Colorado’s 2024 legislative session begins on Wednesday, and the state’s housing crisis is top of mind for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Lawmakers are also working on measures to address substance use, health care costs, youth mental health, climate change, public education and economic inequity.
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Focus on housing
The legislature’s Democratic majority plans to repurpose parts of a sweeping housing bill that failed to pass last year. If passed, it would have reformed land-use rules across the state to increase housing density. Democratic House Majority Leader Monica Duran told KUNC last week she thinks the legislation tried to do too much at once.
“I had a concern about that, coming from a local government background,” Duran, a former Wheat Ridge city councilmember, said. “What I'm really excited about this year, honestly, is that that bill has been taken and broken up into different pieces.”
Last year’s bill drew strong opposition from counties and municipalities over what they saw as state encroachment on local government control. Now, Duran said her caucus plans to break last year’s bill into multiple policies that can be developed and considered on a case-by-case basis. Democratic leadership also wants lawmakers to engage more with local governments and community members on housing policy than they did last year.
“Those conversations are taking place, because it's all about collaboration and working in tandem,” Duran said. “State government, local government - how can we support and help each other, but not dictate exactly how you're going to do it in each area.”
Specific measures will likely include loosening restrictions on accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, and increasing housing density around public transportation routes. Democratic leadership is also considering tax credits for renters and reforms to the senior homestead tax exemption, which allows Coloradans over 65 who have lived in the same home for at least 10 years to cut a large portion of their property taxes.
Republican leadership, on the other hand, wants to address the housing crisis by removing barriers to building more housing.
“We must open the markets back up, encourage capital to flow into Colorado instead of Kansas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma or Ohio. We need it to flow into building homes in Colorado,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen said. “The laws we have on the books prohibit that from happening with any measurable degree of success.”
Lundeen said it’s too easy to sue over construction defects in Colorado, which forces real estate developers to mitigate the risk of legislation with expensive insurance. That, in turn, drives up the cost of construction. He believes rolling back the current construction defect regulations will incentivize private developers to build more affordable housing than the government ever could.
“You just can't build government programs big enough to build enough affordable housing," Lundeen said. "It's just not going to happen.”
Long-term solutions to rising property taxes are also a focus for lawmakers across the political spectrum, although there is little bipartisan agreement on what those solutions look like. Part of that discussion is centered on how and when short-term rentals, like Airbnbs, should be taxed as commercial properties as opposed to residential ones.
The Democratic majority passed a short-term property tax relief plan during November’s special legislative session to avert the most immediate impacts of the property tax spike. It also launched a commission to develop long-term solutions for the legislature to consider this year. Republican-backed policies during the special session were immediately blocked.
Other legislative priorities
Both parties’ leadership say they are also expecting bills around public safety, health care costs, youth mental health, climate change, public education, and economic inequities.
“All of these different buckets that we have of priorities work in tandem together,” House Majority Leader Duran said. “We talked about safety–if you don't have affordable housing or a safe place to live, that impacts you there. Same with transit. Same with health care, mental health care.”
Accessibility
Democratic Representative David Ortiz is leading a slate of legislation that would address accessibility for people with physical disabilities.
One of the measures would protect homeowners who renovate their property to improve basic access.
“Basic access is safety,” Ortiz said. “What it's going to do is, if someone living in a home or a condo or townhouse or whatever wants to install accessible options and use their own money to do so, that they're then not required to spend their money to remove it when they leave. Universal design hurts nobody, it helps everyone.”
Other bills on accessibility would create an office for people with disabilities in the governor’s administration, protect access to political caucus events for disabled people, and ensure electric vehicle charging stations are accessible.
Another bill focuses on expanding accessibility at Denver International Airport through additional accessible bathrooms for older children and adults, mandatory training for airport staff, and an online portal for reporting access issues.
Ortiz is the first state lawmaker to use a wheelchair, and plans to leave the legislature when his current term is up later this year.
Substance use
Substance use issues are also a focus for lawmakers across the political spectrum. The interim legislative committee on opioid and other substance use disorders crafted a package of four bills over the last few months that lawmakers will officially introduce in the General Assembly.
Three of the bills focus on substance use prevention, treatment and recovery. The fourth would protect healthcare workers who report overdoses and reduce punishments for possession of drug paraphernalia.
Republican House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, a member of the opioid committee, also plans to introduce a bill that would increase the punishment for any amount of fentanyl possession to the level of felony. Under current law, possessing one gram or less of the powerful opioid is considered a misdemeanor.
For Lynch, it comes down to prioritizing public safety.
“A lot of this crime is around the drug trade. We do what we can to stop that by making it less easy for drugs to be sold in Colorado,” Lynch said. “Also, ensuring that, you know, law enforcement has the support it needs.”
Lynch said he’s working with Democratic House Speaker Julie McCluskie to create new financial aid programs for law enforcement families.
Many substance use advocates reject the premise that harsher punishments for drug possession result in reduced substance use and overdoses.
A vitriolic political environment
Both November’s special legislative session and last year’s general legislative session were marked by clashes between lawmakers that disrupted proceedings. At a legislative preview event last week, House Speaker McCluskie told The Colorado Sun leadership is actively working to improve the situation by clarifying the standards for acceptable behavior and highlighting workplace harassment policies.
“I am committed to making sure that as we move forward, we move forward in collaboration with our Republican Caucus members, in working to make sure that everyone feels safe, comfortable, and that the culture here does not stray into the same abyss that we see at the national level,” McCluskie said.
Last year, Republican delay tactics threatened to prevent the Democratic majority from passing bills. More recently, Democratic Representative Elisabeth Epps disrupted the special legislative session when she joined pro-Palestinian protestors in the House gallery and shouted down a fellow lawmaker. Then, last month, two first-year Democratic lawmakers resigned, citing a "vitriolic" political atmosphere.
