Colorado Legislative Strategies Updates 8.4.23

COLORADO LEGISLATIVE STRATEGIES NEWSLETTER
 
August 4, 2023

​Introduction
 
Hopefully you’ve had a nice little break from hearing about the General Assembly each week. But alas, as summer comes to a close so does your respite from the Capitol. Don’t worry, we aren’t back to a weekly pace of updates yet but we wanted to make sure you knew about some of the big news with the legislature recently. 

​Changes Coming to the Legislature
 
The biggest news to share is that Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno will be resigning from the legislature to join Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration as Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy. Moreno is closing the chapter on over a decade in the Capitol; he was elected to the House in 2012 and moved to the Senate in 2016, he served on the powerful Joint Budget Committee for several years including as Chair, and for the last two sessions he has been the Majority Leader, the number two post, in the Senate.
 
A senior role in the Denver Mayor’s Office might not seem as though it is monumental enough to leave the post of Majority Leader of the Senate, but one should keep in mind that Moreno was coming into his final year in the legislature before terming out. It is not uncommon for legislators staring down the barrel of terming out to begin looking for their next job. Moreno became Majority Leader because Senate President Leroy Garcia took a job in the Biden Administration at the beginning of his final year (then Majority Leader Stephen Fenberg became President and that opened up the Majority Leader role for Moreno).
 
Thus, the dominos will be falling in the wake of this big news. There is now going to be an open position for Majority Leader and there will also be a vacancy for the final year of Moreno’s term. 
 
For the new Majority Leader, the Senate Democrats will meet to elect one of their members to this highly influential post. Current names being floated are Robert Rodriguez, the current Assistant Majority Leader, and Julie Gonzales, the current Majority Whip. Other names that we’ve heard are in the mix are Faith Winter, James Coleman, the current President Pro Tem, and Janet Buckner, the current Majority Caucus Chair. And it wouldn’t be a surprise if Jeff Bridges, currently on the Joint Budget Committee, or Chris Hansen tried to test the waters as well. Jockeying for position and votes is already underway and will continue until the final vote takes place. 
 
For the vacancy for Senate District 21, there will be a vacancy committee of Democrats to select the replacement who will then need to run for re-election in 2024 when the seat is slated to be up for grabs. Senate District 21 is the southern portion of Adams County, mostly centered around Commerce City but also wrapping around the airport and covering the eastern portions of Adams and Arapahoe Counties. The local Democratic Party in that area will form the vacancy committee and select the new replacement. House member Dafna Michaelson Jenet was already running to succeed Moreno in the 2024 election and will surely be a strong contender but vacancies are rarely unopposed and people will likely start declaring in the coming weeks. 
 
And speaking of vacancy committees, there is already one formed to replace Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez in House District 4 in northwest Denver. Gonzales-Gutierrez was just sworn in as a new member of the Denver City Council. Announced candidates for that vacancy include Cecelia Espinoza, Tim Hernandez, and former House member from Greeley Rochelle Galindo. Galindo stepped down after one year in the legislature when facing a potential recall and amid a sexual assault allegation she was later acquitted of. Candidates can throw their hat into the ring all the way up until the vacancy committee meets. 
 
As a side note on term limits, the new House member in HD 4 will have this term count against their four consecutive term limit because they will be serving more than half Gonzales-Gutierrez’s term. While, on the other hand, the new Senate member in SD 21 will be getting a potential extra year because they will be serving less than half of Moreno’s term. 
 
And there could be more vacancies coming before we get to the 2024 session. Rumors abound that Leslie Herod could be in the running for a role in Mayor Johnston’s Administration. Plus there are all of the other legislators coming into their final year and potentially looking for their next move. Those legislators in the Senate include: Senate President Stephen Fenberg, Bob Gardner, Joann Ginal, Kevin Priola, Jim Smallwood, and Rachel Zenzinger. Also in her last year is Rhonda Fields, who has announced she will run for Arapahoe County Commissioner next election.
 
On the House side, legislators with just one year left before terming out include: Marc Catlin, Chris deGruy Kennedy, Leslie Herod, Barbara McLachlan, Dafna Michaelson Jenet (running to succeed Moreno), and Mike Weissman (running to succeed Fields). 
 
Let the musical chairs of the General Assembly begin!
 
Lawsuits
 
Aside from changes coming to the legislature, the other big news of the summer has been lawsuits. The General Assembly is currently facing two separate lawsuits over the open meetings law. And oh boy, one of them has some drama. 
 
First, House Democrats Bob Marshall and Elizabeth Epps filed suit against their own leadership and caucus, the Republican Caucus, and the whole House of Representatives over numerous open meetings violations. Marshall and Epps allege that members of the Democratic Caucus meet in secret to discuss how they will vote in committee prior to the hearing and without any public notice or ability for the public to observe what is being discussed. Further, they allege that members of both parties engage in secret messaging during committee and floor work to discuss upcoming votes and other matters that are covered by the open meetings law. 
 
The drama comes from the fact that it’s basically an open secret that members of the legislature violate the open meetings law every day, but realistically they couldn’t effectively do their work without such communications. However, it’s certainly not every day that members of a caucus file a lawsuit against their own leadership, their entire caucus, and the whole House of Representative without so much as even giving a heads up. 
 
It will be interesting to watch this lawsuit play out and don’t be surprised if you see some kind of legislation on open meetings next session. In one humble newsletter writer’s opinion, this lawsuit is pretty much a slam dunk so legislation is very possible to exempt these kinds of communications from open meetings and thereby moot this lawsuit, but we shall see. 
 
The second lawsuit doesn’t have as much drama because it doesn’t include Democrat on Democrat fighting. A coalition of conservative groups filed suit against the Democratic Leadership in both chambers over a budget prioritization process. Starting in 2019, Democrats began using a process where each member would assign points to various pieces of legislation working their way through the process that cost general fund dollars. Each session, there are bills under consideration that cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars but the legislature usually only has tens of millions of dollars available. Thus, there is always a budget prioritization process that happens to choose which bills get full funding, which get some funding, and which will die. That prioritization is ultimately up to the Joint Budget Committee, Appropriations Committee, and of course leadership and the Governor. The process at issue gives regular members of the legislature a little more say in what their priorities are for funding. 
 
Should the results of this prioritization come out under open records? Probably yes. Is this prioritization, which is done online separately by each legislator, an open meeting? That’s a bit more of a stretch. But again, we shall see what the courts decide about this lawsuit. 
 
2023 Election
 
Lastly, let’s talk a little about the next election. In less than three months voters will be voting in the 2023 election! Election Day is technically Tuesday, November 7, but we all know Colorado doesn’t really have a true single Election Day and instead has a few weeks of Election Days; ballots begin going out in the mail on Monday, October 16. 
 
Off year elections in Colorado are usually much quieter with lower participation but this year will have a big fight over property taxes and implications for TABOR. There are no statewide offices up for election and no state legislative offices up for election; depending on where you live you might have some municipal or school board races up this election though. TABOR restricts ballot questions in off year elections to those matters only arising under TABOR so there also won’t be many statewide ballot measures up for consideration. 
 
One (Prop II) is just about allowing the state to keep revenue above the expected amount from a nicotine tax that was approved in 2020. But the big one (Prop HH) is ostensibly about property tax relief but also has some ramifications for the future of TABOR refunds. 
 
We’ll be back with another newsletter soon that takes a deeper dive into Prop HH; there are certainly spirited arguments on both sides of the issue and the Yes and No campaigns are just starting to get underway. Watch out for all of that and we’ll be back with more before the election. 
 
For now though, just enjoy what’s left of summer.