As the year dawns on a new legislative session, the Colorado General Assembly is likely anticipating a few busy months. A solution to Colorado’s housing crisis remains the state’s political white whale, but legislators will have their hands full across the board as they work to build out a budget and statewide programs with $700 million less than last year.
Another issue that will likely be a priority for legislators is the state’s economy. While the economy is an ever-present concern for the state’s lawmakers, a report about declining economic competitiveness may make the economy a more salient topic in the legislature. But, despite that ranking, the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder still projects Colorado’s economy will grow this year.
The Colorado Chamber of Commerce conducted a similar investigation independent of the university, and it found similar results. According to the organization’s scorecard, the state’s key business rankings are declining, with cost of living particularly stark at 46th. Cost of doing business also ranks poorly, at 39th in the country, but despite a decline, it still ranked Colorado in the top 20 states for business at 16th.
The chamber also released a recent report on the impact of regulations in the state. Meghan Dollar, the chamber’s senior vice president of governmental affairs and political operations, told Law Week that the chamber partnered with a group of economists, who conducted the study. It found that Colorado was the sixth most-regulated state in the nation, with a total number of regulatory restrictions approaching nearly 200,000.
As the General Assembly gets to work this year, Dollar wants the legislature to be more thoughtful when it comes to regulations on businesses.
“We’re working proactively to look at legislation that will allow Colorado to be more thoughtful going forward in how we pass laws and regulations and how that might impact the business community,” Dollar said. “Because one of the things that came back is that a lot of the 200,000 worth of regulations are duplicative and unnecessary. And so how do we as a state clean that up?”
In December, Gov. Jared Polis took measures in the executive branch to address the issue of duplicative or outdated regulations, rescinding more than 200 executive orders deemed outdated or unnecessary.
Dollar said that the chamber reached out to Polis after he took the action and shared their study on the regulatory environment. She is hopeful that the chamber, the governor and the legislature can work together as partners to make an impact and get rid of redundancy in regulations.
“What we’re trying to do is create a process at the state level where the laws and the regulations can be vetted to see if we still need this [regulation] on the books,” Dollar said. “Is this duplicative? Is this necessary? Is this going to hurt our competitiveness with other states?”
Dollar also hopes that there will be an open and thoughtful conversation when it comes to making changes to the Labor Peace Act.
A bill that would modify the Labor Peace Act was announced by a group of Colorado Democrats before the session even began and was introduced into the Senate on the first day of the legislative session. The bill would remove Colorado’s unique second election requirement in the formation of workplace unions.
Potential Changes in the Criminal Justice Realm
Another area that has seen a slate of bills in the past few years has been criminal justice. Pat Mueller, communications director for the Colorado District Attorney’s Council, said via email that they were working with legislators on two specific criminal justice bills.
The first relates to the state’s detention bed cap for juveniles, which was reduced from 327 beds to 215 in the 2021 legislative session. Mueller told Law Week that CDAC wants to restore the cap to bring it in line with an increasing number of violent offenses committed by youth.
“The recent surge in youth crime has put juvenile facilities at or near capacity throughout the state,” Mueller said. “In some districts, authorities are having to decide who to let out of facilities to make room, even if that juvenile has been deemed a ‘substantial risk’ by rigorous detention criteria.”
He said that the release of these youth falling under these criteria presented a risk to both the community and other innocent youth. He told Law Week that district attorneys weren’t locking up kids for petty offenses.
“Juvenile homicides have increased 124% since the current cap was put in place. Juveniles must meet rigorous detention standards before they are deemed a ‘substantial risk’ and placed into detention,” Mueller said.
CDAC is also working on a two-pronged fix to the state’s victim restitution laws.
“First, it would fix issues with the timeline set by Colorado law that overlaps deadlines for prosecutors to submit restitution requests and judges to rule on those requests,” Mueller said.
As it stands, prosecutors and attorneys both have 91 days to submit and review the restitution documents in a case. CDAC’s proposed fix would give the court 91 days to review the order upon receipt of the documentation, rather than the deadline running concurrently as it does now.
“The second goal of the bill is to remove a barrier to successfully rehabilitate an offender. Right now, a person cannot successfully complete a diversionary program unless restitution is paid back in full,” Mueller said. “This bill would convert any remaining restitution owed into a civil judgment.”
Mueller said that this fix would benefit both parties in the case, as it would ensure that victim-survivors are still made whole while allowing offenders to complete a diversionary program and be held accountable for their actions.
“It will relieve pressure on prosecutors and judges dealing with a tough deadline to help victim-survivors become whole again,” Mueller added. “It also means that successfully completing a diversion program won’t be just for offenders who can afford it.”
In addition to those two criminal justice fixes, CDAC wants to work on part of the legal desert problem that faces Colorado. Mueller said the council is working with legislators to introduce a bill that would tweak the current rural DA fellowship program and give rural DAs expanded access to funds to recruit, hire and retain attorneys who graduated from Colorado law schools.
“Recruiting attorneys to work in the most rural parts of our state is a struggle,” Mueller noted. “For example, a rural-elected DA recently resigned after struggling with a 56% turnover rate in staff. This program will help provide access to high-quality jobs in areas where Colorado needs them the most.”