Colorado Senate Democrats on Wednesday selected Sen. Steve Fenberg to be the chamber’s next president, a position in which the Boulder lawmaker will help steer the direction of the entire legislature. Fenberg had been serving as the Senate majority leader, the No. 2 position in the chamber. He was elected president by acclamation, without a […]
Leroy Garcia
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Leroy Garcia, president of Colorado Senate, will resign to join Biden administration
Colorado Senate President Leroy Garcia will resign from the legislature to accept a position in the Biden administration, leaving one of the two most powerful positions in the General Assembly vacant in the middle of a lawmaking term. The Pueblo Democrat, who is in the last year of his second and final term in the […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
“A fighting tone”: Colorado Republicans are heading into the 2022 legislative session on the offensive
Republicans in the Colorado legislature have been mostly playing defense over the past three years. But that posture is changing in 2022, an election year that will determine whether conservatives will remain relegated to the sidelines of Colorado politics. This year, Republicans are going on the offensive. Republicans see the 2022 legislative session that began […]
Posted inNews, Politics and Government
Despite partisan rhetoric at the Colorado Capitol, just 4.4% of bills this year passed along purely party lines
A record 504 bills introduced in the Colorado legislature became law this year, and 94% of them had at least one Republican vote. And half of the 39 Republicans in the state House and Senate voted for 58% of those bills, according to a Colorado Sun analysis. That’s despite a third year of Democratic rule […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Colorado AFL-CIO will withhold donations to Democratic campaign committees through May 2022, saying unions have been “excluded”
The Colorado branch of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of unions, will not donate to Democratic legislative campaign committees until at least May 2022 in protest of what the organization sees as the party’s exclusion of labor interests from state policy discussions. “We have … been excluded from caucus discussions about policy creation in […]
Posted inBusiness, Crime and Courts, Economy, Environment, Health, News, Politics and Government, Transportation
“A lot of big items still out there”: Colorado lawmakers have a massive to-do list with only a month left
The Colorado legislature is entering the final month of its 2021 lawmaking term with a host of unresolved, complicated Democratic priorities, including an effort to reshape the state’s transportation funding system, an overhaul of the health care industry and an equity-focused rework of the tax code. Also pending are four gun control bills, a measure […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government, Transportation
Colorado is on track to take its most significant step toward a Front Range passenger train system
Colorado lawmakers on Friday introduced a bill that, if passed, would mark the most significant step the state has taken yet toward funding, building and eventually operating a Front Range passenger train system. The measure, Senate Bill 238, would draw a new special Front Range passenger rail district running from the New Mexico state line […]
Posted inEducation, News, Politics and Government
Colorado lawmakers are creating a fund to raise teacher pay. But they’re not putting any money in it.
When teachers descend on the Colorado Capitol to demand pay raises, they’re often met with a common refrain from state lawmakers: Talk to your districts. That’s because it’s not the legislature that holds the purse strings when it comes to teacher pay. The General Assembly may send millions of dollars to districts, but it’s up […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
Colorado lawmakers consider permanent fence around state Capitol
The Colorado Legislature is considering allocating about $1 million toward permanent fencing around most of the state Capitol building in downtown Denver in response to vandalism during protests last year, a newspaper reported. Recent renderings reviewed by The Denver Post showed plans for a six-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall), wrought-iron black fence that circles the building but does not cut […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government
Colorado Supreme Court confirms that Democrats’ speed-reading of bills violated state constitution
In a 4-3 decision handed down on Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court confirmed that Democrats in the state Senate violated Colorado’s constitution in 2019 when they ordered bills to be speed-read by computers. The situation arose from Republicans’ efforts to stall the lawmaking process in protest of Democratic policies two years ago, namely a rewrite […]