By Colleen Enos | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
While continuing to grapple with Colorado’s $1.2 billion dollar shortfall, the state will be losing $250 million in pandemic-related federal funding for healthcare from the American Rescue Plan Act. The federal government is implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Cost Efficiency Initiative. Coloradoans may believe that our Democrat-led state legislature will surely cut back on bills with a fiscal impact, but that would be an incorrect assumption; they just tweak the fiscal note.
SB25-183, Coverage for Pregnancy Related Services, would be more appropriately named “Taxpayer-funded Abortion Coverage.” This bill adds abortion coverage to Colorado’s state Medicaid insurance. However, due to the federal prohibition on funding abortions, Colorado must pay for it all themselves. The result will be an increase in Medicaid costs. Nevertheless, the fiscal note for this bill shows that Colorado saves money, Speaker Julie McCluskie points out, due to “averted births.” This is an astounding way to characterize saving money with the obvious justification that a dead baby is cheaper than a live one.
Bills relating to public schools were a mixed bag. SB25-143, Extend Prohibition on School Facial Recognition, was an important bill that balances using facial recognition on school grounds in threatening situations with privacy concerns. Meanwhile, SB25-063, Library Resource Decision Standards, which asks schools to put a transparent policy in place for removing school library materials, continues the controversy over problematic content in school libraries. SB25-063 does not give clear guidance on how to address obscenity and only allows parents or guardians of students attending the school to file a material review request. All Colorado taxpayers, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, or any citizen, are required to pay for schools through their taxes but are not allowed to submit material review requests.
The legislature has spent an inordinate amount of time on gun control bills designed to curtail Coloradoans’ Second Amendment rights. HB25-1133, Requirements for Sale of Firearms Ammunition, which prohibits the sale of ammunition to someone under 21 years of age, and HB25-1238, Gun Show Requirements, which adds burdensome regulations on gun show promoters, have both wound their way through the Senate and the House and will be on the way to the governor’s desk. SB25-003, Semiautomatic Firearms and Rapid-Fire Devices, is the pièce de résistance for gun control proponents. As the third bill introduced in the Senate this session, garnering 35 amendments in the process out of 81 offered, SB25-003 has morphed into a monstrosity of requirements to jump through to access our Second Amendment rights.
SB25-003 passed both chambers on March 28 and was sent to the governor on April 3. He has until Tuesday, April 15, 2025, to sign or veto it. Colorado law gives the governor 10 days—excluding Sundays—to act on a bill while the legislature is in session.
Things are speeding up as the session wears on, so please join me in keeping your eyes and ears open for any upcoming bills that would threaten homeschool freedoms, parental rights, or religious liberty in Colorado. Additionally, consider testifying on a bill in a committee hearing that you care about — you can even do it remotely.
To review currently introduced bills, go here.
Colleen Enos is a longtime homeschooling mom of eight, now graduated, and a grandmother of four (soon to be five). Married to her husband Mark for 38 years, she’s spent the last 17 years coaching speech and debate and now serves as the Christian Home Educators of Colorado’s (CHEC) Director of Government Relations, advocating for homeschool freedom at the state legislature. Enos writes a column post twice each month for the CHEC blog. Reach her at [email protected].
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.