Colorado Legislative Strategies Updates - January 28th, 2022

​COLORADO LEGISLATIVE STRATEGIES NEWSLETTER
 
January 28, 2022

​The General Assembly has made it through seventeen legislative days without much legislative activity to show for it. To be fair, there were several SMART Act hearings, which can be important in their own way, but there was very little action on any bills. Well, we can call these few weeks the calm before the storm because committees of reference are hitting the ground running with several bills scheduled for next week. 
 
There’s always at least one exception to the rule, though, and there was one single bill that not only started working its way through the process but made it all the way through and is now sitting on the Governor’s desk for final action. 

House Bill 1027 extends the small retailer exception to the sales and use tax destination sourcing rules. The current exception expires on February 1 so this bill needed immediate action in order to keep the exception going for small retailers. The bill extends the repeal date to October 1, 2022. Expect Governor Polis to sign his first bill of the session soon. 
 
The rest of the bills - all 227 of them - have only been introduced so far and are awaiting their first committee hearing. That’s a lot of bills but there will be many more added next week as there is another bill introduction deadline looming next week and another tranche of bills that will be introduced. So we may see as many as an additional 200 before our next newsletter.
 
Thus, it is important that committees start taking up more bill hearings to get the legislative process churning. And that is exactly what committees are doing next week. 
 
Monday starts off slow with just three bills up in committee. Tuesday then has nineteen bills that will be heard. Wednesday goes even further and has a whopping twenty-four bills that will be heard in committee. Thursday has eighteen bills in committee. And Friday has only two bills on the calendar right now. Keep in mind, committee chairs can add or subtract any bills they wish from the calendar, so there could be even more!
 
Current information on the House and Senate calendars can always be found HERE.
 
From getting one single bill through committees in each chamber in three weeks to hearing sixty-six bills in committee in a single week. Buckle up folks, the 2022 legislative session is truly upon us now. It’s like  floating on the river Niagara - we are hearing the falls coming and everyone is now looking for their survival barrel. 
 
As the calm before the storm, there wasn’t a lot of legislative action this week. But there are still things happening in the world of politics.
 
Senator Woodward continued to press his case for an audit of the Polis Administration’s handling of COVID testing, and continued not to gain enough support to go down that rabbit hole. The Legislative Audit Committee voted along party lines and rejected the audit request. 
 
The Interim School Finance Committee once again did not come up with a new school finance formula (they’ve been meeting for five years and still haven’t addressed the original charge) but did approve three bills to be introduced this session. One of the bills will change how at-risk students who are at risk of falling behind are identified, another will increase funding for special education students, and the final bill will address how revenue from school trust lands are deposited in the Public School Fund. A fourth bill proposed on state match for mill levy overrides failed to pass the committee. 
 
Polis appointee and animal rights activist Ellen Kessler resigned from the state veterinary board this week. There was intense blowback after she made incendiary comments about the livestock industry. After calling ranchers lazy and making an insinuation that they were baiting wolves with their cattle, she became a political liability. The administration had already drawn the ire of rural meat producers by declaring a Colorado “meat out” day. 
 
Finally, on the campaign front, Representative Brianna Titone announced she will not be running against Senator Brittany Pettersen in the democratic primary for the 7th Congressional District. Pettersen also picked up the endorsement of Congressman Perlmutter and appears to be clearing the primary field. On the Republican side a self-funding businessman jumped in this week and Representative Colin Larson is exploring a bid as well.