Democratic state lawmakers on Tuesday unveiled the results of a survey they use to help decide the fate of dozens of bills competing against each other for state funding.
But thanks to a recent lawsuit, there's something different about it this year.
For the first time since the survey was introduced to the Capitol in 2019, lawmakers’ individual votes aren’t being kept secret.
The spreadsheets give the public a glimpse into how dozens of lawmakers who hold power at the Capitol are thinking about some of the biggest bills of the session.
The decision to eliminate anonymity from the online bill ranking survey came months after a Denver judge ordered Democrats to stop using the secret ballots because they violated the Open Meetings Law.
Lawmakers were hit with the lawsuit over their secret votes a year after a KUNC News investigation raised transparency concerns about the process and revealed some lawmakers were blaming the secret survey for quietly killing their bills.
Judge David H. Goldberg ruled in January that by using secret ballots, “the public was thus deprived of the ability to know how their elected representatives voted to prioritize pending legislation, hampering their ability to hold their representatives accountable for how they cast their votes.”
One prime examples was the case of a bill aiming to purchase wildfire detecting cameras. Year after year the bill died at the statehouse without a public vote in the House after it ranked low in that chamber’s secret survey of bills.
Without disclosing how individual lawmakers voted,, it was difficult to find out which members weren’t supporting the effort, and why.
How does the new survey work?
Democrats in the House and Senate were emailed links to a Google survey on Friday. They were asked to vote for their top bills in three categories:
- Bills offering tax credits
- Bills needing less than $200,000 in state funding
- Bills needing more than $200,000 in state funding
On Tuesday morning, the survey results went public.
Lawmakers’ choices reveal which bills they view as the highest priority among more than 200 proposals competing against each other this month for funding.
For example, Sen. President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, highly prioritized a bill aiming to reduce noise and lead pollution from general aviation airports in his survey results.
The public can view all the results here and see which bills their lawmakers listed as their top funding priorities. However, the survey was optional. While a majority of Democrats filled it out, some lawmakers chose not to participate. It also does not include results from Republicans. Fenberg said Republicans could use their own separate process to weigh in on bills. A news release about the survey implied it was limited to the Democratic caucus. The GOP also hasn't participated in the bill survey process in recent years, and it's unclear if they'll be invited to in the future.
The data can be overwhelming at first. But with some spreadsheet analysis, the public can see which bills collectively earned the most support from Democrats in the survey.
What bills appear to be the highest priority for Democrats?
A KUNC News analysis of the results revealed these were the bills prioritized most often by Democratic state senators:
- Bills offering tax credits
HB-1052: the reinstatement of an income tax credit to help income-qualified seniors afford housing.
- Bills requiring less than $200,000 in state funding:
SB-24-158: Regulating social media platforms to protect minors
- Bills requiring more than $200,000 in state funding:
There was a five-way tie for first. The top proposals included
-SB-173: new regulations for funeral home workers
-HB-1164: providing free menstrual products to students
-HB-1313: increasing affordability of housing in transit-oriented communities,
-HB-1289: preventing excessive workloads for public defenders
-SB-003: boosting state funding for state investigations into illegal firearm activity.
And over in the House, these were the bills that appear to be the Democrats' highest priorities:
- Bills offering tax credits:
HB-1311:Concerning the creation of a family affordability tax credit
- Bills requiring less than $200,000 in state funding:
HB-1030: Railroad safety requirements, including limiting the maximum length of a train operating in the state, requiring certain railroads to use wayside detector systems and limiting the amount of time a train may obstruct public travel at certain crossings.
- Bills requiring more than $200,000 in state funding:
There was a two way tie for the most prioritized bill:
-HB-1330: changing permitting process for oil and gas operations with a focus on improving air quality
-HB-1045: creating and expanding programs and services for substance use disorder (SUD) treatments
What are lawmakers going to do with these survey results?
Democrats say the results will help their appropriations committees decide which bills to advance in the coming weeks.
Sen. President Steve Fenberg said Tuesday the results of the voting would be “helpful” for the committees, but “it’s not gonna be anything that’s actionable.”
“We will be using that as simply a data point,” he said. “It’s obviously not going to result in determining what comes out of the appropriations committee and what doesn’t, but it’ll sort of be a moment in time preference of members for the committee to take into account.”
But in the past, other lawmakers have said the survey results do influence the fate of some bills.
Former State Sen. Kerry Donovan told KUNC in 2022 that she blamed the secret survey results for the death of a bill she ran trying to improve wildfire investigations.
Why are Democrats doing this survey every year?
Lawmakers say it comes down to a math problem.
They have a limited amount of money each year to pay for the legislation they enact. And they often have too many bills competing for that money than they can pass with a balanced budget.
This year, lawmakers say they have about $25 million to spend on new legislation.
With limited time to decide how to proceed, they say the survey acts as a sort of “traffic control” to help them decide which bills to advance, and which ones to leave for dead.
I don’t see the bill I care about at the top of the list. Is it doomed?
Maybe, but not necessarily. While bills that rank higher in the survey process typically go on to pass at higher rates than ones at the bottom, there have been examples of bills that rank low still making it.
For example, the legislature passed a law creating a new “In God We Trust” license plate last year despite the proposal ranking at the bottom of Democrats priorities.
The survey doesn’t account for political bargaining between parties. It also doesn't include bills that don't require state funding.
The results aren't secret anymore. What's the big deal?
Transparency advocates who called on lawmakers to stop using secret ballots say the move to take the anonymity out of the survey and posts results publicly is "good for transparency."
Jeff Roberts, the director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said the survey results are "something the voting public cares about."
"They want to know how their legislators feel about about certain legislation," he said.
He said having lawmakers on record about the bills they vote for during the process also could help the public understand why some bills die without public votes.
KUNC compiled all of the survey results and created graphs showing the results in each chamber here.
