Colorado Legislative Strategies Updates 5.14.22

COLORADO LEGISLATIVE STRATEGIES NEWSLETTER
 
May 14, 2022

Introduction
 
The 2022 legislative session – technically the Second Regular Session of the 73rd General Assembly – is officially over. On Wednesday night, with just minutes left on the 120-day clock, the House and Senate adjourned sine die. Everyone at the capitol’s favorite Latin phrase, sine die simply means to end with no set date to resume. 
 
The end of this session closes the book on four years of single-party Democratic control of all levels of Colorado government. In the past four years, Governor Polis and the large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have largely passed their agenda, and this session was no exception. 

​Way back in January, regular readers of the newsletter will recall, we said to get ready to hear a lot about affordability, education, and public safety. Those issues dominated from start to finish this session. They were the theme of Governor Polis’ State of the State speech and every legislative leader's opening day speech. And the title of the Democratic majorities' joint press release right after the session ended, “Legislature tackles affordability, crime, and education.” 
 
To read the full release click HERE. The Democratic majorities tout all of the bills they passed in the areas of “saving people money, improving public safety and preventing crime, preparing students for success, combating the fentanyl crisis and saving lives, protecting abortion rights and access, improving air quality and addressing the climate crisis, preventing and responding to wildfires, defending elections, addressing homelessness, and empowering county workers.”
 
The Republican agenda did not pass with nearly as much success. At the beginning of the session, Republicans rolled out a 44-bill package called the Commitment to Colorado that touched on many of the same issues. At the end of the session, only five of those bills passed and will become law. However, Republicans were successful in amending and even killing some Democratic priorities this session. Republican power was at its zenith in the final days of the session where delay tactics are most effective, which we will discuss in more detail in the next section.
 
Superseding even the Democratic and Republican priority agendas was the overarching theme of this legislative session – spending the federal stimulus money. The amount of federal stimulus the state had to spend was staggering. Over $2.6 billion was available to spend, which we will break down in more detail in the following section. 
 
So if you had to boil this legislative session down to its essential elements – Democrats continued their total control of state government and they had a ton of federal money to spend on what they wanted. And get ready to hear a lot more about that as Democrats and Republicans take on campaigning for the next election. 
 
Lastly, we’ll conclude with a note from the CLS Team. 
 
Final Days of the Session
 
The final days of the 2022 legislative session were extremely long and yet included lengthy stretches of time where nothing important happened. If this session really were a book then this chapter would be called The Final Filibuster. 
 
House Republicans kicked off the final filibuster first thing on Monday morning by requesting that every bill be read at length. As an aside, the Colorado Constitution states that a bill must be read at length if requested. This probably made sense when everyone couldn’t necessarily read, but now it’s just a delay tactic. As a further aside, you might recall from a couple of years ago when the Republicans requested a bill over 2000 pages be read at length and there was a lawsuit that went all the way up to the Colorado Supreme Court about five computers reading different sections of the bill simultaneously and at an incredible rate of speed. Now they still use a computer but it’s just one and it goes at a relatively normal rate of speed, even though nobody actually listens to it. 
 
When a bill is read at length, many of the legislators leave the chamber or just go hang out on the balcony. The sound of the computer reading out every word and number eventually becomes like nails on a chalkboard or some kind of bizarre torture. But it’s one of the most effective filibustering tactics the minority can employ to get some concessions and compromises from the majority. 
 
Monday (and early Tuesday) had a roughly 18-hour filibuster that did not break until after 4:00 am. At that point, with just a couple days left in the session, and really only one more day to meaningfully get all the bills through the whole legislative process, the Republicans could have kept the filibuster going and killed a lot of bills on the calendar. That included the must-pass School Finance Act and many other Democratic priority bills. And that prospect brought Democratic and Republican leaders to the negotiation table to agree on amending and killing enough to break the filibuster. 
 
That deal included gutting Senate Bill 23 about police lying to children (which resulted in the Democratic sponsors choosing to kill the bill), killing Senate Bill 138 about reducing greenhouse gasses, narrowing Senate Bill 230 about county worker collective bargaining, killing House Resolution 1002 about eliminating the requirement that bills be read at length, and passing Senate Bill 53 about patient visitation at medical facilities during health emergencies. 
 
After the extremely long Monday, Tuesday went right up to the wire and did not finish until midnight. The constitution does not permit second and third readings to happen on the same day, so while third readings can be taken up on the final day, anything that has not made it through second reading in the second chamber on the second to last day effectively dies on the calendar. 
 
Some of the big bills being negotiated right up to the end included:
 
Senate Bill 230 – This bill went through the wringer all session. At the beginning of the session the idea was to provide collective bargaining rights for all public employees. Governor Polis weighed in that he would not support such a bill for city, K-12 and higher education, or special district employees, and the bill was introduced to impact county workers only. Amendments largely make it optional for county commissioners to agree to collective bargaining contracts with their employees, exempting the smallest of counties and allowing home-rule counties to let the voters approve a collective bargaining agreement. 
 
House Bill 1244 – This bill creates a new program to regulate toxic air contaminants based on adverse health effects. There were several amendments added to address the concerns of widespread opposition and at the last minute there was an additional amendment added to give the General Assembly final approval of any health-based standards adopted by the department pursuant to the bill. 
 
House Bill 1348 –  This bill concerned additional disclosure of chemicals added to fracking fluids to include drilling and maintenance fluids. The bill as introduced also included provisions for notification of communities prior to a drilling operation as well as making trade secret protections much more difficult to achieve. This was a Sierra Club bill to raise the bar for disclosure. Ironically Colorado has the cleanest and safest production in the world and as introduced would have made it difficult for the latest technology to be employed. In the end, the notice requirements were changed to be post drilling, fracking or maintenance operations and the trade secret sections of the bill were removed. All chemicals used will have to be reported to the COGCC and be publicly accessible, but quantities and formulas can still be trade secret protected. 
 
House Bill 1355 – This bill establishes a controversial producer responsibility program to provide recycling services to local governments around the state. The program will be funded through mandatory “producer responsibility dues” paid by producers of recyclable materials and the dues will be administered by a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO), which is an independent third party non-profit. An advisory committee made up of mostly local government officials and recycling advocates will review recycling plans developed by the PRO and will provide input to CDPHE about which plan to approve. Amendments were added to require CDPHE to present the plans to the General Assembly and will require legislative approval before any plan can be fully implemented. This is a complicated proposal and stakeholders on all sides called it the most far-reaching recycling proposal in the country. Questions remain about the legality of the proposal, including questions about whether mandatory dues are a tax that would require voter approval under TABOR. Other questions remain about the ability of a non-profit to require producers from outside Colorado to pay into the system. Reading the Magic 8 ball leads us to believe the courts will soon be asked to weigh in.
 
House Bill 1326 – This was the important fentanyl bill and it provided the most drama right up to the final moments before the session ended. As the bill moved through the process the two sides on the possession issue moved further and further apart. Law enforcement finally got the mental state of “knowing” taken out in the Senate and there were not enough votes to pass that version in the House. Negotiations on what to do consumed the final day of the session and in the end there were enough votes to pass the conference version with a new half-baked idea on how to add some kind of a knowing element to the charge. Not the best example of legislation to cook that up at the last minute but thankfully a version of the bill passed because it also includes much needed money for treatment and opioid overdose reversal medication. 
 
It was a wild ride to the finish but the General Assembly finally got there around 11:30pm on the 120th and last legislative day of the session. 
 
Spending Federal Money
 
The overarching theme of the 2022 legislative session was spending all of the federal stimulus money. Remember these grand old days of spending mountains of money the federal government gave us, because it’s probably never going to be this good again. The national debt was increased to accommodate economic problems caused by the pandemic. The paragraphs below detail how Colorado spent their share of the largess.
 
The federal government passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in early 2021. That bill gave Colorado approximately $3.82 billion dollars. The General Assembly spent or transferred $1.25 billion during the 2021 legislative session. Additionally, the last session created five cash funds and placed the remaining $2.64 billion into those cash funds to be spent in the 2022 or later legislative sessions. 
 
Keep in mind, under the federal rules governing ARPA money, the funds must be obligated by the end of 2024 and the money must be spent by the end of 2026. Leftover funds can technically be spent in the 2023 or 2024 legislative sessions, but there won’t be that much left for future legislatures to spend. 
 
The General Assembly spent about $2.33 billion out of the $2.64 billion available for spending among the five cash funds. Those cash funds include: Revenue Loss Restoration Cash Fund ($990 million), Economy Recovery and Relief Cash Fund ($697 million), Behavioral and Mental Health Cash Fund ($450 million), Affordable Housing and Home Ownership Cash Fund ($400 million), and Workers, Employers, and Workforce Centers Cash Fund ($95 million). 
 
Here is a breakdown of the spending this session out of each cash fund:
 
Revenue Loss Restoration Case Fund

• House Bill 1335 - $24.1 million for Judicial Branch information technology infrastructure upgrades.
• House Bill 1340 - $350.4 million for partial support of the 2022-23 capital construction budget.
• Senate Bill 234 - $600 million to partially repay unemployment insurance fund loans from the federal government, thereby reducing need for future assessments on employers.

 
Economy Recovery and Relief Cash Fund

• House Bill 1220 – $52 million to the departments of education and higher education to create two stipend programs.
• House Bill 1356 – $35 million for a grant program to non-profit agencies based in small communities for use in infrastructure and capacity building. 
• House Bill 1369 – $2 million to provide services related to children's mental health programs.
• House Bill 1377 – $105 million for the Connecting Coloradans Experiencing Homelessness with Services, Treatment, and Housing Supports Grant Program.
• House Bill 1378 – $50 million to create the Regional Navigation Campus Grant Program to respond to and to prevent homelessness.
• House Bill 1379 – $20 million to support wildfire risk mitigation and watershed resilience.
• House Bill 1380 – $14 million for implementation of a new electronic benefit management system in the Department of Human Services.
• Senate Bill 183 - $35 million (plus $6 million from the behavioral health fund) to award grants to government agencies and nonprofit organizations that provide services to crime victims.
• Senate Bill 200 – $9.8 million to create the Rural Provider Access and Affordability Stimulus Grant Program.
• Senate Bill 211 – $45 million for the Ridge View Campus to be used as a supportive residential community for people experiencing homelessness. 
• Senate Bill 213 – About $45 million in ARPA funds, plus additional non-pandemic federal funds, to the Department of Early Childhood for several grant programs intended to support early childhood care.
• Senate Bill 226 -  $61 million for multiple grant programs supporting the education, training, recruitment and retention of health-care workers.

 
Behavioral and Mental Health Cash Fund

• House Bill 1281 - $90 million for grants to be awarded to nonprofits, community-based organizations, and local governments for community investment grants and children, youth, and family services grants.
• House Bill 1283 - $44 million to create an in-home and residential respite care program, provide operational support for psychiatric residential treatment facilities, create additional substance use treatment beds, continue the crisis service program, and build a neuro-psych facility.
• House Bill 1302 - $35 million to create the Primary Care and Behavioral Health Statewide Integration Grant Program.
• House Bill 1303 – $29.8 million to renovate a building at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan.
• Senate Bill 147 - $11.2 million to various agencies for pediatric behavioral health programs.
• Senate Bill 148 – $5 million for the Land-based Tribe Behavioral Health Services Grant Program to fund the renovation or construction of a behavioral health facility.
• Senate Bill 177 – $12.2 million for implementation of a statewide care coordination infrastructure.
• Senate Bill 181 – $72.2 million to create and implement a plan to improve the behavioral health care workforce.
• Senate Bill 196 – $61.4 million for an Early Intervention, Deflection, and Redirection from the Criminal Justice System Grant Program.

 
Affordable Housing and Home Ownership Cash Fund

• House Bill 1282 – $13.3 million each year for three years to provide grants or loans to businesses that develop manufactured homes. 
• House Bill 1304 – $178 million that will provide grants to local governments for investments and infrastructure projects that support affordable housing.
• Senate Bill 146 – $25 million to expand the Middle Income Housing Access Program.
• Senate Bill 159 – $150 million for a revolving loan program to provide flexible, low-interest, and below-market-rate loan funding to make investments in affordable housing.
• Senate Bill 160 – $12 million for a Mobile Home Park Resident Empowerment Loan Program that will be used to finance acquisitions or capital improvements for homeowners to purchase their mobile home parks.

 
Workers, Employers, and Workforce Centers Cash Fund

• House Bill 1349 – $3 million for development of student success measures and an interactive data system for postsecondary student success information.
• House Bill 1350 – $91 million for a Regional Talent Development Initiative Grant Program to develop or expand talent development initiatives.

 
Thank You from CLS
 
Finally, thank you from the CLS Team for allowing us to represent you at the Capitol. And thank you for reading all of these newsletters…
 
Here’s a photo of the CLS Team at nearly midnight on the second to last day of the session and another photo in our traditional matching t-shirts on the last day of session. 

​(If you don’t get the reference then you need to check out Yellowstone)
 
Have a good break from the legislative session.