233.
Senate President Steve Fenberg was also unaware that there was no deal with the group.
Kirkmeyer said she knew that Colorado Concern wasn’t on board with the bill and hadn’t reached a deal. She said she’d communicated that to key members of Gov. Jared Polis’ staff, including his chief of staff and budgeting director.
“I was talking with Colorado Concern to try and get there,” she said. “I think they’re still trying to work on it, but they just aren’t there yet.”
Kirkmeyer said she didn’t know for sure what the group’s concerns were, but there were a lot of moving parts.
“I would love to get them on board if I can,” she said. “They’ve got a board process, (Davia) has to do this thing, and I’m not involved in that.”
In a statement, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman did not respond to questions about whether the governor’s office knew about Colorado Concern’s opposition before Monday’s press conference announcing the agreement. She instead reiterated that other groups are backing the bill, that Polis is proud of the work that led to it and that he encouraged “all stakeholders, including (Colorado Concern), to support it.”
Updated at 2:32 p.m.: The bill to ban the sale, purchase and transfer of “assault” weapons is set to be shelved, its Senate sponsor announced Monday afternoon. (Read a full story about that development here.)
In a statement, Sen. Julie Gonzales said she would ask the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee to indefinitely postpone House Bill 1292 — meaning kill it — during a committee meeting Tuesday. The bill passed the House last month, the first time a ban on certain high-powered semi-automatic weapons has fully cleared a chamber.
“After thoughtful conversations with my Senate colleagues, I decided that more conversations need to take place outside of the pressure cooker of the Capitol during the last weeks of the legislative session,” Gonzales said.
Though the bill cleared the House, it faced an uphill battle in the Senate. That was particularly so wen it was assigned to the state committee, where the third Democratic vote — Sen. Tom Sullivan — is openly skeptical of such a ban. Sullivan, whose son died in the 2012 Aurora shooting, has said the policy wouldn’t be as effective at reducing gun violence as other approaches and that even proposing it would spur an increased sale of firearms.
Updated at 1:29 p.m.: As the belated property tax deal allowed the Capitol to breathe a sigh of relief, lawmakers passed a flurry of bills Monday as they work to blitz through their legislative backlog.
In the House, lawmakers fully passed Senate Bills 229 and 230, the bills that formed the oil-and-gas armistice announced late last month. Together, the two bills institute a production tax on the industry largely to pay for public transit, with some going to public land restoration. They also set new air quality targets, expand the state Energy and Carbon Management Commission’s authority and create liaisons to work with communities disproportionately impacted by oil and gas production.
Senate Bill 230 heads to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk; 229 requires a bit of procedural work, given late amendments, before moving to the governor.
The House also fully passed House Bill 1472, the medical-malpractice grand bargain announced Sunday. That deal raises the limit on various civil and medical malpractice damages as part of a deal that will see dueling ballot measures abandoned.
The bill cleared the chamber 24 hours after it was unveiled. It now heads to the Senate.
Senate Bill 189, which adds discrimination based gender identity and expression to the state’s bias-motivated crimes statute, also passed the House, after some testy debate. It, too, needs a bit of negotiating between the House and Senate before it chugs on to Polis.
In the Senate, lawmakers passed a bill to further regulate towing carriers amid ongoing scrutiny into the practices of Wyatts Towing; a first-in-state-history bill that institutes uniform standards on jails and an enforcement system to ensure compliance; and a bill to provide free menstrual products in schools.
All of those bills will now go to Polis.
Updated at 11:18 a.m.: Senate President Steve Fenberg said during a news conference Monday morning at the State Capitol that if the new proposal to deliver property tax relief passes the legislature, he doubts there will be a need for a special session this year.
That threat had been hanging heavy over lawmakers for the past week, especially as talks on a property tax deal seemed to drag on with no resolution in sight — including on Sunday. But by Monday morning, the final day lawmakers can introduce new bills with enough time for them to pass by the end of the regular session on Wednesday, a deal emerged.
An advocacy group for county governments weighed in with support for the deal, which is aimed at delivering relief from rising property taxes and defusing some — but not all — of the reform ballot measures that outside groups have been working on.
Colorado Counties Inc. voted Monday to support the proposal, said its executive director, Kelly Flenniken. “This is meaningful property tax relief that is far less painful than the proposed ballot initiatives,” she said.
Flenniken acknowledged that there is always some heartburn when local governments don’t realize as much revenue as they projected. But she praised the emerging bill for keeping whole those counties that would lose money under the proposal. The bipartisan work on the bill also was heartening to her members, she said.
Updated at 10:45 a.m.: Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy said Monday that there has been a breakthrough on property tax policy, and he hopes that it will disarm a looming battle at the ballot box.
The new proposal, introduced early Monday as Senate Bill 233, was negotiated by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and the business group Colorado Concern. It would cut commercial property tax rates and would allow residential property owners to exempt 10% off the first $700,000 of actual value. It would give most homeowners an effective assessment rate of 6.5% of value, down from more than 7%, according to an analysis by the Bell Policy Center, a progressive think tank working on the issue.
Gov. Jared Polis and a bipartisan group of lawmakers were set to speak at a news conference at 11 a.m. in the State Capitol about an announcement geared to “making Colorado more affordable.”
According to deGruy Kennedy, the proposal would keep schools fully funded by dipping into the state education fund, though local governments would otherwise lose out on revenue from projected increases under the current property tax system. The state would send an estimated $20 million to local governments, which would realize an actual cut under the proposal.
The reductions would represent an estimated $1.2 billion cut in property taxes collected statewide, according to the Bell Policy Center analysis.
“We have been working with local governments to set reasonable expectations about backfill and what it takes to prevent these horrible ballot measures from moving forward,” deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat, said. “It’s been about tough choices and how we grapple with that.”
He said the agreement had convinced Colorado Concern to back off two ballot measures it planned to support this November that would create hard caps on growth in property tax collections — and, lawmakers warned, would have blown a $2 billion hole in the state general fund. (Note: after this was published, a Colorado Concern spokesperson said the organization had not reached a deal to pull its support for the ballot initiatives.)
Conservative think tank Advance Colorado hasn’t agreed to back off on its ballot initiatives, deGruy Kennedy said. He’s hopeful this agreement will “take the wind out of (Advance Colorado’s) sails” in pursuing the measures. He’s also hopeful it will be a long-term solution to property tax policy, which has been subject to annual fights after voters repealed the Gallagher Amendment in 2020.
“We are getting the state out of the property tax business after this year,” deGruy Kennedy said.
Advance Colorado did not immediately return a request for comment.
Monday is the last day the bill can be introduced and have time to clear the General Assembly before it must adjourn Wednesday. DeGruy Kennedy, citing bipartisan sponsorship, is hopeful it will move smoothly through the chambers.
Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.