Welcome to the third (and quick) week of the 2025 Colorado legislative session. A handful of early payments are set to hit the Home ground within the subsequent few days as lawmakers settle in for extra marathon oversight hearings and the primary contentious committee listening to of the 12 months.
That listening to is for Senate Invoice 5, which might eradicate a singular provision of Colorado regulation. It requires unions to cross a second election (after the primary vote that formally creates the union) earlier than staff can negotiate a key piece of their union contract with employers. The listening to is about for Tuesday at 2 p.m. in entrance of the Senate’s Enterprise, Labor and Expertise Committee within the Capitol.
The invoice is a precedence for labor teams and Democratic lawmakers, and most Democrats in each the Home and the Senate have already signed on to help it. However it’s opposed by enterprise teams and by Gov. Jared Polis, who has mentioned he’s skeptical of the proposal and needs legislators and unions to barter with teams just like the Colorado and Denver Metro chambers of commerce.
Supporters anticipate the invoice to clear its first Senate vote Tuesday, which might then ship the measure to the Senate ground.
The Home and Senate’s calendars are usually dependable, although in addition they usually shift for quite a lot of causes. It’s all the time a good suggestion to double examine the calendar on-line. You may as well tune in to legislative hearings on-line or watch livestreams of Home and Senate ground work on the Colorado Channel.
Right here’s what else is going on this week:
A parade of oversight hearings
The primary few weeks of each legislative session are sometimes dominated by SMART Act hearings — mainly authorities oversight conferences by which state businesses current to committees and face some grilling or prodding by lawmakers.
That course of began after the session started and continues this week. On Tuesday, the legislature’s joint well being committees will maintain SMART Act hearings for the Behavioral Well being Administration and the Colorado Division of Public Well being and Surroundings, amongst different health-related businesses.
The identical committee will hear from the Division of Human Providers and the Division of Well being Care Coverage and Financing — which oversees Medicaid — on Wednesday.
That can probably be fascinating, given considerations round cuts to Medicaid amid the state price range crunch and the brand new Trump administration. Each the Tuesday and Wednesday hearings will start as soon as the Home and Senate conclude ground work, which can probably be mid- to late-morning.
The legislature’s training committees will maintain oversight hearings on Thursday for the departments of training, larger training and early childhood. The joint navy and state affairs committees will maintain hearings for the Division of Army and Veterans Affairs and the Division of State, additionally on Thursday.
First ground work
The Home has 4 payments it’s scheduled to listen to on second readings this week. As a reminder, a invoice first should cross a minimum of one committee, then clear two votes in its first chamber earlier than switching to the opposite chamber and restarting the method. The primary chamber vote, referred to as second studying, is a voice vote.
These first 4 payments embrace a measure to approve using a psilocybin remedy, alongside three different items of health-related laws. All are scheduled for a Home vote Tuesday; in the event that they’re delayed, they may probably roll over to later within the week.
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