Now that opening-day speeches and start-of-session ceremonies are out of the way, the Colorado legislature’s work is beginning to spin up in earnest.
A slew of bills have been introduced for consideration this year, but they will not receive their first hearings this week. Lawmakers are instead embarking on their start-of-session oversight hearings of state departments and agencies, and are otherwise still getting their feet under them.
The oversight hearings, formally known as the State Measurement for Accountable, Responsive and Transparent Government Act hearings, or SMART Act hearings for short, are legally required presentations that give lawmakers updates on varying operations within state government.
In addition to the oversight hearings, lawmakers are also hearing updates from other agencies and subagencies. The Joint Budget Committee will hold meetings on supplemental funding requests throughout the week. Full calendars are available at .
Some highlights from this week’s schedules:
Today: The joint House and Senate judiciary committees will conduct an oversight hearing of the departments of Law and Public Safety. A joint meeting of the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee and the House Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee will hold its SMART Act hearing on the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Both of those hearings were set to begin after the House and Senate finish their floor work for the morning.
Wednesday: The joint Judiciary Committee will also hear from , and . The House Health and Human Services Committees will hear presentations from the Colorado Health Foundation and the Save Our Safety Net Coalition. Those are set to begin after the chambers finish their floor work that morning.
Thursday: The joint Judiciary Committee will hear from the Department of Corrections and a separate presentation on prison population projections. That is set to begin after the chambers finish their floor work that morning.
