The Colorado legislature is every week out from the top of the 2025 session and is working Wednesday to push payments by way of committee and the Home and Senate flooring. A number of ongoing coverage discussions stay unresolved, and Wednesday’s debates will embody prolonged testimony and sure amendments to a transgender-rights invoice.
This story will probably be up to date all through the day.
10:59 a.m. replace: The Colorado Senate permitted a invoice Wednesday morning to make theft of firearms a felony, setting it as much as clear the legislature.
Home Invoice 1062 would make the theft of a firearm a Class 6 felony, whatever the gun’s worth. For extra kinds of theft, the distinction between misdemeanor and felony is dependent upon the worth of the stolen items. Class 6 is the least-severe class of felony and carries a penalty of 1 12 months to 18 months in jail and fines of $1,000 to $100,000.
Sponsor Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat, argued that “firearms in prison fingers pose a novel menace to our communities,” whatever the gun’s worth. The invoice was additionally sponsored by Sen. Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican; Rep. Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat; and Rep. Ryan Armagost, a Berthoud Republican.
The Home already handed the invoice, however it might want to return to the chamber for its concurrence on a small change to its value. The invoice handed with bipartisan assist in each chambers. Lawmakers pursued an analogous coverage final 12 months, however that invoice failed in its first committee.
10:47 a.m. replace: A invoice that will enable jury trials for some tenants going through eviction narrowly handed the Home on Wednesday morning because the legislature obtained underway on its penultimate Wednesday of the 2025 session.
Home Invoice 1235, which handed with the naked minimal of 33 votes, is the legislature’s reply to a query left hanging by a wierd state Supreme Courtroom saga final 12 months. In October, the excessive courtroom dominated that tenants have a proper to jury trial in eviction proceedings. Two months later, although, the justices abruptly reversed themselves and direct the legislature to resolve.
Underneath HB-1235, tenants going through eviction would be capable to pursue a jury trial if they’d a cloth dispute with their landlord. That will imply a disagreement over an alleged lease violation — however it could not embody when a tenant was late on lease, the most typical reason behind eviction.
The invoice was beforehand hung up in legislative limbo amid fears of the monetary value. That was greeted with frustration from advocates and legislators, who felt the courts had been putting a prohibitive price ticket on a coverage query that the judicial system requested the legislature to unravel.
In any case: HB-1235 now heads to the state Senate.
Talking of the Senate: That chamber on Monday totally handed Senate Invoice 20, which seeks to crack down on chronically neglectful landlords by permitting authorities authorities to briefly take management of run-down residence buildings. The coverage was immediately impressed by the messy saga involving CBZ Administration final 12 months: That firm has had three buildings enter receivership — two sought by collectors, the final by the town of Denver — amid power disrepair and the corporate’s claims of gang takeovers.
SB-20 would give extra authority to cities, counties and the state to implement a wide range of housing legal guidelines, and it could enable them to grab management of buildings and use tenants’ lease to repair dilapidated circumstances.
“Frankly, the shortage of an sufficient treatment for a extremely, actually dangerous state of affairs like (CBZ) may be very a lot a part of what impressed this invoice,” Sen. Mike Weissman, a Democrat who represents elements of Aurora which can be dwelling to CBZ buildings, stated in January.
The measure will head subsequent to Gov. Jared Polis.
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