With only five days left in the legislative session, state lawmakers still have more than 200 bills left on the calendar, leading many to worry some may die not because of policy concerns, but because there’s a backlog.
The House and Senate held a rare Saturday all day session this past weekend to try to move legislation through. The last time the chambers did that was 2006 during a special session.
“The last week of session, it looks like an uphill battle with a hill that’s filled with mud and Jello,” said Democratic Rep. Jonathan Singer of Longmont. He’s served at the Capitol since 2012 and is worried about the fate of some of his bipartisan bills that still need to get through the Senate.
“We’ve got a great package of opioid bills to actually deal with our opioid recovery issues. I have a bill dealing with just making sure our child support commission can continue and make sure that families who owe child support get it to the kids who need it the most. And these are technical bills for the most part that do a lot of good,” he said. “But the question is whether the process is going to get in the way of good policy.”
The state Constitution requires every bill to get at least one hearing, but measures aren’t guaranteed anything more than that. Speaker of the House KC Becker said she’s concerned the clock will run out for a slew of priorities from her caucus, such as affordable housing, broadband expansion and climate change.
Read the rest of this story at Colorado Public Radio.
