Lawmakers draft bill targeting natural gas ballot initiative, face lawsuit threat over TABOR refund bill
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 Friday. 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.”
Colorado lawmakers are set to pass a ban on ‘surveillance pricing.’ Will Gov. Jared Polis sign it?
For the second consecutive year, Colorado lawmakers are set to pass legislation that would ban companies from using price-setting algorithms.
And for the second consecutive year, Gov. Jared Polis has greeted the bill with a cold shoulder.
The state Senate passed House Bill 1210 on Wednesday on a 19-15 vote, putting the attempt to ban “surveillance pricing” on a glide path to Polis’ desk. If signed into law, the measure would generally prohibit companies from using the mountains of data collected on consumers to set individualized prices on items like groceries, plane tickets and electronics. It would also block companies like Uber or Lyft from using that data to set individualized wages for workers.
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State investment bill backed by ‘secret memo’ dies in committee
A Colorado bill that would have allowed the state to invest enterprise fees and other public money in privately managed investment funds died Wednesday in a committee.
Sponsors of Senate Bill 180 sought to use the potentially higher returns from private investment funds to pay for low-income childcare programs. However, the proposal faced questions about whether it would ran afoul of the Colorado Constitution’s prohibition on the state owning stocks in corporations.
Representatives of Gov. Jared Polis said his office had received a legal opinion from the attorney general’s office giving the OK for this arrangement, but they refused to release it to legislators.
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Colorado lawmakers kill caucus transparency bill amid ethics probe into donor retreat
Colorado lawmakers have voted down a bill that would’ve required legislative caucuses to disclose their donors, amid ethics investigations into more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers who attended a private retreat and raised an undisclosed amount of money last year.
One of those lawmakers, Sen. William Lindstedt, joined with two Republicans Tuesday in voting to kill Senate Bill 168. The bill would have required members of legislative caucuses to regularly file reports describing who donated to the group, how much it raised and what that money was spent on.
Lawmakers are required to disclose their own campaign spending and fundraising, but that requirement does not extend to caucuses.
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Colorado lawmakers kill ‘No Kings Act’ that would have allowed people to sue federal officials
State lawmakers killed legislation dubbed the “No Kings Act” on Monday night, with opposition from local government groups tanking a bill that would have allowed Coloradans to sue federal officials who violated their civil rights.
Two Democrats -- Sens. Dylan Roberts and Lindsey Daugherty — joined with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican Sens. John Carson and Byron Pelton to kill Senate Bill 176 on a 4-3 vote. Had it passed, the “No Kings Act” would’ve allowed lawsuits against federal officials for violating residents’ civil rights, filling what supporters had described as a gap in state and federal law that largely provides no legal avenue to challenge federal authorities’ actions.
The measure was an expanded version of another bill thatap already passed the Senate. That one would allow lawsuits against federal officials involved in immigration enforcement. But Senate Bill 5 is narrower -- meaning that it wouldn’t cover election interference, for instance, or other federal overreach.
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Gov. Jared Polis signs laws banning 3D-printed guns, creating new overtime rules for ag workers
Coloradans will no longer be able to make 3D-printed guns and agricultural workers will have to work 56 hours in a week before they qualify for overtime under a pair of bills signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis on Monday.
House Bill 1144, the ban on 3D-printed guns, goes into effect July 1. The law expands on Colorado’s prior ban on firearms without serial numbers, known as “ghost guns,” by prohibiting the use of 3D printers or computerized milling machines to manufacture firearms or components like large-capacity magazines and rapid-fire trigger activators.
Polis had threatened to veto an earlier version of the bill that included a prohibition on selling or distributing “digital instructions” needed to print the firearms or their components. Sponsors stripped that measure out before it reached his desk.
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Metro Denver’s RTD is poised for overhaul as state House passes bill to shrink transit agency’s board
Colorado’s embattled Regional Transportation District is set for a sizable overhaul, as state lawmakers prepare to send Gov. Jared Polis a bill that would slash its governing board’s size by 40% while increasing how much those leaders are paid.
Senate Bill 150 passed the House Monday on a 39-26 vote. The bill needs a final procedural vote in the Senate before it moves to Polis. The governor is expected to sign the measure into law.
The bill is the product of lawmakers’ recent and growing interest in RTD’s governance. SB-150 would trim the districtap currently all-elected board from 15 members to nine, with the new board selected in a hybrid setup. Five of those members would be elected to represent specific districts, while the remaining four would be appointed by the governor.
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Gov. Jared Polis relies on ‘super-secret memo’ to back private investment bill in Colorado legislature
Gov. Jared Polis’ office is pursuing legislation that would allow state agencies to invest enterprise fees and other public money in privately managed investment funds, instead of investing through the Colorado treasurer -- and itap relying on what a lawmaker called a “super-secret memo” for legal backing.
The memo to the governor’s office, which is based on a legal analysis by the attorney general’s office, states that there is legal cover for such a move. But a separate public attorney general opinion states that the “plain text” of the Colorado Constitution “generally prohibits the State from directly owning stock in a corporation.”
The memo and legal opinion both come from the attorney general’s office, though the private nature of the memo described by the governor’s office makes it unclear where in the AG’s office the memo came from.
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Artifical intelligence bill to get first committee hearing as 10-day clock starts in the Colorado legislature
Welcome to the last full week of the 2026 session of the Colorado General Assembly.
The state’s 100 lawmakers now have 10 days, including today and the weekend, to finish their work for the year. The nearing deadline means the Capitol will be even more abuzz than usual as lawmakers scramble to pass -- or use the clock to kill — legislation.
The fast approach of sine die (Capitol speak for last day) also means schedules will be even more tentative than usual, as deals get cut and chamber leaders try to squeeze in debate and procedural steps wherever they can.
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