32 bills died without votes in the Colorado legislature this year. Here's what they'd do.
Published by Colorado Politics on May 28, 2023.
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Some bills end not with a bang but a whimper.
In Colorado's 2023 legislative session, 32 bills died on the calendar. That means the bills failed not because lawmakers voted to reject them, but because they never got around to holding a vote in the first place.
Lawmakers often choose to kill bills in this way to save time that would have been spent on votes and debates when the measures do not have enough support — or, more commonly, do not have enough funding — to pass. Sometimes, though, lawmakers simply run out of time in the session to vote on the bills that were not prioritized on the calendar.
Of the 32 bills that died on the calendar this session, 21 were House bills and 11 were Senate bills.
Three-quarters of the bills died awaiting consideration from the appropriations committees, which are responsible for delegating state funds to pay for implementing bills. Five bills died on the calendar for the Senate Appropriations Committee, and 19 died for the House Appropriations Committee.
Four bills died on the Senate floor — three pending second readings and one pending consideration of House amendments. Four other bills died on the House floor by being laid over until after the session's May 8 end date, which is another time-saving method often used to kill bills without enough support.
Here are what some of the 32 bills would have done if made law.
Land use
The most publicized calendar death of the year, Senate Bill 213 died in the last hours of the session, while waiting for the Senate to approve amendments made by the House.
The bill previously passed both chambers, but all-day negotiations failed to find a compromise between the Senate and House versions. So, bill sponsors let the bill die on the calendar, failing to take action on it before the midnight deadline, without senators ever discussing the House amendments on the floor.
SB 213 was Gov. Jared Polis' controversial housing proposal, originally seeking to require cities and towns to zone for greater residential density, stripping local governments of their land use authority. The Senate gutted the bill to turn it into a housing needs assessment instead. But the House rolled back some of those changes, re-adding mandates to increase multifamily homes around bus and train stops in large cities.
"We sent back a bill that was, in my mind, exceptional. We got something that really needed salvaging," said bill sponsor Rep. Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora, after the bill's failure on the last day of the session. "We're disappointed but we're also excited because we get to come back next year and do something even bigger and better."
Critics of the bill on both sides of the aisle argued that it violated local control. Proponents said it would increase housing stock and improve affordability — which has become a major issue statewide.
Just cause eviction requirement
House Bill 1171 passed the House in mid-March. But in the Senate, it didn't get its first committee hearing until four days before the end of the session. It died on the calendar three days later when senators failed to hold the second reading vote before the midnight deadline.
The bill would have only allowed evictions or lease terminations if the tenant does something wrong, such as failing to pay rent or violating lease agreements. It would have also required landlords to give 90 days' notice and pay tenants two to three months' worth of rent to evict or terminate leases in no-fault circumstances, like for landlords to renovate the property or to move in themselves.
Bill sponsor Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, said she was working on getting more senators on board to vote "yes" on the bill. Gonzales said they would have gotten the bill passed if they had more time. She had committed to removing two of the bill's most controversial requirements: that landlords pay relocation assistance and that lease renewals be substantially similar to the prior lease.
"We had the path but ran out of time," Gonzales said.
The bill's other sponsor, Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, said the legislature "should be ashamed that (the bill) was not prioritized" in a statement posted on Twitter.
Sponsors said the bill would have helped keep renters in their homes and prevent homelessness, while critics said it was too harsh on landlords and would push them out of the rental market.
Local government Independent Ethics Commission
House Bill 1065 would have added school board members, school board employees and special district directors to the jurisdiction of the Independent Ethics Commission. The commission investigates alleged violations of state ethics laws.
Sponsors of the bill said, in the past year, the commission received dozens of emails and several complaints tied to school boards but had to decline them because the commission lacks authority over those bodies.
The bill passed the House in late-April, but hit roadblocks in the Senate, where lawmakers accused the bill of being unconstitutional. The Colorado Constitution expressly prohibits any "public officer" who serves on a board or commission for no compensation from being under commission jurisdiction.
In the end, senators failed to hold a second reading vote on the bill before the session deadline, killing it.
Bill sponsor Sen. Janice Marchman, D-Loveland, told The Colorado Sun that she thought the bill was going to pass the Senate if they hadn't run out of time, vowing to try to pass the measure again next year.
Analyze statewide publicly financed health care
House Bill 1209 would have studied the possibility of implementing a single-payer health care system in Colorado.
The study, conducted by the University of Colorado School of Public Health, would have analyzed potential costs and revenue sources, as well as how the health care system would impact health care facilities, insurance carriers and certain demographic groups.
The bill cleared the House with near-unanimous support from Democrats. But the Senate Appropriations Committee passed the bill two days before the end of the session, giving senators only one full day to squeeze the bill into its packed second reading calendar.
Senators did not vote on the bill before the deadline. Bill sponsor Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, said it simply came down to time restraints.
"We were going to run out of time," Jaquez Lewis said. "It was going to take up too much time on the floor because of the Republican filibustering. Really the answer is it was Republican filibustering that ran out the clock."
Wildfire detection pilot program
In one of the most surprising failures, Senate Bill 32 died on the calendar of the House Appropriations Committee after unanimously passing the Senate and unanimously passing the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.
The bill would have created a pilot program that would use fire-detecting cameras to monitor the state for wildfires.
Lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried to create the pilot program for years, including in 2022 when the bill similarly passed the House Agriculture Committee but was killed by the House Appropriations Committee.
House Appropriations Chair Rep. Emily Sirota, D-Denver, said the bills that died on the committee's calendar were an issue of money: "Not all bills could be funded, so not all bills were able to move out of the Appropriations Committee."
The program would have run from April 2024 to September 2027 and cost $2 million over the four years.
"I was very confused and disappointed that SB 32 didn't make it through House Appropriations," said bill sponsor House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, R-Wellington. "(It is) a moderate price tag compared to the cost of a single wildfire. I will stay with this effort and make an attempt next session to add this to our tool kit of combating wildfires."
Income tax credit for teachers
House Bill 1208 was another repeat bill that met its end in the House Appropriations Committee due to monetary constraints.
The bill would have reimbursed full-time, licensed public school teachers $1,000 each year to pay for school supplies, with a refundable state income tax credit through Jan. 1, 2027. The bill passed the House Education and Finance Committees, but it was never voted on in appropriations.
The legislature has attempted to create such a tax credit several times before, with at least five similar bills introduced since 2019. Every effort has failed to make it to a full chamber vote. This year's bill limited the scope to only licensed teachers to reduce its price tag, but it still would have costed $17.7 million in 2023, and around $35.8 million each subsequent year.
Bill sponsor Rep. Bob Marshall, D-Highlands Ranch, said he thinks he had enough support from lawmakers for the bill to pass out of appropriations, but was told the Joint Budget Committee would "never sign off on it" because of the high cost.
"I thought mine was focused enough that it would have been able to get through, but interest groups on both sides of the aisle were not fond of it for various reasons even though I believe the target group, the teachers, were very happy with it," Marshall said.
Minor driver's education requirements
Senate Bill 11 would have required Coloradans younger than 18 to finish a 30-hour driver's education course, and receive six hours of behind-the-wheel training from an instructor, to be eligible to get a driver's license. Adults under 21 years old would also have to take a four-hour driver awareness program.
The bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee, undoubtably because of its financial impact: $12.1 million in 2023 and around $22 million each year after, to pay for a tax credit for individuals who pay for a driver’s education course.
While this bill technically died, it was resurrected in amendments to House Bill 1147 that combined the two measures.
The rewritten HB 1147 passed the full legislature with SB 11's driver's education requirements, but without its tax credit. However, Gov. Jared Polis later vetoed the bill, objecting to a portion of it that would have increased driver's license fees.
Medicaid preauthorization exemption
Senate Bill 33 would have prohibited requirements for prior authorization, step therapy and "fail first" methods for Medicaid to cover prescription drugs used to treat serious mental health disorders.
The bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee but died on the Senate Appropriations Committee calendar. Committee Chair Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, said the bills that die in appropriations are primarily due to money issues, whether in the Senate or House Appropriations Committees.
"We can't fund everyone's bill, as much as everyone would love that and as much as we would love to do that," Bridges said. "I had some really hard conversations with some of my colleagues about how their bill just wasn't going to make it this year. That's the world we're in."
Bill sponsor Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, echoed this sentiment, saying she had assumed the cost was the reason SB 33 didn't make it. The bill would have costed $35 million through 2026.
However, not every bill that didn't get a vote in the appropriations committees had big price tags. Such bills include:
Possession of weapon by previous offender crimes
Senate Bill 22 would have added aggravated motor vehicle theft to the list of crimes that constitute the crime of possession of a weapon by a previous offender. The bill died in the House Appropriations Committee after passing the Senate and the House Judiciary Committee.
SB 22 didn't require any direct funds, but would have increased the workload and costs for the trial courts and the Department of Corrections due to additional criminal cases.
Social equity licenses in regulated marijuana
House Bill 1020 would have expanded eligibility criteria for social equity licensees for marijuana delivery and permitted additional incentives for social equity licensees and accelerator-endorsed licensees. The bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee after passing the House and the Senate Finance Committee.
HB 1020 would have costed less than $200,000 per year, according to an April 10 fiscal note, which would have been covered by the Marijuana Cash Fund and Marijuana Entrepreneur Fund.
Water desalination study
Senate Bill 262 would have required the Colorado Water Conservation board to conduct a literature review of existing research on desalination. The bill died in the House Appropriations Committee after passing the Senate and unanimously passing the House Energy and Environment Committee.
SB 262 would have costed only $50,000, a one-time payment to the Department of Natural Resources.
Is this normal?
More bills died on the calendar this session than usual, but not the most the legislature has seen.
From 2016 to 2019, between 11 and 17 bills died on the calendar each year. But in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, lawmakers were forced to abandon most non-essential bills to focus on laws responding to the public health and economic crisis. That year, a whopping 68 bills died on the calendar.
In 2021, only nine bills died on the calendar. That number shot up to 26 in 2022 and 32 this year.
Bridges, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the recent rise in bills dying on the calendar can be attributed to the state slowing down on its use of one-time federal COVID-19 relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. While money is still available, Bridges said, it must be thoughtfully allocated.
"We're in a budget situation where we don't have all the money," Bridges said. "We just couldn't fund every bill we wanted to fund, no matter how good of an idea we thought it was. So, in an effort to save time and move through the session as efficiently as possible, those were lost on the calendar."
This is particularly an issue for bills that require ongoing annual funding, he said. Especially as the state prepares to begin taking on the financial responsibility of programs currently funded by one-time federal dollars, including over $100 million annually for the state's Behavioral Health Administration.
That also explains why so few bills died on the calendar in 2021, when the state's federal dollars were at their peak.
"We had a lot of money in our budget and basically almost no bills died because they couldn't get funded. If a bill failed, it failed because of policy reasons, not fiscal reasons," Bridges said. "That's not the reality we're in anymore, and that's going to be even more true in future years."