Skeptical Gov. Jared Polis indicators regulation blocking extra grocery shops from promoting onerous liquor
Colorado lawmakers have succeeded in placing a cork in a part of the state’s liquor legal guidelines after a skeptical Gov. Jared Polis signed a brand new measure blocking the state from issuing a sure sort of license to grocery and drugstores.
Senate Invoice 33, which handed the legislature with sizable bipartisan help, blocks the state from issuing any extra liquor licenses to drugstores, which generally means grocery shops that even have pharmacies. Supporters had argued that the regulation would assist help impartial liquor shops as grocery shops — which may now promote wine and beer — transfer more and more into alcohol gross sales.
The brand new regulation, signed by Polis on Thursday, means extra grocery shops can’t broaden into promoting onerous liquor.
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Colorado finances cuts — together with hit for roads, lack of well being employees — trigger heartburn as lawmakers shut hole
The Colorado state finances is shifting nearer to finalization, however lawmakers have continued grappling over $1.2 billion in proposed cuts — with trims to a neighborhood well being reimbursement program and to transportation funding amongst these drawing consideration.
Proposed funding cuts for neighborhood well being employees led to amendments and pleas from lawmakers seeking to increase a workforce that one senator known as a “lynchpin” for his rural district. In the meantime, the proposed delay of tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in freeway funding has outdoors organizations fearful about highway situations in coming years.
In each instances, critics warned that the proposed cuts and delays would trigger extra hurt than financial savings. However the fiscal math doesn’t lie, finances writers counter — regardless of how painful it makes the selections.
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Gov. Jared Polis indicators sweeping gun regulation that provides necessities to purchase sure semiautomatic weapons
Gov. Jared Polis signed a sweeping gun-control measure into regulation Thursday, the end result of years of effort by advocates and progressive Democrats to restrict the sale of high-powered semiautomatic weapons in Colorado.
Beginning subsequent summer season, Coloradans must cross a background examine and a coaching course earlier than they’ll buy a swath of semiautomatic firearms that embrace many of the weapons recognized colloquially as assault weapons. Senate Invoice 3 additionally prohibits the sale of bump shares and rapid-fire set off activators, that are firearm elements that may enhance a gun’s price of fireplace.
The invoice’s sponsors mentioned it was supposed to forestall future mass shootings and implement the state’s current prohibition on high-capacity magazines.
“We now have been in a position so as to add to the protection of each Coloradan, particularly in the case of gun violence,” mentioned Sen. Tom Sullivan.
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Colorado lawmakers wish to add physique cameras to youth detention employees
Colorado lawmakers wish to add body-worn cameras to employees working within the state’s juvenile detention facilities and have backed off a request to considerably enhance the variety of beds out there to deal with youth awaiting trial.
Legislators this week made drastic overhauls to Home Invoice 1146 to now embrace a pilot program in a single youth detention facility and in a single dedication facility that requires each employees member who’s answerable for the direct supervision of youth to put on a physique digital camera whereas interacting with them.
This system can be carried out from January 2026 by way of December 2028. The Colorado Division of Human Companies would then suggest whether or not to proceed and broaden this system, or get rid of it.
The lawmakers’ request comes simply weeks after a Denver Put up investigation discovered widespread allegations of extreme drive by employees within the state’s 14 juvenile detention services.
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Colorado launches new “final resort” householders insurance coverage coverage
Colorado launched the state’s new, last-resort householders insurance coverage program — referred to as the FAIR Plan — on Thursday at the same time as this summer season’s climate situations may very well be ripe for extreme hailstorms and wildfires.
Householders who can present they’ve been declined protection by no less than three business insurance coverage firms can apply to buy a FAIR Plan coverage that would supply as much as $750,000 towards the price of changing their residence. Candidates can have the choice so as to add protection for wind and hail injury in addition to theft and vandalism.
“This product is just not supposed to compete with the admitted market,” mentioned Kelly Campbell, the FAIR Plan’s government director. “It’s not supposed to be the identical as a fundamental householders coverage.”
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Polis threatens to veto invoice addressing sentencing disparities between Colorado’s state and municipal courts
Gov. Jared Polis has threatened to veto a invoice that might mandate Colorado’s municipal courts conform to state sentencing tips, the invoice sponsors mentioned.
Home Invoice 1147 would restrict metropolis courts from administering sentences that transcend state limits for a similar crimes. Legislative reforms in 2021 considerably decreased most penalties for a number of low-level, nonviolent crimes in Colorado’s state courts. However municipal courts, which function individually and should not a part of the state judicial system, weren’t included within the statute.
Consequently, defendants in Colorado’s municipal courts can face for much longer sentences than these in state court docket for a similar petty offenses, JHB beforehand discovered.
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Colorado officers prepared authorized protection fund in opposition to Trump cuts and potential investigations
Colorado legislators are fast-tracking the creation of a $4 million fund to assist Gov. Jared Polis’ workplace defend in opposition to actions by the Trump administration — together with potential prison investigations — as policymakers grapple with frozen funding and uncertainty from the federal authorities.
Utilizing state cash put aside to match federal {dollars}, Home Invoice 1321 would set up a fund to rent employees or contractors to defend in opposition to threats to federal funding that’s as a result of state. The cash is also spent on reimbursing the Colorado Legal professional Common’s Workplace, ought to its attorneys should defend state leaders and staff in opposition to authorized and prison proceedings filed in opposition to them. That would come with potential inquiries from Congress.
Ought to the $4 million show inadequate, the invoice would additionally enable Polis’ workplace to simply accept presents, grants and donations so as to add to the fund — that means that the state may basically use crowdfunding to defend itself and its funding streams from the Trump administration.
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Colorado Democrats’ bid to launch TABOR lawsuit clears first committee
Democrats’ newest try and uproot a state constitutional modification that severely limits officers’ spending authority narrowly handed its first committee vote Monday night time.
Home Joint Decision 1023 would commit the Colorado Common Meeting to suing the state over whether or not the Taxpayer’s Invoice of Rights, or TABOR, passes federal constitutional muster. Voters handed TABOR as an modification to the state structure in 1992. Amongst different provisions, it restricts lawmakers from elevating taxes with out searching for voter approval and limits how a lot the state finances can develop yearly.
This decision, if it passes the total legislature, would end in a authorized problem primarily based on whether or not TABOR’s restrictions are allowed below the U.S. Structure’s requirement that every one states have a republican type of consultant authorities. TABOR, the decision argues, restricts the state to a direct democracy in the case of issues of spending.
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Colorado lawmakers again new election necessities for officers appointed to vacant seats
Colorado lawmakers on Monday backed a pair of payments to reform the much-maligned course of that helped seat practically 1 / 4 of the legislature, whereas rejecting a competing proposal that might’ve required altering the state structure.
The 2 favored payments, which cleared an preliminary Home committee, are basically a package deal aimed toward altering the vacancy-filling course of: Home Invoice 1315 would enable lawmakers appointed through a emptiness committee to serve not more than a full session within the Capitol earlier than standing for an election, whereas Home Invoice 1319 would enact comparable election parameters for vacancy-appointed commissioners in giant counties.
Each payments are bipartisan, they usually handed the Home’s State, Civic, Navy and Veteran Affairs Committee in succession.
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Tenants going through eviction may get jury trial below invoice earlier than Colorado legislature
In October, amid a record-breaking wave of eviction filings, the Colorado Supreme Court docket handed down a seismic resolution: Tenants going through eviction have a proper to contest their displacement in entrance of a jury.
The opinion — sparked by a lawsuit from a tenant difficult allegations from her landlord — marked a shift, no less than for the comparatively small variety of instances that might qualify below its parameters. Eviction proceedings are sometimes dispatched in fast succession, with comparatively few tenants defended by attorneys and county judges usually denying requests for jury trials.
Then, in December, the court docket reversed itself. In a transfer that one housing lawyer mentioned he’d by no means seen earlier than, the court docket voluntarily withdrew the opinion due to its new understanding of an underlying reality within the case — how the tenant had been served her eviction discover.
The court docket then demurred on the deeper query about tenants’ entry to jury trials. That query, the justices wrote, ought to really be addressed by the legislature.
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Price range week half 2: A flurry of election reforms and extra this week within the Colorado legislature
It’s Price range Crunch: Half II within the state Capitol this week, because the state finances and a number of other dozen spending measures hit the Home.
The proposed finances for the 2025-26 fiscal 12 months, which begins in July, cleared the state Senate in perfunctory style final week. Now it begins what’s going to seemingly be a extra tense journey by way of the Home. Meaning there will probably be few committee conferences on this facet of the Capitol as Home members spend many of the week debating the finances — referred to as the “lengthy invoice” — and its cluster of 60-some associated measures, referred to as “orbitals.”
The lengthy invoice is, effectively, lengthy, and the orbitals revolve round it. The legislature is a intelligent place.
If all goes to plan, the finances will probably be on the Home flooring Wednesday, Thursday and — if want be — Friday for a parade of modification proposals from Democrats and Republicans alike. It’ll then seemingly go to a convention committee of Home and Senate legislators to resolve amendments made in every chamber earlier than going to Gov. Jared Polis for passage into regulation.
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