Legislature Passes Bills On Police Accountability, Vaccinations & Tax Reform In Final Days Of Session
DENVER (CBS4) - A whirlwind legislative session ends with the passage of some major legislation. Lawmakers came back the end of May after the session was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Before the break, they repealed the death penalty and required insurance cover infertility treatment.
During the three weeks they returned, they passed sweeping police reform, a controversial vaccination bill and paid sick leave for all employees. They also increased funding for housing, utilities and mental health and substance abuse treatment with money that the state received from the federal CARES Act.
Democrats also brought a bill that eliminated some of the tax breaks for businesses in the CARES Act to free up more money for education.
"We're talking about decoupling from tax cuts from the most wealthy that were put in the CARES Act that no one has actually felt in Colorado yet, but have negative impact on Colorado because we couple federal tax cuts with state tax cuts," said House Majority Leader Alec Garnett. "We know that the money we save we're going to be able to put in classrooms to help those teachers and those students."
Lawmakers were, ultimately, able to balance the budget without cuts to K-12 education.
Republicans accused Democrats of rushing controversial legislation with little public input, including a bill imposing a fee on health insurers to subsidize care for those who can't afford it, including people in the country illegally.
Republican leader, Rep. Patrick Neville, said the bill will increase costs for businesses that are already hurting.
"We need to get our economy back on track, and that's why I'm concerned about some of these bills before they pass because they're going to prevent some of these businesses from reopening, prevent businesses from hiring that employee. As long as they keep doing that and the economy is not full steam in 2021 we're not going to have a budget to spend."
The legislature also referred two measures to voters; a repeal of the Gallagher Amendment, which impacts property taxes, and a tax on tobacco and nicotine. Separately, they passed a bill that requires retailers that sell tobacco and nicotine to be licensed.
