On the balcony outside the House chamber, Johnny Cash crooned on the loudspeakers as state lawmakers sipped Colorado wine from plastic cups in the final hours of the 2017 legislative session.
A 1991 cabernet sauvignon in hand, state Rep. Paul Rosenthal raised his cup and offered one word that captured the mood at the Capitol: “Cheers!”
The celebration Wednesday reflected victories for Democratic and Republican legislative leaders on most of their top priorities in the 120-day term — even as two late efforts at compromise failed.
The bipartisan agreements included measures to preserve the hospital provider fee program, avert potentially catastrophic cuts to rural hospitals, find new money for highway construction, increase per-pupil education spending, and make it harder to sue for construction defects.
For each bill, the final result is less than what lawmakers hoped to accomplish but represented significant progress after failing to reach accords for years.
“I think this was a very productive session,” said Rosenthal, D-Denver. “I always knew we’d get some good compromises done.”
Most of the efforts came together on the last day as lawmakers hurried to finish more than 100 bills amid the fanfare of sine die — the Latin term to adjourn without a date to convene again. But the festive spirit didn’t make it to the end.
Just after 9 p.m., the House and Senate reached a stalemate on a measure to keep the Colorado Energy Office operating after July 1. The legislation’s failure will eliminate the office’s $3 million budget that supports 24 of its 35 positions.
The Republican-led Senate insisted on shifting the office’s mission, in part to reflect Donald Trump’s energy policy, and Democrats refused to budge and stripped numerous provisions from the bill.
“They stripped off everything and shut down negotiations, so this is where we are at,” said Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City.
House Majority Leader KC Becker, D-Boulder, said she offered to include the Republican language to boost the natural gas industry in exchange for additional provisions on renewable energy.
“Basically the message to us was, ‘We get everything we want, and you get nothing you want,’” she said.
Major spending bill headed to the governor
Earlier in the day, much of the debate in the House focused on Senate Bill 267, the far-reaching spending measure to boost payments to hospitals and schools; mortgage state buildings to generate $1.9 billion for transportation; increase pot taxes to the maximum 15 percent; give business owners a tax break; and increase Medicaid co-pays for the poor.
The House passed the bill with wide bipartisan support on a 49-16 vote that sent the measure to Gov. John Hickenlooper, despite objections of a split Republican caucus torn between ideological objections and a desire to help members’ predominantly rural districts.
The Republican opponents railed against the growth of Medicaid spending made possible through the hospital provider fee program and blasted the sheer reach of a bill, which they said violated a state requirement that legislation be tailored narrowly to a single subject.
“I think we’re setting a pretty bad precedent, that we’re going to use words like ‘concerning Colorado’ in bills so that we can put everything and the kitchen sink in,” said Rep. Tim Leonard, R-Evergreen, a reference to the bill’s broad title, “Concerning the Sustainability of Rural Colorado.”
But the bill’s something-for-everyone scope was precisely what allowed it to pass the divided legislature, uniting rural Republicans with urban Democrats who said the benefits outweighed any misgivings they had about the measure.
“This helps us all come back to our districts and say we’re listening,” said Rep. Jon Becker, R-Fort Morgan, one of the bill sponsors.
The centerpiece of the legislation averts a $528 million cut in payments to hospitals. The bill shifts the hospital provider fee to a separate entity, a move that allows the state budget to grow in the future despite a $200 million reduction in the state’s spending caps.
“I’ve been a pretty outspoken critic of the hospital provider fee,” said Rep. Yeulin Willett, R-Grand Junction. “We tried to get it done through budget cuts, folks. But we couldn’t get it done. So at some point you’ve got to take the good with the bad. You’ve got to be a statesman. You’ve got to do what’s right for rural Colorado.”
A measure to increase access to digital records survives
In one of the session’s late surprises, lawmakers struck a deal on the Colorado Open Records Act bill, which would require government agencies to provide digital records in a similar digital format when requested.
Senate Bill 40 had been a political football for much of the session as it ignited a debate about “fake news,” and government agencies pressed lawmakers to limit transparency. Both chambers approved a late substitute measure that stripped out many of the controversial provisions that had been negotiated for much of the session. The GOP-led Senate approved it unanimously after the House passed it largely along party lines.
But the two chambers failed to reach a deal about how to define the prohibition on “open and public” marijuana consumption — a question that has vexed lawmakers since the approval of Amendment 64 legalizing pot in 2012.
The House and Senate approved different versions of the legislation, and a panel of negotiators met twice to find middle ground on the question of whether people could smoke pot on their front porches.
The compromise allowed porch smoking as long as it involved only five people other than the lawful residents, a so-called “party of five” rule. But House lawmakers rejected the measure, arguing it undermined voter intent and imposed an arbitrary limit.
“We’re talking about your own private property,” said Rep. Jovan Melton, D-Aurora. “And why the number five? Why did we arbitrarily land on that number? We are literally putting things into statute with no explanation.”
Even amid the lawmaking frenzy, lawmakers found time to revel.
The wine and cheese tasting hosted by the Colorado wine industry drew lawmakers to the balcony. And each chamber gathered midday in the rotunda to drop rubber band balls the size of cantaloupes from high in the Capitol dome.
Made from rubber bands collected from the folders that hold bills, the balls careened down hundreds of feet. The higher they bounced, the louder the whoops and cheers echoed through the marbled hallways.
Here’s what made it to the finish line and what didn’t in the final days:
Colorado lawmakers churned through dozens of bills in the session’s final days. Here are a few of the highlights:
Approved
- A measure to study expanding Medicaid benefits to cover substance abuse treatment in relation to the state’s opioid and heroin crisis.
- An overhaul of the state’s civil forfeiture laws, which proponents of reform say have been abused by police.
- An extension of a child care income tax credit that was scheduled to sunset this year.
- A measure to allow the sealing of a criminal convictions related to marijuana if the offense is no longer a crime after legalization.
- A bill directing colleges and universities to offer academic credit for military experience.
Defeated
- Dueling efforts in the House and Senate on gas pipelines in the wake of the deadly Firestone explosion. Democrats wanted to require mapping of gas pipelines throughout the state, while Republicans tried to put into law a review Gov. John Hickenlooper had requested. Died in the House.
- A bill backed by Senate President Kevin Grantham and House Speaker Crisanta Duran that sought to lower insurance premiums for condominium builders by addressing litigation issues. Died in the Senate.
- A measure to allow the cannabis industry to avoid a crackdown from federal authorities by reclassifying recreational pot as medical marijuana was watered down at the end. Died in the House.
- A Republican effort to issue $3.5 billion in bonds for transportation projects, funded by existing sales tax revenues, appeared in multiple versions. But none of them survived. Died in House and Senate.
- A Democratic bill setting targets for emission reductions to combat climate change. Died in the Senate.