was set for a second committee vote Monday, with full votes in front of the House coming next. But after hours of testimony that stretched past 1 a.m. Tuesday, the measure’s sponsor — Denver Democratic Rep. Alex Valdez — asked that the bill be laid over, delaying it for at least a week.

The bill would clip the tipped minimum wage paid to restaurant workers in Denver and several other cities with higher rates than the state’s minimum, and it’s aimed at shoring up an industry that says it’s reeling from high costs. Under current state law, tipped workers can be paid $3.02 less per hour to account for tip income. As written now, the bill would require Denver and other local governments to lower their tipped minimums.

While the bill is sponsored by Democrats and backed by Gov. Jared Polis, its provisions have divided Democrats, both in the Capitol and in Denver. Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, who testified against the bill Monday night, said it was “appalling” that Democrats were supporting the measure.

The rhetoric and debate around the bill — which has played out in crude flyers depicting the bill’s sponsors — has become sharp enough to draw a rebuke from the House’s leadership; they condemned the flyers in a statement Monday.

Supporters said Monday that they had asked fewer restaurant owners to come testify because those who had testified at a prior hearing were later insulted and targeted with bad online reviews.

“It’s been the worst hearings in the seven years that I’ve been here,” Valdez said Tuesday morning, several hours after the vote was delayed. He’s co-sponsoring the bill, which would lower the tipped minimum wage for restaurant workers in response to restaurants’ warnings of high costs and a reeling industry, with fellow Denver Democratic Rep. Steven Woodrow.

Whether the bill had enough support to pass the House Finance Committee, which has an 8-5 Democratic majority, is unclear.

Valdez told The Denver Post that it “definitely” had enough support but that he wanted to work on finding a consensus among fellow Democrats, who hold near-supermajority status in the Capitol.

He said he wanted to delay the vote because “we’re not trying to stuff anything down anyone’s throat here.” He had prepared several amendments, including one to soften the wage reductions in Denver and to make clear that restaurant workers would always be paid at least the state minimum wage.

“We’re negotiating with members of the caucus,” he said, referring to House Democrats.

But Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat and a critic of the proposal, said the bill didn’t have enough support — from either Democrats or Republicans — to pass Tuesday morning.

“It does not actually help anybody in the restaurant industry,” she said of the bill. “I mean, where was there ever any proof that cutting wages supports an industry?”

Rep. William Lindstedt, a Broomfield Democrat and the Finance Committee’s chairman, said he didn’t know whether the bill had enough support to advance. The bill comfortably passed its first committee vote, though the committee Lindstedt leads has more progressive Democrats who’ve openly opposed the proposal.

The bill would have its largest impact in Denver, where the tipped minimum wage is $15.79 and the standard minimum wage is $18.81, higher than the state’s standard of $14.81. City leadership is split: Mayor Mike Johnston has backed the proposal, and his deputy chief of staff — former state Sen. Dominick Moreno — testified in favor of the bill shortly before Valdez delayed the vote.

But roughly 90 minutes earlier, three members of the City Council — Lewis, Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Sarah Parady — all testified against it.

The Denver council members said Monday night that the council wanted to address the problems facing restaurants, but the city should take the issue on itself.

However, in comments to The Post, Valdez accused the council members of “saying they have no interest in fixing the problem.”

The bill will likely be voted on next week. Should it pass the Finance Committee, it will proceed to the House floor.

Johnston’s slower pace of naming appointees — including several for key cabinet-level positions charged with helping shape public safety, development and infrastructure in the city — has caught the attention of political observers.

“It’s surprising,” said Paul Teske, the dean of the . “Watching Mike over the years, he’s always had smart people working with him. He’s a very well-networked guy.”

Of 60 appointed positions under the mayor’s control, 11 were either vacant or occupied by interim or acting leaders as of Friday, according to a list provided by the administration. Five of them are positions spelled out in the city charter.

On Tuesday, after this story was published, Johnston announced three new appointments: a chief strategy officer, the director of the Office of Children’s Affairs, and the director of Denver Arts & Venues. But the latter position will have deputy chief operating officer Gretchen Hollrah doubling up, taking on both responsibilities. The strategy chief position was not on the mayor’s list previously. None of those positions are charter officers.

The still-missing pieces include permanent leaders for three cabinet-level agencies — the Department of Public Health and Environment, the Department of Community Planning and Development, and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Two safety posts are still occupied by holdovers from the administration of former Mayor Michael Hancock, with Sheriff Elias Diggins and Fire Chief Desmond Fulton now serving in those roles on an acting basis. They could be renominated or replaced by Johnston.

Delays in filling leadership roles could slow down the rollout of new ideas or result in a lack of clear direction on policies, Teske said. General inertia is another risk.

Johnston has big goals when it comes to housing. He aims to see 3,000 units of affordable housing created or preserved in Denver every year. The city’s Department of Housing Stability, which was created during Hancock’s tenure, has released .

But for now, that department is being led by an interim director, local real estate developer Susan Powers, whom Johnston appointed on a temporary basis in August.

It’s another high-profile role awaiting a permanent appointee.

“That person’s job is really about creating a unified strategy, combining all city, state and federal funding sources,” Johnston said during an interview with The Denver Post last month. “We’ve got to find creative ways to finance (housing), because we know this is two to three times more units than the city’s ever done before — so this is an even more ambitious goal, probably” than his out-of-the gate House 1,000 homelessness initiative.

In that same interview, conducted two days after Johnston marked his 100th day in office on Oct. 25, Johnston acknowledged that he had work left to do in filling out his cabinet.

“We’ve made great progress, but it’s not done yet,” he said.

In 2011, within his first 100 days in office, Hancock appointed people to all but two charter-mandated cabinet posts in his administration. He went on to serve three terms.

Despite having those three open cabinet positions — along with the fire and sheriff positions — Johnston has made up some ground in recent weeks.

He has nominated Al Gardner, another candidate in this year’s mayoral race, to lead the general services department. He renominated Molly Duplechian to head the Department of Excise and Licenses. Johnston also has chosen to retain Armando Saldate as the city’s director of safety and Ron Thomas as chief of the Denver Police Department, though those decisions weren’t announced until last week.

Those appointments are among 14 positions subject to City Council approval under the charter. Votes on some of Johnston’s earlier nominees, including City Attorney Kerry Tipper and Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington, both originally appointed by Hancock, should reach the council floor in the next few weeks.

After a slow start, Johnston’s decision to keep so many of Hancock’s top officials has drawn attention, including from some supporters — such as former mayoral rival Lisa Calderón — who had hoped to see more change from the previous administration.

Early on, Johnston did announce several new faces for the mayor’s office, including Chief of Staff Jenn Ridder and Deputy Chief of Staff Dominick Moreno, who stepped down as Colorado’s Senate majority leader.

While Teske said there was no standard for how quickly mayors should fill out their cabinets, the nearly six weeks between when Johnston was elected on June 6 and when he was sworn in on July 17 was a tighter span than Colorado governors and U.S. presidents typically have, though not significantly so.

Johnston’s intense focus on addressing street homelessness, starting with an emergency declaration on his first full day in office, could be distracting him from making appointments, Teske said. But it also might be a matter of having a tough time identifying qualified candidates.

“There is probably a good argument that waiting a month to have the right person is better than maybe a month earlier with not the right person,” he said.

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Rutinel defeated Lucy Molina Monday night by a vote of 23 to 5 to take the seat of former in House District 32. Michaelson Jenet was appointed to the state Senate last month, replacing departed Sen. Dominick Moreno.

Rutinel previously had filed to run for the seat in November 2024 and will now serve a year in the House before that election.

An alum of Yale and Johns Hopkins universities, Rutinel is a former environmental attorney who now runs a group called Climate Refarm, which advocates for addressing the climate crisis through changes to the food system.

Rutinel is the sixth legislator selected by a vacancy committee this year. He joins a supermajority of Democrats in the Colorado House, who are flanked by a near-supermajority in the Senate.

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Update: This story has been updated to reflect the correct vote count for the vacancy committee. The count originally announced Monday night was incorrect.

A late Wednesday morning, attributed to “friends and family,” said that while she was riding to the State Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, she hit a curb with her bicycle after attempting to avoid being struck by a large truck.

Though Winter was wearing a helmet, she sustained head injuries and was hospitalized for observation, the statement says. She later needed surgery to relieve pressure on her brain. The surgery was successful, according to the statement, and Winter is now “recovering with a good prognosis.”

In a statement, Senate President Steve Fenberg said the Democratic caucus was “sending lots of love to Senator Winter and her family during this scary time.”

“Knowing Senator Winter, she’ll be back up on her feet in no time, and we look forward to working alongside her to move Colorado forward once she has recovered,” he wrote.

It’s unclear where the crash occurred. Winter represents Westminster and frequently commutes to the Capitol in Denver on her bike.

She was elected by fellow Democrats this month to serve as the Senate’s assistant majority leader, following a leadership shakeup prompted by the departure of former majority leader Dominick Moreno.

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Rodriguez, who represents the largely south Denver District 32, will replace former Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, of Commerce City. Moreno left his Senate seat a year before his term was up to join new Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration.

Rodriguez will help steer the chamber during the 2024 legislative session and set priorities for the majority. Democrats occupy 23 of the 35 seats in the chamber, just one vote shy of a supermajority.

Democrats hold an outright supermajority in the state House of Representatives, and Gov. Jared Polis is also a Democrat. But that Democratic trifecta has split at times, including over a high-profile land use bill during this year’s legislative session.

Heading into an election year, Rodriguez said he’d keep two views in his new role: Working to keep the caucus moving and organized, while also voting for his district and his beliefs. The caucus is relatively green after Democrats expanded their majorities in the 2022 elections, and it includes a member who joined the chamber just last week. A vacancy committee selected former House member Dafna Michaelson Jenet to fill the Senate seat formerly held by Moreno.

“I’ve always tried to build consensus, whether it’s in my policy or in the positions that I’ve had,” Rodriguez told reporters after the vote. “Obviously, (the priority) for me as majority leader is how the caucus approaches everything. My vote is usually going to be for my district and my constituents, but what the caucus wants is my priority for the caucus.”

The majority leader effectively operates as Senate Democrats’ No. 2 leader, since the caucus has the votes to elect the Senate president. Sen. Steve Fenberg serves in that role.

State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, of Arvada, also ran for majority leader. Democrats used anonymous ballots and did not release the vote tally.

Rodriguez previously served as assistant majority leader. He was nominated by Sen. James Coleman, also of Denver, who cited Rodriguez’s hard work, consensus-building and a trust that he’d treat bills objectively.

“In the times that I’ve worked with Sen. Rodriguez, he has made sure that everyone was at the table and that we did our best to find a solution that worked for everybody — but in the end, ultimately, embodies our values as the Democratic Party,” Coleman said.

Rodriguez was first elected to the state senate in 2018 and re-elected in 2022.

State Sen. Faith Winter, a Westminster Democrat who seconded Rodriguez’s nomination, was elected to assistant majority leader.

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Michaelson Jenet will represent Senate District 21, which includes Commerce City, Federal Heights, and parts of unincorporated Adams County. She was selected by a vacancy committee Thursday evening. She faced Adams 14 school district member and activist Lucy Molina.

She will join a near supermajority of Democrats in the state Senate. Democrats hold trifecta control of state government, with a supermajority in the state House of Representatives and the governor’s office. Michaelson Jenet highlighted her work at the Capitol, including on youth diversion services, school meals and anti-suicide initiatives. She named housing as the biggest challenge facing the district.

“The legislature needs to take quick, swift action to help build in our communities true affordable housing,” Michaelson Jenet said. “But this needs to not happen in a silo. It needs to happen together with our counties, together with our cities, because everybody has a voice at this table around building affordable housing.”

Moreno, who had one year left on his term, nominated Michaelson Jenet at the vacancy committee to replace him. He is leaving his post to join Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration. He served as the Senate Majority Leader, the No. 2 job in the chamber. Senate Democrats will meet in coming weeks to pick another member to serve in that leadership position.

“I’m going to be very excited for my friend, Dafna Michaelson Jenet, to succeed me in the state Senate,” Moreno said. “She has been a champion on child welfare and youth mental health issues, and I think she’s going to carry on her important work in the state Senate.”

Michaelson Jenet had previously announced her intent to run for Moreno’s seat. She was first elected to the state House in 2016. She won reelection in November by more than 10 percentage points. She was term-limited from seeking the seat again. The Senate seat will be up for election in 2024. Republican Frederick Alfred has also filed to run for it.

A vacancy committee will choose Michaelson Jenet’s replacement. Attorney Manny Rutinel, a Democrat, had previously filed to run for the seat currently held by Michaelson Jenet.

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Moreno served more than a decade in the Capitol, first as a House member and then as a senator, eventually rising to the second-most-powerful position in the chamber. Before joining the legislature, he represented Commerce City as a councilman. He joins Johnston’s growing administrative staff, which last month added veteran Democratic campaign organizer Jenn Ridder as chief of staff.

“The opportunity to serve in this capacity for Mayor Johnston was too valuable to pass up,” Moreno said in a statement sent from the mayor’s office. “The mayor is committed to delivering on our Dream of Denver, and I’m looking forward to joining his team, bringing my expertise and passion for public service and improving outcomes, to make that dream a reality.”

A Georgetown University graduate, Moreno served on and led the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, an influential group of lawmakers tasked with setting the state’s budget each year. In the session this year, Moreno was selected to lead a near-supermajority of Democratic senators.

Moreno, who deferred comment to the city’s news release, had one year remaining on his second term in the Senate. In a statement to the Post, Senate President Steve Fenberg praised Moreno’s leadership, “thoughtfulness” and “relentless hard work.”

Johnston’s office also announced Alex Renteria-Aguilar as the mayor’s new communications director.

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The new law, which passed the legislature in early May, is part of a two-pronged approach undertaken by legislators this year to better address eating disorders in Colorado. A second bill, also signed into law Tuesday by Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera, will create a program within the state health department that seeks to better prevent Coloradans from developing the diseases in the first place.

The two bills had been pushed by mental health advocates and by the Colorado Youth Advisory Council. Eating disorder diagnoses have erupted in the wake of the pandemic, and Colorado is a hub for eating disorder treatment nationally.

Aimee Resnick, a college student who helped champion the prevention bill (), said she was proud of the work undertaken by advocates to pass the bill and said it was part of a national movement to address eating disorders. The new prevention program will coordinate prevention strategies, launch a grant program and provide resources on the diseases. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Dominick Moreno, of Commerce City, and Rep. Mandy Lindsay, of Aurora.

Resnick said she hopes Colorado’s law can serve as a template for other states interested in combatting the illnesses.

“This (is) the first time a state’s lawmakers have taken a serious look at quality of care and access to care issues associated with disordered eating,” Vincent Atchity, the president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado, said in a statement. “Disordered eating is rampant and deadly — as the second most fatal of mental health conditions (exceeded only by the opioid crisis). Too little is known or practiced on the prevention side. And the quality of health care for disordered eating, when it can be accessed, ranges from excellent to harmful and destructive.”

prevents insurers and providers from using the body-mass index in determining a patient’s need for treatment. BMI, which uses a person’s height and weight to determine their body mass, was developed nearly 200 years ago by a Belgian mathematician. It’s often used, patients and advocates say, in assessing whether an eating disorder patient needs treatment b, and BMI has been criticized for method of assessing a patient’s health status.

The law also prohibits retail establishments from selling over-the-counter diet pills to residents under the age of 18. That prohibition becomes effective July 1, 2024.

Initially, the bill also would’ve instituted prescribed regulations for eating disorder treatment providers to address what lawmakers have described as “bizarre” practices in treatment facilities. Former patients have accused treatment providers of using feeding tubes and restrictive care as threats to ensure compliance, and several have said that the treatment environments often felt punitive.

But those provisions would’ve cost money, and they were stripped from the bill in April as legislators parceled out limited funds to various priority legislation. That drew frustration from advocates and former patients. Atchity, of Mental Health Colorado, said Tuesday that there was more work to be done on the issue but that SB23-176, even pared down, was an important step forward.

Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Jefferson County Democrat and one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said it was “heartbreaking” to strip the regulatory provisions from the bill, and she said some treatment providers engaged in “barbaric” and “punitive” practices. But she said the new law was progress and that she was interested in doing more in the years to come.

Resnick said she was already working on legislation for next year that would ban various forms of weight discrimination in the state.

“Progress is progress,” Cutter said. “So you take that and you figure out something else to chip away at and come back again.”

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Under amendments set to be added to the bill Tuesday, would again allow for accessory dwelling units — like carriage houses — to be built on single-family lots, albeit only in more populous parts of the state. The amendments would also reintroduce provisions clearing the way for density and apartment buildings near transit areas in Colorado cities, along with encouraging looser parking requirements and new restrictions on what HOAs can prohibit.

All of those provisions, described to the Denver Post on Monday by lawmakers involved, were in previous versions of the bill and had been stripped from it in order to ensure that it passed the Colorado Senate. Their revival represents an effort to return the bill to some of its sweeping origins, and they signal that proponents — from lawmakers to advocates — are doubling-down on their goal of reshaping the state’s zoning laws in a bid to address its housing crisis, despite opposition from local governments and some of their own Democratic colleagues.

“In my mind, I think we’re taking something that we are receiving and bringing back the integrity that the bill was intended to do,” said Democratic Rep. Iman Jodeh of Aurora, who’s co-sponsoring the bill in the House with Denver Democrat Rep. Steven Woodrow. The two will bring the amendments during the bill’s first House hearing, before the chamber’s Transportation, Housing and Local Government Committee on Tuesday. “It����ap an environmental bill, it����ap a water bill, it����ap a transportation bill, it����ap a housing bill, and it����ap a social justice bill.”

The bill, which would be the most significant change to the state’s zoning laws in decades, has been repeatedly amended and reshaped by each committee that’s touched it over the past month. The tug-of-war over the measure’s core provisions have turned it from a sweeping reform bill to a $15 million series of statewide studies and, with these amendments, back to zoning reform again. Those changes reflect the enduring influence of local governments in the Capitol, as well as the deep divisions over the state’s role in land use decisions, even within the near-supermajority of Democratic lawmakers.

The proposed changes, which are expected to be adopted Tuesday, won’t rebuild the bill entirely. The amendments wouldn’t restore any of the middle housing components, which had allowed buildings like quadplexes to be built on single-family lots. ADUs would only be allowed in cities and larger towns, rather than statewide or in resort communities. Transit-oriented development, which would open up property near transit stations for apartments, would remain limited to a certain radius from rail stations and bus corridors in cities.

In a session that’s been dominated by housing discussions, SB23-213 represents Polis’ primary policy goal to improve affordability and availability here. He and other supporters have cast zoning reform as a uniform solution to a statewide housing crisis, and the measure’s gutting last week was a notable setback for a governor whose presence is felt acutely in the General Assembly.

That setback was delivered after intense opposition from local governments — as well as Republicans and some Democrats — who criticized the bill’s initial versions as infringing on local control. Those protests are certain to resume with the new amendments.

Though Jodeh and Woodrow said they aren’t trying to set up a showdown with Senate Democrats, their changes will return to the bill provisions that were nonstarters among some Democrats in that chamber. That gutting had drawn criticism from some of the broad coalition supporting the bill, who accused the legislature of not doing enough. , rents have surged in recent years, and evictions are climbing as pandemic-era protections and aid expire.

The bill passed the Senate on Friday, two days after it was pared back. If the bill is again amended in the House, the Senate will need to vote to accept those changes, and the measure may need to go before a joint committee of lawmakers from each chamber to hash out their differences.

Sen. Dominick Moreno, the Senate sponsor, previously told the Post that he couldn’t control what the House would do.

“I think that����ap a bridge that we cross when we get to it,” he said, when asked if he expected the House to unwind changes made in the Senate. Woodrow and Jodeh said they had discussed their plans with Senate Democrats and were confident their planned changes would stick. Woodrow said that they’re “cognizant of our vote count in the other chamber.”

Woodrow described the amendments as a repudiation of the . Advocates say that policies like single-family zoning have historically been used to exclude minority groups from certain neighborhoods and areas.

“It����ap probably the most structurally racist policy we continue to have in Colorado,” Woodrow said. “Exclusionary zoning has racist roots, it has a racist legacy, and to this day, it has racially disparate impacts. It����ap modern-day redlining, and it is time to move on.”

If adopted Tuesday, the planned amendments would inject some new elements into the bill. The transit-oriented density would also include mixed-use development, meaning commercial and residential, in order to beef up the tax base.

The amendments also include incentives from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade for local governments that are addressing issues identified in the bill’s required housing studies. Some lawmakers had criticized the bill for requiring cities to study their housing needs without any enforcement to ensure they follow through on what those studies identify.

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“In my advocacy mind, that just goes to, OK, so we’re choosing not to regulate care because it����ap going to cost us something,” said Vincent Atchity, the president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado. “And in the meantime, substandard or unmonitored care will continue.”

As it was drafted, would’ve required eating disorder treatment providers be specifically regulated by the state Behavioral Health Administration, and it would’ve barred a series of practices that patients have described as traumatic and harmful, including nude weigh-ins and the overuse of restrictive treatment. The bill would’ve also required facilities to provide trauma-informed care and to respect and provide accommodations for LGBT people, who are disproportionately affected by eating disorders.

Several former patients previously described being weighed while nude or in ill-fitting clothing after waiting in line with other patients. Some said the use of room confinement or feeding tubes felt like punitive measures for patients who wouldn’t comply. Representatives from a national treatment provider headquartered in Denver said providers were already regulated and that eating disorders — which are among the deadliest mental illnesses — require intensive treatment to cure.

Still, Sen. Dominick Moreno, the Commerce City Democrat co-sponsoring the bill, described those practices as “bizarre” in February and said that he wasn’t sure they were “rooted in best practices for either medicine or mental health.” The bill would’ve been the first in the nation to specifically regulate providers’ practices, experts previously told the Post, and its introduction was particularly important now, given Colorado’s role as a national hub of eating disorder treatment and

But those regulatory provisions would have cost several hundred thousand dollars to implement. Lawmakers, who have already passed a state budget and have a prescribed a pot of money to dole out for other legislation, stripped those regulatory provisions from the bill during a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting Monday, part of their annual work to square legislative priorities with finite funding. The amendments brought the estimated state cost of the bill to zero,

“When I heard about the amendments to the bill, I was pretty devastated,” said Em Troughton, a former eating disorder patient who was traumatized by the treatment they received in Denver facilities. ” … I have experienced firsthand the ways that this system fails folks over and over again. I felt really uplifted and invigorated by the prospect of informing legislation through those largely traumatic experiences, and at this point, I’m sort of reflecting on the ways that it is so difficult to affect sustainable change.”

The bill, which passed the Senate on Tuesday and cleared its first hurdle in the House on Thursday, still has key protections for patients and the public, advocates and supporters say. It still prohibits treatment providers or insurers from using the body-mass index calculation as a basis to deny a patient care; advocates say only 6% of eating disorder patients are underweight. The bill also prohibits the sale of certain diet pills to minors (though that, too, was pared back after grocers lobbied against it).

A companion bill, , would create state-level resources and a grant program to better prevent eating disorders in the state. Troughton said the two bills, even pared back, were still “momentous” and signaled that policymakers were paying more attention to eating disorders.

Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy, a Lakewood Democrat and the regulatory bill’s sponsor in the House, said he doesn’t plan to add the treatment regulations back into the measure, given budgetary constraints. Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Jefferson County Democrat and another co-sponsor, said the concerns raised by patients were “alarming” but that legislators must grapple with financial realities.

“There are some things that were really concerning,” she said of eating disorder treatment, “and every year it����ap a balance. We have lots of priorities and lots of things we want to do. Every single year there’s a balance. It doesn’t mean we have to stop trying.”

The changes were welcomed by the Colorado Psychiatric Society, which had opposed the regulations as redundant and overly prescriptive for providers treating a deadly illness.

“I think that although the bill was well-intended, in many ways, shapes and forms, I think that sometimes there can be unintended consequences,” said Patricia Westmoreland, the legislative chair for the psychiatric society. “And we might have been dealing with some of those had it passed in its original form.”

The bill may still face more revisions. Representatives from the Eating Recovery Center, a national treatment provider based in Denver, asked a House committee Thursday to loosen the BMI prohibition and allow them to use it as one metric in evaluating care for anorexic patients. DeGruy Kennedy said he’s still researching that request.

Atchity and Troughton said they may bring the regulations back next year, despite Troughton’s “shock” that patients’ experiences weren’t enough to advance regulations this year.

Atchity said he didn’t blame lawmakers for stripping out treatment regulations. That’s the fiscal reality, he said, and it’s a symptom of Colorado’s broader aversion to paying “first-world taxes,” a reference to the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and its limitations on state spending.

“We all lose,” Atchity said. “The folks on the receiving end lose, we lose in the system because our humanity is not what it could be, the individuals who work in the under-resourced system lose because their humanity and the quality of the workplace takes a hit. It����ap just a failing proposition.”

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