In January, the chair of the Joint Budget Committee issued an unorthodox anti-drug message to lawmakers: Just say no … to spending the state’s marijuana tax money.
“Please do not ask for marijuana tax cash fund to fund your bills,” Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat and chair of the committee, said at a recent hearing. “Don’t have it in your fiscal notes. Don’t think about it. Don’t do it.”
Colorado’s marijuana tax revenue has plummeted over the past three years to a projected $281 million in this fiscal year, which ends June 30, from a high of $425 million in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
Tobacco revenue is in steady decline as well, thanks largely to a drop in cigarette use. Tobacco tax collections under Amendment 35, the 2004 measure that raised cigarette taxes to fund health programs, have dropped 38% from 2015 to $90 million from $145 million.
Taken together, the two trends may represent good news for public health. But they’re creating headaches for budget writers as they try to maintain programs that relied on marijuana and tobacco tax money in the past.
Since Colorado voters legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2012, lawmakers have treated its proceeds as a cash cow of sorts to fund a wide range of services, including behavioral health programs, education, agriculture and housing.
Over time, the uses have proliferated — this year, the fund has been tapped to pay for over 70 programs, budget documents show, even as many voters believe the money is going primarily to K-12 schools.
In reality, education is set to receive less than half of the tax dollars marijuana sales are expected to generate this year and budget staff worry that the drop in revenue could put funding at risk for a public school construction program known as BEST.
“It’s not responsible, it’s not sustainable and we are jeopardizing things that voters intended marijuana tax collections to be spent on,” Bird said. “No more.”
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MORE: JBC members said they plan to take a harder look at how the state spends its marijuana money, but it may not happen until after they finalize the state budget this spring.
“I would be up for a deep dive into that soup,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat on the committee. “There are so many parts of government — that may be very important — but that I think have a very tenuous relationship to what the people of Colorado had in mind with where those dollars were supposed to go.”
In contrast, only a handful of state programs rely on voter-approved cigarette taxes — but one of them is a significant priority of the Polis administration: The state’s universal preschool program, funded by two tobacco tax measures, Propositions EE and II.
Those taxes are stable — so far — because scheduled increases in the tax rate are offsetting the decline in smoking. Proposition EE revenue is expected to grow to $240 million next year from $204 million this fiscal year.
WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK
MORE: The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s request to speak before the court Thursday when it hears oral arguments.
Griswold was granted 10 minutes — less than the 15 she requested. Griswold won’t speak to the court herself because although she is an attorney, she is not a member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar and thus isn’t authorized to present arguments to the court. She’ll instead be represented by Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson.
In granting the order, the Supreme Court extended the time for oral arguments to 80 minutes from the normal 60, granting the Trump campaign 40 minutes, the petitioners 30 minutes and Griswold 10 minutes.
The petitioners, a group of unaffiliated and Republican voters from Colorado, opposed Griswold’s request to speak before the court. The lead plaintiff is Norma Anderson, a Republican former state lawmaker.
“Trump and the Anderson Respondents have taken the lead at all phases of this case, with the secretary of state playing a minor role,” the plaintiffs wrote in a filing opposing Griswold’s motion. “The secretary of state has taken no position on most issues in the case and identifies no different arguments she has made from (the petitioners).”
The filing added:
The thesis of the plaintiff’s argument: “Nothing in the secretary’s motion for argument time supports her taking a prominent role in this case now.”
THE WASHINGTON POST: The 91-year-old Republican suing to kick Donald Trump off the ballot
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: How two sentences in the U.S. Constitution rose from obscurity to ensnare Donald Trump
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Can Trump be on the ballot? A case out of Colorado is U.S. Supreme Court’s biggest election test since Bush v. Gore.
ELECTION 2024
The notable contributions made in the final quarter of 2023 by Colorado’s most prolific federal campaign donors
The biggest federal campaign donors from Colorado were pretty busy dropping coin in the final three months of 2023.
Here are the notable contributions we found while scouring Federal Election Commission reports filed last week:
MORE: We tried to glean from the latest FEC reports who gave to that Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that splits its donations among Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state-level Democratic parties, when the president held a fundraiser in Cherry Hills Village on Nov. 28. Tickets to the event started at $1,000.
That was harder to do than we thought since many of the donations appeared to have been made in advance.
One set of donations on the day of the fundraiser, however, did catch our eye: $10,000 each from Jordanna Schutz and Susan Schutz, the sister and mother, respectively, of Gov. Jared Polis.
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
KEN BUCK: Retiring U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Windsor, transferred $431,000 in campaign funds Monday to One Generation, his leadership PAC, and closed his campaign account. One Generation had less than $17,000 at the end of 2023. Leadership PAC money can be donated to other candidates or used to pay for travel and consulting.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Former 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully in 2018 to become Colorado’s attorney general, has filed to run for district attorney in the state’s new 23rd Judicial District. The new district includes Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln counties. He will be competing against attorney Dagna Van Der Jagt for the Republican nomination. No Democrats have filed to run. Brauchler left his job last week as a conservative talk radio show host at 710 KNUS.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY: 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner, a Republican who lost the 2022 race for attorney general, isn’t running for reelection, he announced Monday. Democrat Amy Padden, who narrowly lost to Kellner in 2020 in a race that went to a recount, and who made an unsuccessful bid in 2018 to become attorney general, is the only candidate who has filed to run in the 18th District thus far. Arapahoe County will be the only county in the 18th once the new 23rd Judicial District takes effect.
CONGRESS: GOP U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s bill to sell a piece of federal land to Mesa County for economic development passed the House on a voice vote Monday. Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse’s bill on drought preparedness also passed on a voice vote. Both bills now head to the Senate.
MEDIA: Tim Ryan, the news director at 9News, announced on LinkedIn last week that he’s leaving journalism after roughly 40 years in the industry. He said he’s taken a job in development and will also be working on a television project that he’s been thinking about for many years. Ryan’s final day at the station will be in the next few months. “I’m working with both KUSA and TEGNA leadership to create a period of overlapping time with me and the next news director,” he said.
STORY: Lauren Boebert gets restraining order against her ex-husband
STORY: More than $150 million has been invested in Trinidad. Has it worked?
THE DENVER POST: Colorado Democrats make new push to give Uber, Lyft and DoorDash drivers more transparency over their rides
THE DENVER POST: Gun control was once “electoral kryptonite.” Now Colorado Democrats are emboldened — and prepared to act.
THE FENCE POST : Terry Fankhauser leaves legacy in Colorado’s beef industry
SUMMIT DAILY: In high-cost Summit County, soaring HOA fees are squeezing homeowners’ budgets, raising rents and stifling sales
COLORADO POLITICS: Colorado House speaker turns away families of Hamas victims from chamber, while Senate welcomes them
COLORADO POLITICS: Keith King, a titan of school choice in Colorado education, dies at 75
COLORADO POLITICS: TABOR author Doug Bruce eyes Republican primary bid in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District
COLORADO CHANNEL: Renovation of the Colorado Senate
COLORADO LEGISLATURE
The potty clause in the new Colorado House rules governing when bills are read at length
When a state representative now requests that a bill being debated on the Colorado House floor be read at length, that lawmaker will be required to remain in the chamber under a rules change passed Friday by the Democratic majority.
Majority Leader Monica Duran, D-Wheat Ridge, said the resolution would help “promote the respectful and effective operations of the House.”
“It is completely within members’ rights to read bills at length,” Duran said. “No one disputes that. However, this resolution seeks to restore some integrity to that process.”
Some bills are dozens — or even hundreds — of pages long and can take an entire day to be read aloud (by a computer, mind you). Under the new rules, a representative who requests a bill be read at length can only leave the chamber during the reading “for brief absences not to exceed five minutes, or longer as permitted by the presiding officer” as part of a so-called potty clause.
Violation of the rules constitutes a withdrawal of the read-it-at-length request.
The language mirrors a rules change passed in the Senate in 2022 after work in that chamber had been frequently interrupted by Republicans asking for bills to be read at length in protest of the Democratic majority’s legislative agenda. It then spread to the House.
The Senate rules change — including the potty cause — was negotiated between Senate President Steve Fenberg and then-Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert.
Fenberg said he initially wanted to limit bathroom breaks to three minutes. Holbert said it should be longer. They settled on five minutes — with a little bit of wiggle room for those, ahem, situations that may take longer.
“It was all in jest and fun,” Fenberg said. “It wasn’t, like, high stakes negotiations.”
We all know, however, that when nature calls it can be … high stakes.
In all seriousness: The read-it-at-length strategy all but ended in the Senate after political tensions eased and the rule change was passed. We don’t expect that to happen in the House, where Democrats last year took the extraordinary step of limiting debate to stop Republicans from filibustering and keep their calendar on track.
MORE: The rules change was made through House Resolution 1004, which also extended the partial suspension of the chamber’s rules in the last three days of the session to the final 10 days of session. The suspension is also now automatically triggered during a special session.
Duran didn’t spend much time explaining that shift, which basically enables bills to move faster through the legislature by easing some time requirements on the legislative process and by allowing major amendments on final reading.
House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs, in a speech on the House floor Friday said her caucus was most upset with the elongation of the rules suspension period. “We have some strong objections,” she said.
Pugliese claimed the change would silence the GOP — though it wasn’t clear what she meant since the change wouldn’t have an effect on the length of debate. In an interview Monday, the minority leader said she was more referring to how the speed at which bills move through the legislature in the final days of session make it hard for the public to follow along and Republicans to fight their passage.
The resolution passed 42-19 along party lines, with four representatives excused.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Corrections & Clarifications
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