The Colorado General Assembly is in the final stretch of the 2026 legislative session, which is set to adjourn next Wednesday. On Friday, lawmakers are set for floor votes and hearings to advance legislation, and the governor is signing more bills into law — including the state budget.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
6:12 p.m. update: Lawmakers voluntarily killed legislation that would have provided tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives to build data centers, ending half of one of the year’s most drawn-out and uncertain debates.
proposed to lure data center developers to the state by offering them sales tax breaks in exchange for complying with regulations. Data centers that skipped the tax breaks would’ve been unregulated.
“Unfortunately, we have to continue with the status quo, and I think that’s what is going to happen,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Alex Valdez, a Denver Democrat, said during committee debate Thursday night. “And that’s not good for us. Because that means Wyoming wins and Texas wins. No offense to them, but I’m playing and rooting for the home team here.”
In a tacit acknowledgement of the opposition his bill faced, Valdez voluntarily axed the measure.
But the data center fight may go on. A second bill backed by environmental groups is still alive. Senate Bill 102 wouldn’t offer any incentives and would instead impose regulations on large data center development in the state.
That measure still has not passed a single committee vote. Its sponsor, Democratic Sen. Cathy Kipp, said this morning that negotiations were still underway. Another of its sponsors, Rep. Kyle Brown, said the two sides were moving closer together. It remained unclear whether they would reach an agreement — or satisfy all sides — and clear the legislature in its final days, he said.
For his part, Gov. Jared Polis told reporters last month that he supported broad tax breaks for data centers, referring to them as the modern equivalent of 20th-century manufacturing. Critics, however, have pointed out that data centers use significant amounts of energy and offer fewer permanent jobs than the temporary work generated when the facilities are under construction.
5:22 p.m. update: The House sent to Gov. Jared Polis, passing the sole surviving legislation that would allow Coloradans to sue federal agents over civil rights violations.
The bill applies only to federal agents operating in immigration enforcement, and it seeks to plug a unique hole in state and federal law that offers only limited legal recourse against federal-rights violators. It passed the House on a party-line 41-22 vote.
Still, the measure faces an uncertain future. Polis’ office backed a broader bill, which would’ve allowed lawsuits against any federal agent. But that bill died at its first hearing earlier this week, after facing opposition from prosecutors, Attorney General Phil Weiser and local government groups.
That bill’s broader approach likely might have given it a better chance of surviving a likely legal challenge from the Trump administration, which has successfully sued over legislation like SB-5 elsewhere.
In a statement, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama noted the governor’s support for the broader bill because it “would have protected all constitutional rights in every instance.” He said SB-5 “protects constitutional rights only in limited situations,” and Polis planned to “review the final version of the bill, while keeping in mind the legal issues associated with the legislation.”
4:24 p.m. update: The Senate gave initial support to — a gambit to allow the state to count a recent over-refund given to taxpayers against future budget revenue limits — and immediately triggered a lawsuit threat today from the conservative activist organization Advance Colorado.
The bill would free up this upcoming fiscal year, which will run from July 1 to June 30, 2027, and $153 million the next fiscal year. Lawmakers argue the refund issued for the 2024-2025 fiscal year did not take into account losses to state revenue due to the federal tax changes enacted last summer. This bill would allow them to, in effect, count that overpayment against future refunds due under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
The budgeting maneuver ran into immediate concerns among legislative staff, however. The Joint Budget Committee staff running the bill because of legal risks it posed.
Advance Colorado, which frequently is a conservative foil to the Democratic-controlled state government, stepped in to provide that legal risk today. (See also Advance’s running of a natural gas ballot initiative that Democrats are responding to, below.) The organization pledged to file a lawsuit over the budget and that specific bill.
“The state cannot attempt to fix its budget issues on the backs of hardworking citizens who are owed their TABOR refunds by law,” Advance Colorado President Michael Fields said in a statement. “Refusing to follow the Colorado constitution for monetary benefit is unacceptable, and we will defend TABOR in court or at the ballot box whenever the government tries to take money that belongs to the people.”
Senate sponsors Sens. Jeff Bridges and Judy Amabile offered little preamble or debate of the bill when it was heard this morning. It’s a key piece to closing the $1.5 billion budget deficit and meeting the state’s constitutional requirement for a balanced budget. Shortly after the debate, Gov. Jared Polis signed the budget into law.
3:30 p.m. update: Days after moving to kneecap one potential fall ballot measure, lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation that would blunt another proposed ballot initiative — one that would give .
The exact text of the bill has not been released, and it was still being drafted early this afternoon. But the Democratic lawmakers backing it said their proposal would add definitions and “guardrails” to Initiative 177, a two-sentence constitutional amendment that, if placed on the ballot and passed, would give the state’s residents the right to buy natural gas for cooking or heating. It would also give gas producers and utilities the right to sell the product to homes and businesses.
“There are a variety of potential implications from a ballot measure that is so poorly defined,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie told reporters, “and it is really our goal to combat any of those dangerous and concerning outcomes if the ballot measure makes it. Now more than ever, it is not the time to play politics with our energy environment and with our energy partners.”
The initiative, which has not yet qualified for the ballot, is backed by the conservative group Advance Colorado. The proposal has threatened to rip open a two-year-old armistice between environmental groups and the oil and gas industry, which had mutually agreed to pause their ballot and legislative conflicts.
In response to Advance’s proposal, that would hold oil and gas companies liable for various environmental damages. A fourth proposal from the environmental group would ban utilities from charging customers for pipeline extensions or decommissioning costs.
Kennedy-Ezra Kastle, spokesperson for the group, said it “remains to be seen” if Conservation Colorado withdraws its ballot measures. Kelly Nordini, the group’s CEO, was part of a governor’s office news release Thursday making a “renewed commitment” to the 2024 armistice. Advance was not part of that deal.
But McCluskie and other Democratic lawmakers said the group, which has wielded significant influence over the legislature and the state through its ballot campaigns, should respect the truce reached between the energy industry and the environmentalist community.
“Advance Colorado may not have been part of it,” said Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Jefferson County Democrat, “but certainly when you get such a broad group of stakeholders from all sides of an issue together, working in good faith to make sound policy — to have someone put out an ill-conceived ballot measure, whether or not they’re part of the deal, it seems like a bad faith effort.”
In a statement, Advance Colorado President Michael Fields said he’d seen a draft of the bill and that he didn’t believe it would impact the ballot measure.
“Our measure is going into the Colorado Constitution,” he wrote. “And the constitution obviously supersedes any statute. Our measure is simply about lowering energy costs for Coloradans. We believe people should be able to use natural gas for cooking and heating their homes.”
Fields is correct that the bill would attempt to set statutory limits on what could be a constitutional amendment. McCluskie said she hadn’t thought about potential legal challenges, should both the bill and the ballot measure pass. But she and other lawmakers said the legislature could weigh in on constitutional rights, like the Second Amendment.
“The legislature has had obligations, and courts have accepted that we’re able to legislate to the expectations of how that right would be expressed,” Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said.
In a statement, Conservation Colorado criticized Fields’ ballot measure as “poorly written” and focused on “the interest of corporations.”
“Rep. Bacon’s bill is necessary and appropriate to minimize some of the risks of the initiative, which could increase energy costs, undermine property rights, and endanger public safety,” Nordini, the group’s CEO, said.
The legislature’s effort to neuter Initiative 177 comes a week after Democratic lawmakers unveiled a bill to curb another ballot measure that’s in the signature-gathering phase. That proposal, , would require that the state direct revenue collected from transportation-related sources only to road transportation.
drafted by lawmakers would shift state spending to other obligations while cutting the gas tax, making room for other spending under the spending cap imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
1:40 p.m. update: Gov. Jared Polis signed into law the final state budget of his tenure this afternoon, a $46.8 billion spending plan that required some $1 billion in cuts to make up for changes to federal tax code and exploding costs in must-spend areas like Medicaid.
Polis hailed budget writers for preserving education funding despite making steep cuts for the third time in two years, but he chuckled when talking about healthcare cuts.
“Healthcare costs cannot go up at 10, 11% year to year, “ Polis said. “Thatap ridiculous, and what I’ve been kind of talking (about) is itap especially ridiculous because itap not like health outcomes are getting better at 10 or 11% (increases). And when health outcomes are the same, itap just idiocy to spend more money. When you get the same for less, you do it.”
Polis, who is term-limited from seeking reelection, did not take questions from the media at the bill-signing ceremony.
In a written follow-up statement to respond to a Denver Post question about people worried about Medicaid cuts, Polis said his office worked with disability advocates “to protect the most essential services” and highlighted efforts to expand access and funding in recent years. He warned that federal changes would put even more pressure on Medicaid in upcoming years.
“This budget required hard decisions, but we are protecting important investments in education and public safety, and slowing the growth of Medicaid to protect the sustainability of care for years to come,” Polis said.
Members of the budget-writing committee described lost sleep and tears as they wrestled with cuts, specifically those to Medicaid that would result in less coverage for low-income children. People with children and family members with severe developmental disabilities worry that cuts to their supports will mean they can’t afford to care for their loved ones.
The budget includes $17.4 billion in general fund dollars, which accounts for most of the state’s direct tax collections and its most flexible spending. The general fund increased by about $212 million compared to last year, which is less than the rising costs in Medicaid alone — meaning the state had to cut specific programs within Medicaid and elsewhere to make up the difference.
“This year was incredibly difficult and challenged each of us in a myriad of ways that put our values to the test,” said Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who chairs the Joint Budget Committee. “It’s a zero-sum game. A dollar here means a dollar less over there.”
Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican on the committee, described “a lot of tears,” particularly when lawmakers listened to testimony from children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“That will go down for me as one of the hardest days I’ve ever had. I dropped my head so many times because I couldn’t wipe the tears out of my eyes,” he said. “This was a tough budget, and nobody won.”
Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican on the JBC who’s running for governor, highlighted a secondary bill that will require a deep dive into the state’s healthcare programs. Colorado Medicaid serves more than 1 million state residents. She called the state’s rising healthcare costs “the No. 1 that we have to consider” in any budget year.
While Polis and others celebrated that the state kept education funding at constitutionally mandated levels, Sen. Jeff Bridges pointed to a pair of that showed the state was still billions of dollars short when it came to education funding. “I don’t love this budget,” said Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, and he called the cuts “extraordinarily painful.”
But he also praised the work of the committee and staff for the thoughtful approach to the cuts.
“We have done the least harm that is possible to do through the cuts that we have been required to make, through changes at the federal level and restrictions that we have here in place in our own constitution,” Bridges said. “That said, this has been the possible outcome.”
