Hello everyone,
It’s getting close to the end of the session, but with about a week-and-a-half to go new bills are still being introduced. This past week there were 20 bills introduced and I expect a major bill concerning property taxes will still to be introduced. Even though the General Assembly has hundreds of bills to act on before May 8th, neither the House nor the Senate worked this weekend.
The big issue this week was HB 1460 Law Enforcement Misconduct. Tuesday afternoon and evening, the House Judiciary Committee heard HB 1460. While the Committee adopted some good amendments – eliminating the misdemeanor penalty and the private right of action – the law enforcement community continues to oppose the bill. About 40 people testified during the hearing, including Director Hilkey who testified in opposition to the bill. Supporters of the bill, that included current and former police officers, talked about misconduct they had encountered in Edgewater, Denver, and Colorado Springs. HB 1460 passed out of committee on a vote of 6 to 5 with multiple committee members indicating how disappointed they were with the lack of stakeholding that had occurred prior to the introduction of the bill. On Wednesday morning, our law enforcement coalition met with the bill sponsors and leadership to talk about next steps. The law enforcement coalition’s unanimous position is that we are open to discussing the issues brought up in the HB 1460 during the interim but cannot support HB 1460 moving forward in any form this session. Stay tuned as there will be more to follow.
So far, there have been 693 bills introduced – 467 in the House and 226 in the Senate. Only 9 days until the General Assembly is required to adjourn sine die.
Bill Skewes
Lobbyist