Lawmakers are halfway through the 2026 legislative session — and probably 75% of their work remains.
The state’s 100 lawmakers hit 60 days of work on Saturday, with just as many to go before the legislature must adjourn on May 13. Gov. Jared Polis has so far signed two dozen of their bills into law, as hundreds more continue to move through — or stall out of — the legislative process.
Debates have already begun on some of the most prominent bills, on issues like immigration, data centers, firearm regulations and tax policy. But across the street from the Gold Dome, the biggest bill of the year — the annual state spending bill — is still taking shape, as the top budget-writing lawmakers try to identify program cuts on the order of $1 billion to make up for drops in revenue and skyrocketing costs elsewhere.
“We’re on track, and we’re going to utilize the time that we have,” House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat, said of the session schedule. “When we say 120 days, that’s seven days a week — if we need it — to get the work done.”
Among bills that have cleared one of the two chambers of the General Assembly already is a measure that would expand who and which types of entities can file requests for extreme risk protection orders issued by courts to require people to temporarily surrender their firearms. So have a proposed ban on 3D printed guns and a bill that would allow Colorado to look more broadly to medical professional organizations for vaccine guidance. That one came amid Democrats’ concerns about federal guidance coming from the Trump administration.
A proposal that would make it easier for entities like nonprofits and school districts to build housing on land they own, known as the HOME Act, was the first measure introduced in the House this year. passed the Senate on Thursday and is now heading to Polis’ desk.
But other Democratic priorities are still in the beginning of their legislative journeys through the Capitol.
In a statement on the session’s progress, Polis praised the imminent passage of the HOME Act and the that would set in motion the transition to a new system and state department for “postsecondary education development,” as House Democrats characterized it last week. The department will integrate higher education and workforce development programs.
“We are running through the tape, and I look forward to continued conversations with the legislature on how to deliver for Coloradans,” said Polis, who’s in his final year as governor.
That doesn’t mean he and the legislature’s Democrats — who have a nearly 2-to-1 advantage over Republicans in each chamber — have always agreed on legislation. In fact, Democrats are barrelling forward with a bill that would make state labor law more favorable to unions, despite Polis’ veto of the same bill last year.
On deck: fights on immigration, AI regs
As the back half of the session unfolds, two prominent immigration bills supported by Democratic lawmakers are set to get their first hearings and votes on Tuesday. Debate around them will likely stretch well into the session’s final weeks.
So, too, will the legislature’s third straight year of haggling over artificial intelligence regulations.
The immigration bills include , which seeks to regulate law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. It would prevent anyone who’d worked for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from becoming a certified law enforcement officer in Colorado. It would expand a state law related to impersonating officers to include law enforcement agents who conceal their identities.
After ICE’s enforcement actions in Colorado and elsewhere have sparked public outcry, the bill would also require local law enforcement officers to intervene should a federal officer use excessive force.
The second bill, , would require more inspections and regulations for immigration detention centers, and it would prohibit airports from working with airlines or government agencies to transport immigrant detainees. It would require more transparency around federal subpoenas sent to the state, after Polis’ office spent much of the past year trying to turn over certain employment records sought by ICE.
Rep. Lorena Garcia, the sponsor of HB-1276, said Thursday that Democratic lawmakers were aligned on the policies, which she said were responding to concerns from constituents about ICE’s conduct as it has carried out President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign. She said the sponsors have not yet heard any concerns from Polis’ office.
Also still in process are a suite of bills that aim to reduce the impact of federal tax cuts at the state level as a way to recreate the state’s flagging family affordability tax credit. Those bills cleared their first committee on Monday. The family tax credit — which has been hailed by advocates for helping to cut childhood poverty in Colorado by more than a third last year, according to recent research — is otherwise on the ropes, a possible casualty of the state’s ongoing budget woes.
Republicans plan to fight the measures, which they see as Democratic overreach, said House Minority Leader Jarvis Caldwell, a Colorado Springs representative.
The tax bill package would separate state tax policy from some of the tax cuts put in place federally by H.R. 1, known as Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and passed down to Colorado’s tax code. The Democratic proposals include limiting tax deductions for operating losses and executives’ salaries, eliminating a sales tax exemption for downloaded software, and limiting other tax write-offs and deductions that were expanded by the federal tax bill.
Democrats point to how their package would give low-income families almost $2,200 in credits to help raise young children. But Caldwell worries about the economic effects of what he calls a $580 million tax increase.
He predicts lengthy debates when those measures reach the floor — but with the Democratic majority being what it is, he said, Republicans would need to sway several Democrats to their point of view.
“The mindset from the majority side is that we have to try to raise revenue and not try to live within our means,” Caldwell said. “We’re going to continue fighting it and trying to make people aware of what is happening right now. But I’m pessimistic on being able to kill these really bad bills that are going to essentially increase taxes on small business.”
Caldwell is also wary about a second-half effort from Democrats to push stricter greenhouse gas emissions-reduction standards. Rumors of such a bill swirled last year, though nothing materialized then. Nothing related has been introduced yet this year, either, though late bills are always a possibility. Polis has set aggressive emission standards during his time in office, and this would be his last legislative session to hammer the issue.
Lawmakers expect another big debate to reopen soon. They’ve been waiting for a promised plan on how to regulate artificial intelligence to emerge this session.
In 2024, legislators adopted first-in-the-nation rules that sought to ensure that AI couldn’t be used in banking, hiring or housing decisions to discriminate against people. In the two years since, a wide array of lobbyists, tech and consumer protection officials, representatives from Polis’ office and a small group of lawmakers have haggled, negotiated and fought over how to rewrite those regulations.
Nothing has come of those efforts thus far, other than repeated agreements to delay the new rules from taking effect.
A task force convened last fall by Polis represents the latest effort to reach an agreement on overhauling those rules. But the group has repeatedly held off on a final vote on recommendations in recent weeks, as its members sift through lingering tensions over definitions and how to apply the regulations to the health care industry, among other sore spots.
That vote is expected to happen this week.
Still, even if a majority of the task force approves a deal, itap unclear how those terms will be greeted by the rest of the legislature — let alone the broader lobbying corps or Polis’ office. As it stands, the existing — and much maligned — regulations passed two years ago take effect at the end of June.
“The Colorado AI Policy Workgroup has been hard at work for nearly six months now,” Polis said in a statement Thursday. “I’m proud of the progress they have made, and I am looking forward to reviewing their forthcoming recommendations.”
‘Not even close’ to needed budget cuts
The session’s second half also promises a flurry of activity once the budget comes out.
Bills that would cost money to implement have been waiting in the queue of a key spending committee, which in turn is waiting for the state budget to be set. Work to set the budget has been going on for months.
But it will hit a fever pitch this week, when the state economic forecast is set to be unveiled. That forecast will tell , which had been working off older projections, exactly how much money it has to spend — and how much it needs to cut. This year’s budget includes a nearly $17 billion general fund, with about 60% of it going to Medicaid and K-12 education.
Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who chairs the budget committee, called drafting the coming year’s spending plan “the most painful budget experience I have been a part of.”
The costs of Medicaid services and other state programs continue to rocket up faster than the amount of spending allowed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, a state constitutional amendment that limits the growth of government. And changes to federal tax policy last summer, now mirrored in the state tax code, are further squeezing the budget.
As a result, this is the third legislative session in a row, including the summer special session last year, that lawmakers have had to close a nearly $1 billion budget gap.
On Monday and Tuesday, Sirota and the committee’s five other members debated cuts to and to Medicaid services. Cuts to children’s health care programs are “particularly awful,” she said. But “there’s no way to close this budget and balance it without the cuts that we are making,” Sirota added.
In one painful example, the committee voted to cut a program that helped parents with substance use disorders access child care while the parents sought treatment, she said.
“We’re not eliminating programs that aren’t doing good, that aren’t serving an important purpose,” Sirota said. “We are making cuts and eliminating programs that have made a demonstrated impact on people’s lives, and we can’t afford to continue them.”
The economic forecast, scheduled for release Thursday, will be pivotal in determining how much more work the budget committee needs to do. The forecast projects the amount of money the state can budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 30, 2027.
“We aren’t even close to where we need to cut,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican. And she, like others on the budget committee, was doubtful that other members of the General Assembly had truly grasped the depths of cuts needed, even if they appreciated that it was bad.
“Every time a bill comes into (the Appropriations Committee), we’ll be thinking about, ‘Do we fund this new program, or do we fund neglected and abused kids? Do we fund this new program, or do we add to this other program — or do we fund those children that have intellectual and developmental disabilities?’ ” Kirkmeyer said. “Those are the decisions that we are making.”
The state’s dire budgetary straits have also spurred Democrats to look to fundamentally reform how state budgeting works.
One such proposal, , would refer a ballot question to ask voters in November to remove state education funding from being subject to the TABOR cap. That move essentially would eliminate TABOR refunds to taxpayers for the foreseeable future, while funneling an estimated $200 million per year to K-12 education and freeing up millions more for other state spending.
Sen. Jeff Bridges, a sponsor of the bill and vice chair of the Joint Budget Committee, described it as an attempt to address what he sees as the “self-inflicted harm” of TABOR. That bill passed its first committee Thursday on a party-line vote.
Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee expressed skepticism that the proposal was necessary. Colorado’s Democratic leaders simply didn’t have education as a high-enough priority, said Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican.
In response, Bridges tied the proposal to the state budget, and he pleaded for suggestions of what else to cut instead of the choices facing him in the budget committee. He was about to head to another meeting for the state Medicaid program — “the worst part of my day.”
“I have spent this week cutting health care for kids. I don’t like doing that. If you can bring me something that lets me not do that, amazing,” Bridges said during the committee meeting. “Last year, we cut all of the fat that we could find. It was the easy cuts last year.
“This year, it is the heartbreaking, painful cuts that keep me up at night.”
