The Colorado legislature has fewer than two full days left before it finishes its regularly scheduled work for the year, as lawmakers take final action on remaining bills and send more legislation to Gov. Jared Polis for passage into law. Here’s the latest on Tuesday’s action.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
2:50 p.m. update: A bill that’s aimed at undercutting a proposed ballot initiative before it ever goes to a vote of the people cleared debate in the Senate, setting up a final vote on the last day of session Wednesday.
was introduced at the start of the month specifically to counter Initiative 175. The initiative, which has not yet qualified for the November ballot, would require the state to spend more than $500 million a year on road funding that now goes to other priorities. Legislators opposing it worry that it would blow a hole in an already precarious state budget.
Supporters of the bill said HB-1430 would use budgeting maneuvers to create a net-zero effect on the state budget if the Initiative were approved — such as by cutting the gas tax to make room under the state revenue cap to spend on other state priorities elsewhere. Republicans debated in opposition to the bill for more than two hours before it passed on an initial voice vote.
The bill will need approval in a formal vote Wednesday, and then for the House to agree to Senate amendments later that day, to fully pass.
12:08 p.m. update: A Republican lawmaker from Colorado Springs referred to George Floyd as a “thug” this morning and claimed the Minnesota man, who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee against his neck, was killed by a drug overdose.
The comments from Rep. Scott Bottoms came amid floor debate on . The measure would require the prompt release of video or audio footage that captures the deadly use of force by law enforcement, and police would be required to contact the family of the person killed and offer them access to the footage. The bill would also block officers investigating a police killing from making public comments about the case that may prejudice any future legal proceedings or inquiries.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Democratic Rep. Regina English, tearfully described people being “murdered” by law enforcement officers. She also referenced Floyd’s 2020 death.
“Murder is murder, and there should be a level of accountability for these moms and dads who are suffering at the hands of law enforcement in our state,” English told colleagues Tuesday, stressing that she wasn’t criticizing all police officers.
That prompted Bottoms, who is running for governor, to take to the floor and criticize Rep. Lindsay Gilchrist, who was overseeing the House from the speaker’s lectern. He said Gilchrist should have challenged English’s reference to police murders. As he continued to criticize Gilchrist, she moved the House into a recess — prompting Bottoms, English, House leadership and a large number of lawmakers to huddle in a corner.
As tensions rose, several of the chamber's sergeants, who serve as the House's security guards, also joined the crowd and, at one point, stepped between some of the legislators.
After the recess ended, Bottoms returned to the floor and said he didn't take issue with the bill but with English's comments. He claimed Floyd died of "drug addiction" and not from a police officer. He then argued with Gilchrist as she tried to steer him back to the contents of the bill.
When he kept talking about Floyd, Gilchrist moved the House into another recess.
The medical examiner who conducted Floyd's autopsy concluded his death was a homicide that occurred during “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression," . The medical examiner found that heart disease and drug use contributed to Floyd's death in May 2020, but that they were not the main factor.
The officer who killed Floyd was convicted of unintentional second-degree murder and third-degree murder, among other charges. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.
After the second recess, Rep. Michael Carter, an Aurora Democrat, said English "was loud because she was scared."
"That fear is not imagined," he said. "It is built from our lived experience and watching systems respond differently depending on who is hurting who, and who is accused. I'm tired of having to prove that my pain is real. I'm tired of having to prove that we have to be taken seriously."
The temperature in the room gradually lowered, and the bill later passed an initial voice vote. It needs a final recorded vote in the House before it moves to Gov. Jared Polis' desk.
10:52 a.m. update: A Hail Mary effort to let the quasi-governmental workers’ comp insurance program Pinnacol Assurance go private has officially fallen short.
House Speaker Julie McCluskie announced the latest attempt to privatize Pinnacol at the beginning of April -- giving backers about a month to push through a bill before the mandatory end of the legislative session on Wednesday. Pinnacol serves as the workers' compensation insurer of last resort, providing coverage to high-risk industries that traditional insurers don't touch.
But the latest effort was doomed, before the bill was even introduced, by opposition from union members who worried about losing affordable coverage, legal wranglings around whether the state could even take the money from a Pinnacol sale and, ultimately, the legislature’s looming deadline to adjourn.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think I got a good deal until the last week or two that would have kept Pinnacol as an insurer of last resort and saved (the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association) and allowed Pinnacol to compete in other states,” Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a Denver Democrat, said. “I just don’t know that the timing was there. I don’t know if labor would have been on board.”
Spinning off the program has been a longtime goal of some policymakers, including Gov. Jared Polis. Pinnacol’s share of the workers' comp market has dropped from about 60% in 2015 to 49% in 2024, as more companies work across state lines.
Pinnacol, as a quasi-state agency, can serve only Colorado businesses. Allowing Pinnacol to go private, and thus serve clients across state lines, could help the insurer remain viable, backers argue.
The state’s tight budget is also a factor that has fueled the effort. Allowing Pinnacol to go private could land the state a one-time windfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Rodriguez said concerns that the state couldn't afford a property tax exemption for seniors spurred him to work on the issue. Lawmakers were able to find other money to pay for that property tax exemption.
The next stage of the fight over Pinnacol’s future may go to voters this November. Supporters of Pinnacol privatization are gathering signatures for that would turn Pinnacol into a fully independent insurance company. In return, the state would receive a one-time $150 million payment, plus an estimated $10.5 million annually, with the money going into a new fund for skilled workers in the trades.
Rodriguez said he hopes the ballot measure doesn’t pass, citing “a lot of unfortunate ramifications."
10:23 a.m. update: Welcome to the penultimate day of the 2026 regular session. Let's start with a quick summary of what happened last night.
In case you missed it, Democratic lawmakers dropped their last-minute plans to try to neuter a proposed ballot measure that would give Coloradans broad rights to use and sell natural gas. In the Senate, lawmakers gave final approval to , which would let the state keep billions of dollars in additional revenue for education and other spending -- so long as voters approve it on the ballot in November.
The Senate also waved through -- that's the legislature's much-awaited rewrite of Colorado's artificial intelligence regulations. That bill now goes to Gov. Jared Polis, who is expected to sign it into law.
Elsewhere, given the late hour of the session, bills that have quietly languished on the calendar are going to start dying. Among the condemned is , which would've carved out paycheck advance services from Colorado's payday loan regulations.
