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The Colorado legislature, as part of its efforts to close a budget hole of more than $1 billion, is planning to axe a nearly two-decade effort to enlist teenagers from across the state to help draft and offer input on bills.
Shutting down the Colorado Youth Advisory Council would save about $50,000 a year. That’s a relatively paltry amount, but it’s meant to send a message that costs must be trimmed wherever possible.
The legislative branch plans to trim its budget by 5%, or more than $4 million next year, and suspending as many as a dozen interim committees like the Colorado Youth Advisory Council is part of that effort. The trimming foreshadows the big line-item reductions the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee must make in the coming weeks.
The Colorado Youth Advisory Council was created in 2008 and is composed of 40 junior high and high school students representing each of the state’s 35 Senate districts, as well as the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes. Teens serve two-year terms on the council. The panel is currently supposed to continue through at least 2028.
In recent years, the panel — known as COYAC — has drafted legislation to require school staff to address students by their chosen name, boost mental health resources in schools, reduce food waste in public schools and get young people involved in environmental justice.
“That would be a huge mistake,” Sen. Faith Winter, a Broomfield Democrat and a legislative liaison to the council, told The Unaffiliated of ending the program. “We know that the budget is difficult and we are willing to work with COYAC next year for a very reduced budget outside of having an interim committee.”
Sarah Moss, who directs the program, made an impassioned plea to the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, which will make the decision to disband the program, to keep the initiative alive.
“I love this program and love these students,” she said. “Being their nonpartisan staffer and teaching them the process and government 101 — and ‘here’s how you make a phone call to a stranger who’s a grown-up’ — has been one of the greatest joys of my professional career. We would very much love for this program to continue in full.”
Moss suggested paring back the council to make it remote-only. That could cut out the legislature’s costs of getting council members to and from the Capitol and putting them up in hotels.
“We would really love to see some kind of opportunity for them to present (to lawmakers), even if it’s just a teleconference,” she said.
But the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council appears resigned to shutting down the program. It will make a final decision today on whether to draft a bill ending COYAC that would have to be debated before the full legislature.
“As a lifelong educator, I believe in doing things for our youth and giving them these opportunities,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, said this week during an executive committee meeting. “This is tough.”
In an interview, McCluskie said she hopes COYAC could be brought back after a year. But the legislature’s budget problems are only expected to get worse.
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The executive committee is made up of the six top partisan leaders in the legislature, four Democrats and two Republicans. Both Republicans suggested it was time for the council to go away, regardless of cost.
“With all due respect to students, there are plenty of people who come here and take days to testify and make their voices heard that don’t get (their expenses covered),” House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, R-Colorado Springs, told the executive committee.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, R-Monument, said the council has become too progressive. Given that it effectively has the power to introduce bills in the legislature, he feels that advantage is unfair.
“As a matter of policy, I’m not supportive of continuing with funding,” he said during the executive committee meeting.
Winter pointed out that COYAC was founded through legislation brought by a Republican, then-state Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango, and that it has long been a bipartisan initiative. The panel that reviews COYAC’s work is named after the late House Minority Leader Hugh McKean.
Winter defended the legislation the council has advanced in recent years as being representative of the Democratic-lean of the state.
“There is one youth member per Senate district,” she said. “If you look at the makeup of the Senate, it makes sense that COYAC is composed similarly.”
The $50,000 appropriated annually to the council pays for an overnight retreat, annual visit to the Capitol, send-off dinner for high school seniors, committee meetings with legislators and for a professional facilitator to run the program.
WHAT ELSE IS BEING CUT FROM THE LEGISLATIVE BUDGET
The Executive Committee of the Legislative Council is taking other steps to reduce the legislature’s budget.
For instance, the panel voted unanimously Tuesday to eliminate funding for special sessions, saving about $600,000. The General Assembly usually sets aside that much each year to pay for 20 special session days at a cost of $30,000 a day.
The committee also tabled a vote on whether to broadcast video of legislative committee meetings. Colorado is one of just two states that doesn’t do so.
The executive committee did advance one increase: a proposal that would raise aide wages to $25.54 per hour from $24.57, a 3% increase. The motion passed 4-2, with Lundeen and Pugliese opposing the pay hike.
“I believe we have meaningful budgetary crises that we are still not fully seeing or fully engaging,” Lundeen said.
YOU HEARD IT HERE
Rich was speaking on the Senate floor in opposition to Senate Bill 3, which would ban the manufacture and restrict the sale in Colorado of certain semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and pistols that can accept detachable ammunition magazines. It passed the chamber Tuesday and is now on a glidepath to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.
If Senate Bill 3 passes and Coloradans heed Rich’s encouragement after it goes into effect, they would be breaking the law.
While Senate Bill 3 doesn’t outlaw possession of the firearms it targets, federal law prohibits gun dealers from selling people guns that they would be prohibited from buying in their home state. (Magazines are not considered guns, so Coloradans can and would still be able to legally purchase large-capacity magazines elsewhere.)
Rich also encouraged Coloradans to make a “run” on guns and magazines from firearm sellers in the state before Senate Bill 3 is set to take effect in September.
“Stock up on all the guns that you want and can afford,” she said. “Stock up on the magazines that you want and can afford.”
Rich’s remarks drew a rebuke from Democratic Sen. Julie Gonzales, who is one of the lead sponsors of the measure.
“I don’t appreciate statements from the well encouraging people to break the law,” the Denver lawmaker said on the Senate floor, “but that’s just me.”
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
LABOR
The Colorado business community says their attempts at dealmaking with union interests on Senate Bill 5 have been rejected. The measure would amend the Labor Peace Act to eliminate a requirement that 75% of workers at a company sign off before a union can negotiate with an employer on union security, which is when workers are forced to pay collective bargaining representation fees regardless of their union participation.
“Over the last few weeks, the Colorado Chamber and our coalition partners … came to the table to try and find compromise with labor groups to preserve worker choice in union negotiations,” Colorado Chamber President and CEO Loren Furman said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, our coalition’s reasonable proposals were rejected, and we will continue to oppose the bill as written.”
The measure passed the Senate this week unamended and now heads to the House. Gov. Jared Polis has all but said he will veto the measure if a compromise isn’t reached before it reaches his desk.
AURORA
Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky announced this week that she is running for reelection to her at-large seat.
Jurinsky was responsible for highlighting the effect of Venezuelan gangs in Aurora, which led to a negative national spotlight on the city, a wave of misinformation and disinformation, and a campaign visit from Donald Trump. While the City Council race is nonpartisan, Jurinsky is a Republican.
“Coming through the pandemic as a restaurant owner, my business and many others like mine faced government overreach and increasing costs that threatened to shut us down,” Jurinsky said in a written statement. “Policies from the state and local governments forced many small businesses to close and with it, the passions and life’s work of many entrepreneurs. I wanted to make a difference and be a voice for these families, which is why I jumped into the race and why I want to continue to serve and fight for Aurora residents and businesses.”
JARED POLIS
Gov. Jared Polis is leading the National Governors Association Meeting in Washington, D.C., through Saturday. He is chair of the bipartisan organization.
Watch his interview Thursday with Politico here.
PERSONNEL FILE
Adam Frisch, the Aspen Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in each of the past two election cycles, is now director of electoral programs and finance chair at WelcomePAC, according to Politico.
Frisch most recently ran unsuccessfully to be a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. WelcomePAC supports moderate Democratic congressional candidates.
COLORADO GOP
Steve Bannon will be the keynote speaker at the Colorado GOP’s annual fundraising dinner March 28.
Bannon is a media executive and Trump ally who served prison time last year for contempt of Congress. He recently pleaded guilty to defrauding donors who thought they were giving money to a Colorado-based effort to raise money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
READ MORE
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CAMPAIGN FINANCE
Colorado GOP makes big payments to Dave Williams, Randy Corporon
The Colorado GOP raised more than $61,000 last month and spent a little more than $71,000, ending January with about $230,000 in the bank.
Some of the money the party reported taking in came from interesting sources. There was a $36,000 infusion from the Internal Revenue Service in the form of an employee retention credit stemming from the COVID pandemic. The Colorado GOP also reported $10,000 from Liberty Mutual Insurance to “offset adverse EEOC claim.”
Chairman Dave Williams’ consulting firm was paid $14,000 by the party last month. Attorney Randy Corporon, who is representing the Colorado GOP in a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the state law letting unaffiliated voters cast ballots in partisan primaries, was paid $22,000.
The Colorado Democratic Party raised about $75,000 last month and spent nearly $110,000, starting February with nearly $325,000 in the bank.
The spending included $16,500 on digital marketing, with much of the rest going to payroll spread across the party’s many employees.
Here’s what else we gleaned from the latest federal campaign finance reports:
THE BIGGER PICTURE
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