With less than three days left until the Colorado legislature adjourns its regular session, lawmakers are back Monday to move several contentious bills through key votes. Several ongoing debates remain unresolved. Our reporters are providing updates on the action in the Capitol.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
10:46 a.m. up After the House worked a full day Saturday, lawmakers are back in the Capitol this morning for the final three days of the session.
First, a quick roundup of the weekend: The House passed Senate Bill 276, which seeks to expand the state’s laws prohibiting certain interaction with federal immigration authorities. That came a day after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Denver and state officials over the laws SB-276 builds upon.
House lawmakers also moved closer to ending the session-long 340B debate. Hospitals had backed a bill that would block pharmaceutical companies from limiting the federal discount drug program, while pharma proposed its own measure that would require more transparency and guardrails around how the program’s benefits are spent. Both bills had trucked along throughout the session, but on Saturday, the pharma bill’s sponsors heavily amended their bill in the hospitals’ direction.
The two measures then passed their committee votes and are headed to the House floor. There’s likely still to be a fight, given that the debate has been among the most-lobbied fights of the year.
Before that fight reaches the floor, though, House lawmakers are finally taking up Senate Bill 5 — a pro-union bill opposed by Gov. Jared Polis and the business community. Negotiations over the bill collapsed over the weekend — much more on that here — and the bill’s sponsors and their labor union allies are now pressing ahead.
Colorado House begins debate on labor union bill after negotiations collapse with business leaders
SB-5 would eliminate a requirement in state law that organized workers pass a second election -- after the first vote to establish a union -- before they can begin negotiating the part of their union contracts that address union dues and fees.
"What this does is simply say that it takes one vote to decide to collectively bargain," Denver Democratic Rep. Jennifer Bacon said as debate began Monday.
SB-5 is expected to fully pass the legislature in the coming days and head to Polis, who has said he will veto it without business groups' approval of the proposal.
In the Senate, lawmakers there will debate House Bill 1312, which would extend more discrimination protections to transgender Coloradans. The bill has received national attention from conservatives. And while it's backed by Democratic lawmakers, it has hit speedbumps in recent weeks amid late -- and publicly unclear -- concerns raised by prominent LGBTQ+ advocacy groups.
The most controversial parts of the bill were stripped out during a committee hearing last week. Still, Polis' office raised continuing -- and similarly unclear -- concerns, prompting further negotiations.
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Colorado House begins debate on labor union bill after negotiations collapse with business leaders Colorado House passes immigrant protection bill amid new Trump lawsuit against state Is Colorado inviting Trump’s retribution? Plus: book removals in schools and more from the legislature Live updates: Lawmakers debate whether Colorado is inviting Trump’s retribution with immigration bill Live updates: Gov. Polis signs law requiring public schools to set book-removal policies; hospital showdown in legislatureA deal for further amendments was reached between the bill's proponents and Polis' office over the weekend, said Rep. Rebekah Stewart, a Lakewood Democrat who's sponsoring the bill.
An outline of the proposed deal reviewed by The Denver Post indicates lawmakers plan to strike the bill's shield-law provision and change the bill's language related to anti-discrimination protections against "deadnaming" -- or referring to someone by the name they used before they transitioned -- and misgendering. The shield-law provision would protect Coloradans against other states’ anti-transgender policies affecting them in proceedings here, including for child custody.
HB-1312 is now scheduled for a first Senate vote on Monday. It will need a second vote in the chamber and then negotiations between House and Senate sponsors before the session ends Wednesday night.
Once that's all done, the bill would go to Polis.
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