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Tag: Legislative Process

Colorado budget showdown: GOP forces full reading of 661-page bill, halting debate
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado budget showdown: GOP forces full reading of 661-page bill, halting debate

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics A procedural battle at the Colorado Capitol boiled over on Wednesday night, when a House Republican demanded the 661‑page state budget be read aloud in full — a move that delayed the advance of the proposed $46.8 billion spending plan. Colorado legislators are constitutionally required to adopt a balanced budget each year. For next year’s budget, they are grappling with $1.5 billion deficit in general fund dollars, compelling them to cut spending and reexamine programs, particularly in Medicaid, the major factor driving the deficit. In addition to the state’s Medicaid woes, Democrats have blamed Congress for Colorado’s fiscal woes, arguing the federal budget changed the revenue equation and caused the state budget to go unbalanced. Republic...
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Interim Committees On The Chopping Block As Colorado Faces Lean Budget Year
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Interim Committees On The Chopping Block As Colorado Faces Lean Budget Year

By: Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics In a tight-budget year, the work of interim committees — those off-session groups that look at transportation, agriculture, water, healthcare, wildfires, pensions, and anything else lawmakers want to look at — is on the chopping block. And this year, no committee is considered sacrosanct. A bill introduced Thursday by the legislative leadership from both parties and both chambers wipes out just about all interim committees this year, including some year-round groups. It’s expected to save about $396,000 in the 2026-27 budget, according to legislative council staff. It would prohibit meetings, field trips, and legislative recommendations and reports from the year-round Capital Development Committee, which play...
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Colorado Democrat Shelves Prostitution Decriminalization Effort Amid Growing Criticism
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The Daily Signal, Approved, State

Colorado Democrat Shelves Prostitution Decriminalization Effort Amid Growing Criticism

By: Tyler O'Neil | The Daily Signal Colorado’s Republican House leader is calling foul after a Colorado state senator says he is effectively killing his own bill to decriminalize prostitution—in order to protect “sex workers” from the trauma of having to testify. State Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, the main sponsor of SB26-097, told the Colorado Sun that his bill lacks the necessary support to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee, so he will ask to delay the measure until after the 2026 legislative session, effectively killing the bill. He said the “sex workers” who persuaded him to bring the bill also persuaded him to effectively kill it. “Ultimately, we all decided that having a very tense, long committee hearing, where they’d have to be in a room with a ...
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How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

How Colorado laws are really made: What Rep. Matt Soper says voters rarely see

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The Colorado legislature is about to gavel in for another 120-day sprint, and with it comes a flood of bills most Coloradans will never see until the consequences land.  What many don’t see is how quickly ideas move, who pushes them forward—and why outcomes can feel disconnected from public input. Few lawmakers are positioned to explain that gap as clearly as Matt Soper, now the longest-serving Republican in the House and widely regarded inside the building as the caucus “dean.” With term limits constantly churning the legislature, Soper has watched the same policy ideas cycle through multiple sessions, often repackaged and moving faster each time. “There’s the textbook version of how a bill becomes a law that everyone...
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The Trump engine fires on all cylinders while Congress idles
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American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

The Trump engine fires on all cylinders while Congress idles

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker President Donald Trump has been back in office for almost a year -- roughly 315 days -- and has governed with the urgency of a turnaround CEO. He hit the ground running, signing executive orders immediately after inauguration and maintaining a pace unmatched in modern politics. But what becomes of all this action? Executive orders can be reversed the moment a new president arrives unless Congress codifies them into law. That’s the key difference between temporary executive action and lasting legislative reform. According to Ballotpedia, “As of November 25, 2025, President Donald Trump had signed 217 executive orders, 54 memoranda, and 110 proclamations in his second presidential term, which began on January 20, 2025.” Yet...
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