Lawmakers were set to gather Wednesday morning at the State Capitol in Denver for the 120-day marathon of the upcoming legislative session. Stay tuned for updates on new developments by The Denver Post’s state government reporters.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
2:07 p.m. update: The first bills of the 2025 legislative session — used by the majority party to plant priority flags on the first day — were introduced early Wednesday afternoon.
include a proposal to limit the , which sponsors say is an attempt to enforce the state’s high-capacity magazine ban but will affect a wide swath of what are colloquially referred to as assault weapons. Lawmakers also introduced a to remove the so-called “second election” from Colorado’s labor law. That measure is set to spark a lengthy fight between lawmakers and the business community.
Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat, unveiled what she’s dubbed the . The measure would enshrine provisions from the federal Voting Rights Act into state law, including protections for access to voting and to the political system, particularly for minority groups.
Other early measures include for factory-built homes, to help pay for affordable housing development, and that can be charged by child care centers for applications or waitlists.
House Speaker Julie McCluskie was set to introduce several dozen more bills in the House later Wednesday.
1:52 p.m. update: Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, laid out the thrust of his caucus’ agenda for the legislative session: Cutting regulations and revoking fees that Lundeen called, for Coloradans, “daily reminders that their government is nibbling away at their hard-earned money.”
He said his caucus has identified as about $4,500 in savings for Colorado families and that, of 200,000 regulations on Colorado’s books, 45% are “excessive or duplicative.” At a chamber of commerce breakfast before the start of the session this week, Senate President James Coleman, a Democrat, signaled an openness to reviewing regulations on the books, though he did not commit to any universal cuts.
“We can and must roll back the burdens that make life less affordable and less free,” Lundeen said in his speech. “Letap be clear: Colorado’s affordability crisis is not just a talking point. It is a moral imperative.”
1:24 p.m. update: In her opening day remarks, Democratic House Speaker Julie McCluskie acknowledged the many challenges facing the legislature and the state this year: a looming budget deficit, declining enrollment in K-12 schools, and uncertainty from the coming Trump administration around immigration and the environment.
“We don’t know exactly what we will face from this new administration, but they have published their playbook and we are watching,” said McCluskie, who was formally re-elected as Speaker on a party-line vote earlier in the day. “We will be ready to do what is best for the people of this state because we’ve been here before.”
When McCluskie said that Coloradans don’t support mass deportations, as incoming President Donald Trump has pledged to pursue, House Democrats stood and applauded.
Still, McCluskie highlighted the steps her chamber will take in the coming months to address the state’s needs. She noted plans to address wage theft and property insurance costs while seeking to finally resolve the “stalemate” around construction defect reform (that line drew a small clap from Democratic Rep. Shannon Bird, who’s pursued those contentious reforms in the past).
Speaking after McCluskie, Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, the House’s top Republican, echoed the speaker’s call to lower the high cost of living in the state, and she said the legislature must “acknowledge the role we play” in increasing costs.
She also said her caucus would defend the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, amid the coming budget crunch driven by TABOR’s caps on state spending.
For her part, McCluskie said the budget fight — which will entail at least $700 million in cuts from a $16 billion general fund budget — will require “unpopular decisions … that put truly deserving efforts and priorities in competition” for funding.
12:40 p.m. update: In his opening remarks as Senate President, James Coleman, who is Black, thanked his family and past leaders “intent on breaking barriers and making history.” Those included former Speaker Terrance Carroll and former Senate President Peter Groff, both of whom were the first Black Coloradans to occupy the roles.
“I stand here as Senate President, a Black boy from Park Hill that some imagined would never be anywhere near this place, but here I am,” Coleman said. “Because of my faith, family and the opportunities yielded to me by a high-quality education. Because of that, I am Sen. James Coleman, and there are tens of thousands of children like me waiting for us to see their promise and to make fulfillment possible.”
He also laid out priorities for the session, both new initiatives and building on past efforts. Those include new bills to increase the availability of modular housing, to aid childcare centers, to help local governments meet local housing needs and to protect the federal Voting Rights Act in Colorado, among others.
He sought to strike bipartisan notes, even as Democrats hold 23 of the chamber’s 35 seats. He pledged to serve as president for the entire chamber, and he gave Minority Leader Paul Lundeen a shout-out for his “example of leadership, fairness and decency.”
But Republicans weren’t visibly supportive of all of Coleman’s remarks, in particular his allusions to the incoming Trump administration. The country is “days away from an administration that ran on division and fear, and promises that could turn our systems and our communities on their head,” Coleman said.
“We do not yet know how this will manifest in federal policy,” Coleman said. “But we know we are prepared to respond.”
11:22 a.m. update: Sen. James Coleman, a Denver Democrat, has been officially and unanimously named president of the Colorado State Senate. The Democratic majority had selected him for the job shortly after the November election.
His formal nomination was seconded by Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, in a show of bipartisan camaraderie.
Coleman replaces former Sen. Steve Fenberg, who led the chamber for the past several years.
“(Passing the gavel) means something more than just simply passing a piece of wood to another individual,” Fenberg said during the ceremony. “It represents the transfer of power, it represents authority, it represents the power of this institution in that it is more than one individual.”
10:40 a.m. update: The House and Senate are officially back at work for the 2025 session.
After the early pomp and circumstance, plus a land acknowledgement from a Ute Mountain Ute tribal leader, the House began the session with two Republican lawmakers — Reps. Scott Bottoms and Ken DeGraaf — essentially challenging the results of the 2024 election. They both argued, without evidence, that the inadvertent posting of some election passwords by the Secretary of State’s Office undermined the results.
Two investigations — one by a law firm and another by the Denver District Attorney’s Office — both determined the posting of the passwords was a mistake and found no criminal or election integrity concerns. A lawsuit against the Secretary of State’s Office by the Libertarian Party of Colorado was also rejected, with a judge determining that there was no evidence of an election breach or an intentional posting of the passwords.
The passwords were not, on their own, sufficient to change any votes, despite claims by Bottoms. A second set of passwords, plus physical access to secure elections equipment in individual clerks’ offices, would’ve also been required to alter the systems. There is no evidence that any equipment was improperly accessed or that any results were altered.
The chamber overwhelmingly voted to reject the challenge, but six of the House’s 22 Republicans voted against accepting the results of the election in which they participated and won. Bottoms and DeGraaf were joined by Reps. Stephanie Luck, Ron Weinberg and Brandi Bradley and Rep.-elect Larry Suckla in voting no.
House Democratic officials said that as far as they knew, this was the first time lawmakers have made a motion opposing certification of election results. The same vote sailed through in the Senate a few minutes later. Had the House vote failed, the legislature would not have been able to convene.
10:15 a.m. update: Wednesday is the first day for a wave of freshmen lawmakers elected in November, and it’s also the first day in the Capitol for a legislator elected not quite 12 hours ago.
Democrat Matt Ball, the city of Denver’s policy director, won a vacancy appointment to the state Senate on Tuesday night, beating out six opponents (including two sitting House members). He will replace Sen. Chris Hansen, who announced his resignation in November (though his resignation is technically set for Jan. 9, so Ball will wait until later in the week to formally assume office).
Ball was in the Senate chamber Wednesday morning.
Original post: Democrats held onto strong majorities in both legislative chambers in November’s elections — one seat shy of a 2-to-1 supermajority in each — though Republicans clawed back from superminority status in the House by reducing Democrats’ margins.
Some of the proposals the Democrats have previewed so far include new efforts on labor reform, a ban on selling semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines and measures to improve housing attainability. Democratic leaders have also pledged to push back on what they deem federal overreach by the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump, particularly around mass deportations.
But they’ll also be grappling with a massive budget shortfall, driven by skyrocketing Medicaid costs, that will hamstring many new efforts they want to pursue. On Tuesday, House Speaker Julie McCluskie said leadership told members that new bills would need to have a net-zero effect on the budget.
McCluskie, House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, Senate President-designee James Coleman and Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen are all expected to give speeches today laying out their priorities and hopes for the session as it begins.
On Thursday, Gov. Jared Polis is expected to deliver his annual State of the State address.
