Hello everyone,
Only about seven weeks left in the session and things are really starting to heat up. There was a lot of action last week.
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee spent over nine hours on two bills CSPA opposes – HB 1276 Protect Safety of Individuals Who Are Immigrants and HB 1275 Law Enforcement Identification & Immigration Training Requirements. Law enforcement groups oppose both bills. HB 1276 establishes reporting requirements for law enforcement agencies participating in multijurisdictional task forces, restricts governmental entities from transporting individuals detained by federal immigration authorities, and expands inspection authority over immigration detention facilities. After more than four hours, the Committee advanced HB 1276 to the House Finance Committee on a vote of 6 to 5.
HB 1275 requires law enforcement officers to visibly identify themselves, clarifies state jurisdiction over federal officers who violate state criminal law, requires peace officers to intervene to prevent or stop federal officers from using more than commensurate force, prohibits POST certification of current or former ICE and Custom & Border Protection employees, requires training on immigration law and use of force policies, and expands impersonating a peace officer. Although the sponsors tried to amend the bill to address law enforcement’s concerns, after almost five hours, the Committee killed HB 1275 on a vote of 6 to 5. This was a huge win for Colorado’s law enforcement community.
On Wednesday, OSPB presented comebacks to the JBC. Comebacks are a process in which the Executive Branch can appeal to the JBC concerning decisions they have made – basically a second bite at the apple saying: “we really, really think you should approve this.” As expected, OSPB made comebacks on the JBC vote to reduce CATPA General Fund funding by $7.2 million and to deny the State Patrol’s request to refinance $3.0 million of HUTF with General Fund. OSPB asked the JBC to restore $5.0 of the $7.2 million General Fund to CATPA and utilize two cash funds to balance the Patrol’s HUTF appropriation instead of General Fund to fund the final phases of the Records Utilization Upgrade IT capital project. OSPB proposes using $2.0 million from the MOST Fund and $0.6 million from the Motor Carrier Safety Fund (the remaining $0.4 million is available because the JBC previously reduced the CATPA HUTF funding by $0.5 million). The JBC did not make any decisions on the OSPB comebacks.
On Thursday, Legislative Council and OSPB presented their most-recent quarterly revenue forecasts to the JBC. The news was not good. For the current year, the forecasts estimate the shortfall is between $389 million (OSPB) and $863 million (Legislative Council). For next year (and the budget the JBC is currently developing), the forecasts estimate the shortfall is between $1.2 billion (OSPB) and $1.4 billion (Legislative Council). All parties seem to agree that reducing the statutory reserve from 15% to 13% is the first thing to do to address the shortfall. This will reduce the respective shortfalls by $336 million in the current year and $345 million next year. How the JBC addresses the current-year shortfall will also impact next year’s shortfall. On Friday, the JBC voted to adopt the OSPB forecast for purposes of setting the FY 2026-27 budget. The JBC now has many decisions to make, including responding to the OSPB comebacks, before FY 2026-27 Long Bill is introduced.
This update has been long enough, but I want to quickly mention two other things. First, on Wednesday, OSPB also told the JBC that due to overcrowding the state needs to open one or possibly two new prisons. As you can imagine, this did not go over well with the JBC. Second, the House spent more than eight hours debating three gun bills on Second Reading on Thursday (it would have been longer if House leadership had not limited debate pursuant to House Rule 14) and another three-and-a-half hours on two of those bills on Third Reading on Friday. The bills expand requirements on firearms dealers (HB 1126), expand who may petition a court for an ERPO (SB 004), and establish regulations for the transfer of firearm barrels (SB 043).
So far, there have been 484 bills introduced – 339 in the House and 145 in the Senate. Only 51 more days until the General Assembly is required to adjourn sine die.
Bill Skewes
Lobbyist