Bill will give cancer patients unused drugs
A bill to help cancer patients afford prescription drugs passed the House 62-3 Monday and goes to the governor.
Senate Bill 231 sets up a program to distribute unused cancer drugs to patients who cannot afford them or don’t have insurance.
Rep. Dianne Primavera, a Broomfield Democrat and a cancer survivor, said unused cancer drugs are ending up in the trash.
House vote nears on simpler school reports
The House advanced a measure intended to make school report cards easier to read.
House Bill 1345 would combine three federal and state reports into one School Accountability Report and put the information online.
The legislation from Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, also would clear up confusing, contradictory language in the reports.
School Accountability Reports grade the quality of each public school in Colorado. The House will take a final vote on the measure as early as today.
Senate panel supports state cold-case unit
A proposal to create a statewide cold-case unit to focus on unsolved murders was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
House Bill 1272, which already has passed the House, requires local law enforcement to hand over files on murder cases that have been open for at least three years. A cold-case team at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation would take up the investigations.
The proposal from Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, and Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, is expected to cost about $67,000 a year.
Ballot measure would retool Amendment 41
Senate President pro tem Peter Groff, D-Denver, and Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, have introduced a ballot proposal to repeal and re-enact Amendment 41.
The proposal is a constitutional rewrite of the ethics-in-government measure, which has been interpreted as broad enough to ban scholarships to the children of government workers and personal gifts to rank-and-file state employees.
The ballot measure would clarify that the ban on gifts applies only to public officials.
Groff said he and McElhany filed Senate Concurrent Resolution 001 as a back-up plan in case the courts do not clarify Amendment 41.
