Colorado House 2026 Legislative Day 111

Will you all please join me in the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation for God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Representatives Bacon.

Excused. Barone. Basinecker. Bottoms. Bradfield. Bradley. Brooks. Brown. Representative Brown is excused. Caldwell. Camacho. Carter. Clifford. Representative Clifford is excused. DeGraff. Duran. Representative English is excused. Espinosa. Ferre. Representative Ferre. He's excused. Flannell. Froelich. Garcia. Garcia-Sander. Gilchrist. Goldstein. Gonzalez. Hamrick. Hartsook. Jackson. Johnson. Joseph.

Kelty. Leader. Lindsey. Luck. Lukens. Mabry. Marshall. Representative Marshall is excused. Martinez. Morrow. McCormick is excused. Wynn. Pascal. Phillips. Richardson. Representative Richardson. Excused. Excused. Ricks. Routenel. Representative Routenel. Excused. Rydon. Sirota. Slaw. Smith. Soper. Representative Soper. Excused. Stuart K. Stuart R. Story. Sukla. Taggart. Tatone. Valdez A. Velasco Weinberg Wilford Representative Wilford Winter Woodrow Woog Zokai and Madam Speaker

With 57 present, eight excused. We do have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise with a motion from a galaxy not so far away. On this May the 4th, I move that we use the force of efficiency and approve the journal as corrected, it because unlike the Death Star, this record is fully operational. And unlike a Jedi mind trick, it actually reflects what happened Friday. Let's not go to the dark side of delay. Let's make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs and get on with the people's business. May the force be with you. And I move that the Journal of Friday, May 1st, 2026, be approved as corrected by the chief clerk.

Good morning, Madam Speaker. May the 4th be with you.

All right, colleagues. The Finance Committee will be meeting 1.30 p.m. or 10 minutes upon adjournment, depending on when we get off the floor, in Room 112 to hear the following bills, probably in this order, Senate Bill 134, House Bill 1250, House Bill 1425, Senate Bill 163 and Senate Bill 131. See you then.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, this is a reminder that we are in open enrollment through May 11th. If you have any questions regarding benefits or open enrollment, please feel free to reach out to Shannon Briggs in accounting.

Ricks. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Finance will be meeting on finance. Business Affairs and Labor will be meeting tomorrow upon adjournment and that will be probably our last meeting. So please be there. Thanks.

Representative Wilford, spectacular.

May the 4th also be with you, Madam Speaker. Members of the State Civic Military and Veterans Affairs Committee will be meeting at 1.30 p.m. or 10 minutes upon adjournment in LSBA to hear Senate Bill 154, Senate Bill 146, and House Joint Resolution 1029. See you there. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, I just want to let you know that tomorrow the ovarian cancer awareness folks will be out in front of the old Supreme Court for breakfast. So stop by and learn about this important prevention measures.

Thank you. Representative Brown.

Thank you. Representative Barone.

Thank you. Representative Bradfield.

Thank you. Members, we are ready to move to business. Madam Majority Leader.

Mr. Schiebel, reports of committees of reference. Committee on Appropriations. After consideration on the merits, the committee recommends the following. House Bills 1016 is amended, 1272 is amended, 1326 is amended, 1428, and Senate Bill 5. Be referred to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation.

Madam Speaker, I move that the following bills be added to the Special Orders Calendar on May 4, 2026 at 9.18 a.m. House Bill 1054, House Bill 1272, House Bill 1327, House Bill 1016, and House Bill 1428.

Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to Senate Bill 160. Senate Bill 160 by Senators Rodriguez and Gonzalez, also Representatives Duran and Martinez concerning employee protections in the workplace.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move Senate Bill 160 in the Business Affairs and Labor Report. As a proper motion to the Business Affairs and Labor Report. In Business and Labor Committee, we ran an amendment to provide structural clarity to CDLE, and I ask for a yes vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, this is a bill that we really shouldn't have to be bringing, but we are here anyway. This is a bill that is very straightforward and upfront, and all it does is guarantee workers for meatpacking industry the access to frequent bathroom breaks, and to ensure that their initial purchase of proper protective equipment is not deducted.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, this is a very simple and straightforward bill that guarantees workers the access to regular and frequent bathroom breaks. and it also ensures that their initial process of obtaining the proper protective equipment is not deducted from their paycheck. We should not have to be bringing this bill, but we are here because this has been happening here in the state of Colorado, and we are correcting the egregious nature of which this has happened. So we'll keep it short and simple. This is a very straightforward bill. We are to deny vote.

for a yes vote. Representative Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues. I do agree with the sponsor's statement that the bill should not be necessary. In fact, I honestly do not believe the bill is necessary. The two items it covers, the provision of PPE by the employer and the provision of bathroom breaks are both covered by OSHA requirements for all industries, not just the meatpacking industry, but all industries. This is already a requirement. And, yes, I totally understand that some businesses violate standards, but there are already penalties in place and very strong ones at the federal level. community. Violations of these can carry fines up to $16,000. Repeated violations of these can carry fines of up to $165,000. This bill takes the exact same requirement and then, if found guilty at the state level of denying PPE or denying bathroom breaks, carries an initial fine of $100, 16 times lower than the federal penalty. And that can escalate all the way up to $200, where the federal penalty can escalate up to $165,000. Now, I know there may be some concerns, and we've heard them with other bills, that OSHA may be going away, but we have not seen any indication of that. There was one rollback of one bill that impacted things like SeaWorld that don't impact any other industries that people have used as a signal that somehow OSHA is going to stop overseeing the safety and health of our workforce. So there is also an issue with federal preemption. We have set a rule that is identical to the state rule, but a much smaller penalty. So, therefore, I move L002 to Senate Bill 160 and ask that it be displayed.

Thank you. I know Mondays are hard. I know that you haven't had more than one cup of coffee already, but it would be nice if folks would listen.

Thank you. As I had stated before, there is already rules in place at the federal level within OSHA to provide for bathroom breaks and to provide PPE to employees. The state in this bill is now empowered to levy a fine for those exact same OSHA violations. The fine for the OSHA violation can be up to $16,000, up to $165,000 if it's repeated. At the state level, exact same occurrence is being proposed, a $100 fine, repeated incidents, a $200 fine. There is a tremendous issue potentially with state or federal preemption of this. So this amendment would ensure that before any state action is taken, there's actually coordination between CDLE and OSHA to take care of the problem. I believe the federal government would step in with their much larger fines. Certainly if we try to fine for the same infraction, there's going to be an appeal to get this out of the state courts anyway. So I would recommend a yes vote on this amendment.

Seeing none, the question before us is the passage of L2. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, please say no. L2 is lost. Back to the bill. Representative Kelty.

Is there any further discussion on Senate Bill 160?

Representative Luck. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Representative Martinez. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to my good colleague from Penrose. The reason why this is so specific to the meatpackers is because what we heard outlined from the proponents of the bill was that the act of having to decloak essentially from all of their protective equipment, be able to use the bathroom, re-sanitize, and then put everything back on was why this was very specific to the meatpacking industry. just because it takes a little bit more time to be able to do that, and then also because of the health risk if all of that stuff is not done accordingly.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The reason that I ask is because you may recall a couple of weeks ago when I had to stand up here and filibuster in order that one of our own members be afforded the amount of time necessary to use the washroom just wanting to make sure that we applying the same standards to our own behavior Thank you for letting us know what that was about.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's an honor to serve with you. It's an honor to serve with you, sir. Colleagues, I was on the committee that heard this in the business and were saying why something so specific. Well, we do have one employer that's 4,000 employees. 4,000. I think we've ran bills that cover fewer employees in the state, but we're talking 4,000 people we're trying to protect. And I put on the mic, I felt absolutely ridiculous that I had to vote on this bill. It is ridiculous. We shouldn't have to do it, but guess what we do. And as I pointed out in the committee, it felt like deja vu all over again. Anyone who's read The Jungle from Upton Sinclair, he was hoping that people would have sympathy for the workers from the Chicago Meatpacking District. But instead, they were worried about the health, which brought about the first FDA rules. But we should be worried about the health. We got people that are urinating on themselves because they can't get someone to replace them. And the PPE we're talking about is not just some plastic face mask. We're talking like medieval chain armor because of the medieval conditions that are there with the slashing and cutting to protect themselves. So if we want to let and go back more than 120 years and have feces, urine, and chopped little fingers off in our food, well, that's where we're going. And saying, well, we'll rely on OSHA. OSHA is being eviscerated. You can laugh, but it is. and we can step up and fill that gap, just as there's dual criminal authorization between the states and the federal government, we can protect these 4,000 workers that are very vulnerable to begin with. should we have to say that people get reasonable bathroom breaks so they can come off the line yeah I think we can and I also heard in committee oh well the union screwed up they just didn't negotiate well enough they ought to just go back on strike think of that hourly workers working paycheck to paycheck needing to go on strike and losing their paychecks just to get bathroom breaks. That's the kind of logic we're looking at. No, we need to pass this ridiculous bill because there are people acting ridiculous.

Thank you, Chair. And I do agree that this should not even be something that we should even have to discuss. In committee, there were two people. This is like what they call a mountain made out of a molehill. It's not people defecating all over the place in the meat pit. plant at all. It was a couple of people. It's called bad management. And that's what the Department of Labor, if you have a problem, go to the Department of Labor. This is, we don't need a law for one company in the state of Colorado. To me, it's, this is abusing the legislative process. And I don't believe that we should be putting our noses in things when it comes down to a bathroom break. And by the way, OSHA's not going anywhere. OSHA's just fine. It's going to be around for a very long time. It's not going anywhere. So to bring that kind of a scare tactic, that's unnecessary. To say people are defecating all over the place and they're not getting bathroom breaks at all anywhere within this company, that's a misrepresentation. Again, I agree we shouldn't have to be sitting up here and arguing over bathroom breaks, but they already get, it's already a done deal. They already get bathroom breaks. If a company is, or a management is violating that, then take it up with your higher management. Take it up with the Department of Labor, but we don't need an actual law to say that, you know, Manager Bob at said company is being a jerk and he's not letting Ralph take his bathroom break. To me, again, it's an anti-state mentality and we need to get back to things that are going on in Colorado, affordability, being harder on crime, which I wish we could be, and start working for our people because this one company, one time, two people that had a problem, that's not a Colorado problem. Thank you.

Good morning. Happy Monday, and thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the sponsors for bringing this. I mean, there's some legitimate points, and I appreciate what they're trying to do. I get the whole point with labor. Once upon a time, I was in the Iron Workers Union, the Operating Engineers Union. I understand how OSHA operates. The lunacy to say that OSHA is being eviscerated and it doesn't do its job is patently false. OSHA is alive and well. OSHA does a great job out there. OSHA does things not only in the private workplace, it does things in the government workplace. It does, believe it or not, it does lots of stuff in the military workplace. OSHA's fine. Do I have a disagreement with how we're going about on this piece of legislation and codifying into some of this stuff? Yes. can I appreciate what the sponsors are trying to achieve? Yeah, I can also appreciate that too. I don't agree that we need to be putting this in a piece of legislation. Is there ways to do not only collective bargaining, but just some common sense out there? Absolutely. And that's what I think we need to get back to. But let's not go just because of politics saying that OSHA and other government agencies aren't doing their job. That simply is not factual. So let's stick to the facts and keep going. But I still urge a no vote on the bill.

One quick final point based on arguments made on here in opposition. For saying, oh, the workers were making stuff up, it's really not that bad. They're already following it. Fantastic. Fantastic They already following it This bill is just a placebo Maybe that why they didn show up to testify If they're doing it, telling them that they have to provide PPE, which they're already required to by law, and telling them they have to provide bathroom breaks, what they say already is required by law, this is just redundant. and everyone should just vote for it because it is basic, basic, basic. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I actually absolutely agree. This bill, this legislation is absolutely redundant, and it's unnecessary. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Colleagues, I heard this bill in committee, and it's truly amazing that we're hearing the very reason we're here today. The company chooses not to believe workers. That's why this bill is here. Now we're hearing the same thing on the floor of this Honorable House? That is shameful, just as JBC is shameful that we even have to bring this bill. But this has to be done in the 21st century. They need to do better, and this is exactly why this bill is needed. The workers spoke, I want my beef safe as well as anybody else. This is a plant that provides like $80 billion worldwide of our meat. Thank you. Pass the bill.

Is there any further discussion on Senate Bill 160? Seeing none, the question before us is the passage of Senate Bill 160 as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. The ayes have it, and Senate Bill 160, as amended, passes.

Representative Rutanel. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 26-1054 in the Appropriations Committee Report and the Business Affairs and Labor Committee Report. to the Appropriations Committee report. Representative Velasco Thank you so much Madam Chair I move L016 to the Appropriations Committee Report The amendment has been properly moved and is now displayed. Please proceed. Representative Velasco. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And this amendment is one that we promised that we would do for the Appropriations Committee to make sure that we change the appropriation from continuously to annually. And we are to an aye vote. So further discussion on Amendment L-16, seeing none the question before us is the adoption of Amendment L-16. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. The ayes have it, and Amendment L16 is adopted. Representative Routnow. Thank you, Madam Chair. The remainder of the Appropriations Committee report included a few changes. One is changing rulemaking authority from CDLE to the Attorney General's office. It also puts the Workplace Health and Safety Fund in the AG's office, and it gives the AG enforcement and investigatory authorities, and we ask for your aye vote. So any further discussion on the Appropriations Committee report? Seeing none, the question before us is the adoption of the Appropriations Committee report as amended. All those in favor say aye. All opposed, no. The ayes have it and the Appropriations Committee report as amended is adopted. To the Business Affairs Committee report, Representative Rootnell. Thank you, Madam Chair. In business and labor, we changed a few things. One is the short title so that the bill will be known as the Colorado Worker Safety Act. We also refined the definition of a labor organization. We included a definition for a worker organization, and we refined the authority for rulemaking to be in the context of when the federal administration removes rules that protect workers, and we ask for your aye vote. Is there any further discussion on the Business Affairs Committee report? Representative Richardson. Just a question on the committee reports. Did I hear you say the rulemaking had been shifted from CDLE to the AG's office on this? That is true. Okay, thank you. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, the question before us is the adoption of the business committee report. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Members, let's try this again. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, no. The ayes have it, and the Business Affairs Committee report is adopted. Representative Velasco. To the bill. Yes. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I move L-017 to House Bill 1054 and ask that it be properly displayed. The amendment has been moved and is now properly displayed. You can proceed. Representative Velasco. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And this amendment is just to clarify that what we are doing is not affecting any public workers, especially because they are already covered by OSHA. So we're Chennai vote. Is there any further discussion on Amendment L-17? Representative Richardson. I'd like some clarification from the sponsors. We carved out public employees because they are already covered by OSHA but we writing this law because we afraid that somehow OSHA isn going to provide coverage and safety for the health and good care of our workers in the private sector. That seems like a huge disconnect that does require some explanation. Is there any further discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, the question before us is the adoption of Amendment L-17. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. No. The ayes have it, and Amendment L-17 is adopted. To the bill, Representative Routnow. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm proud to bring House Bill 261054 alongside my co-crime sponsor, Representative Velasco. And this bill, the Colorado Worker Safety Act, is extremely important in this time when we're seeing rollbacks. Recently, the state released some pretty sobering numbers. 92 Colorado workers died on the job in 2024. That's up from 83 the year before and 89 the year before that. And I want to be clear, these aren't just numbers on a page. These are fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, neighbors. People who kissed their families goodbye in the morning and never made it home. And all this is happening while the federal safety net is being actively torn apart. OSHA enforcement cases dropped 35% between January and September of last year compared to prior years, and penalties fell nearly 47% from the historical average going all the way back to 2009. Then on July 1st of last year, under an executive order directing agencies to gut regulations, the Trump administration published dozens of proposed rules targeting decades of workplace safety protections, including a direct attack on the general duty clause itself, the foundational rule that requires employers to protect workers from recognized hazards when no specific standard applies. By gutting OSHA, the federal administration is giving bad actors a green light to cut corners. That is how people die on the job. If the federal government is walking away from Colorado workers, and Colorado is going to step up and protect our neighbors, that's what this bill does. The Worker Safety Act requires employers in Colorado to maintain a workplace free from recognized hazards, anchored to how the general duty clause was interpreted as of September 1st, 2025, before the rollbacks were accelerated. It gives the AG and workers who've been harmed the ability to go to court and get relief with damages that escalate significantly when employers repeatedly or willfully put workers at risk. And it creates a workplace health and safety fund housed in the AG's office and self-financed entirely from penalties to invest back into education and enforcement. The bill also arms the AG's worker and employee protection unit with the investigative tools it needs to actually do this work, including the ability to go to court to enforce subpoenas and investigate when employers don't cooperate. The bottom line is simple. If you go to work in Colorado, you should make it home. and if the federal government decides to gut its safety enforcement, Colorado will step up and protect our neighbors. I ask for your aye vote. Representative Velasco. Thank you so much Madam Chair and it's an honor to Present this bill to y'all with my co-prime, and I wanted to share some information about OSHA. So, OSHA inspectors, we only have five per one million workers. This is the lowest it has been in 45 years, which means that each workplace can only be inspected once every 191 years. The agency's current budget allows it to spend only $3.85 per worker. So as we're talking about the general duty clause, what it means for working families, it just means that we want to be able to make it home after your shift, that the employers have a responsibility of keeping employees safe at work. and this basic statement is something that has existed at the federal level already. So private industry should already be complying with these requirements. And we also heard about the issue of preemption. But other states have also codified these protections in their states. like Alabama, Arkansas, D.C., Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia. And many of these have already been tested through the court. So we know that this is a protection that will matter for workers. And we urge an I vote. Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, sponsors. None of us here want to see workers put at risk, so hopefully that doesn't get posited by future speakers up here. what I find problematic about this bill is it seeks to replace OSHA while OSHA is already in existence I know this is triggered if a rule is revoked but the sponsor just finished up by rattling off a whole bunch of states that they claim already do this. There are 22 states, those that were listed were among those 22 states, that have OSHA approved state plans. There is a process within the 29 CFR that's very well laid out for states to come up with their own state plan and go their own way without having to worry about OSHA involvement. and it seems like lack of federal involvement in our workforce is what the sponsors are seeking. But they're doing this in the wrong way. They're just seeking to go out on their own, make up their own rules, and say we're going to do this, just like all these other states do, except that's not how all those other states did it. Those other states' rules have stood up in court exactly because they took the steps to properly become a state with an OSHA state plan Now that is expensive and we probably can afford it right now but that is the way to do it We trying to do this without generating a fiscal note which is not the be-all, end-all. If we want to do something right and we want it to be effective, it's going to cost some money. If we just want to do something to say we're doing something, if something happens in the future, this isn't the way to do it. I do grieve for the workers that we've lost. And yes, over the last two years that were cited, there was an increase from the 80s to the low 90s. Didn't mention back in 2021 we lost 96 workers. The overall trend is about stable. It runs from about 90 to 115 workers a year, and that's way too many. But we're not spiking in some unusual way. over the last couple of years. We're just maintaining the kind of band of unfortunate accidents and workplace violence that we have generally seen. Yeah. So while I know the sponsors' hearts are in the right place, I think their facts are wrong. And I think the right way to go about this is to task CDLE to actually look at what it would take to have a valid state plan that would allow Colorado to separate itself in this area from the federal government. I think we ought to cover our public workers as well as our private industry workers. I find that amendment that was made in committee and further clarified here to be somewhat offensive that somehow OSHA isn't good enough for the private sector, but it's good enough for our state employees. that's a really weird direction to go in you can't trust OSHA in one respect and then say they're not trustworthy in another I guess you can, that's what we're doing here but with that I move amendment 014 to house bill 1054 and ask that it be displayed properly or otherwise I leave that to your discretion The amendment has been moved and is now properly displayed. You can proceed. Go ahead, Rep. Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the May 4th hairstyle. Thank you very much. It's not a hairstyle. It's a lifestyle. I'm just kidding. You can proceed. All right. so this does a few things if this bill passes it would repeal at the end of as of January 1st of 28 but in the preceding year CDLE would be required to figure out how to become and what would it cost and what would the steps be to actually create a state an OSHA approved state plan which seems to be the direction that they would really like to go, and we could join those other states, the 22 states in this country that we heard rattled off earlier that have done so, that do not have that status because of a bill like this, but because they followed 29 CFR and did the right thing to become a state-planned state under OSHA. So I would recommend approval of this and that way we can hear the great plan in our smart act hearings coming up Representative Barone. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do support this amendment for the reason that we, those other states that were listed here, yes, great. Let's go about it the right way. This study would create something that we could actually talk about creating our own state plan under 29 CFR, federally approved by OSHA, which OSHA still has a major impact here on the state for worker safety and health. I've lived it for years. I've talked to OSHA representatives, OSHA agents all the time. they are heavily involved in this state and they continue to be heavily involved in this state for worker safety. Now, if we want to be able to do this, okay, if we want to create our own plan, let's go about it the right way. It is going to cost money. And we have to make that decision whether it's worth it for us to do it. Now, this plan right now that we have is going to cost money as well, but it's not going to cost the state money. it's going to be trickled down to these industries as overhead. And that's going to cost money. So do we really want to do that to the citizens of Colorado, even though they already pay taxes? So let's go ahead and approve this amendment and go about it the right way. Assistant Minority Leader Winter. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. and I rise in support of this amendment. We talk about metrics and studies all the time in this building. I think it's important that if we're going to do something like this and follow the lead of other states that have done it in the correct way, that we should definitely have these studies done. Then that way we can sit down in front of a SMART Act committee hearing and we can do it right and right the first time. I think a lot of times I've been in this building now for four years and we've spent a lot of time correcting legislation a year or two down the road because either the gun was jumped or proper stakeholding was rushed for the simple fact is we have to get a bill through. I also know that it's a campaign year, so a bill like this would probably look really great on the campaign trail, but it's missing the mark of what all the other states have done. It's missing the mark of the process on how we go through it, and it's also missing the mark for the people of Colorado that were rushing through a piece of legislation that in my belief hasn't been properly stakeholder by the state. And, you know, a lot of times I know that we always get up here and say, well, we're the first state, the first state to get it done. Well, right now we would be the 23rd state, and there's already been a framework laid out for it to be done the correct way. I think that this amendment starts to push towards that direction. That I urge an aye vote. Is there any further discussion on the amendment? Representative Rootnell. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, as was mentioned before, a state plan would take many years, would cost a significant amount of resource, and it doesn't meet the moment. Right now, the federal administration is rolling back OSHA rules. A state plan would do nothing to make sure that we maintain the standards that are essential for our workers to be able to kiss their family goodbye and make it back home. I urge you to vote no on this amendment. Representative Richardson. Thank you Madam Chair The OSHA rule that was rolled back that predicated this hearing that we held in committee related to those that train large animals at SeaWorld there is no such moment to be met in Colorado The fact that it is expensive to do it right is just truth, and I think our workers are worth that expense. just to put something in place to address something that is not true but is done cheaply is not the business of this chamber. I urge a no vote on this bill. It's duplicative. Do you mean the amendment? Well, we're still on the amendment. But I assume that even if this amendment is passed that the bill still has problems. But please vote yes on this amendment. Sure, let's figure out what the cost is and what steps need to be taken to actually have an OSHA-approved state plan. And then we can have an argument about whether that cost is worth the life of our workers in Colorado. Representative Barone. Thank you, Madam Chair. and I'm not aware of any rollbacks being done here in the state for workers' safety and health. I might have missed the memo, but I'm pretty sure that I am told that, oh, we're changing this. You no longer have to do this for safety. You no longer have to do this for health. I have to legally put up posters in my shop for OSHA rules and regulations for health and safety. I have to renew those every six months. That is an overhead cost that I, as a company, take on. It costs mostly $150 to $200 for those posters. Legally, they are in my shop. Now, it is May. Last time I put them up was end of December. I should be getting a letter in the mail this month or the beginning of next month to renew my posters. I have not been told that something has changed. The posters that I put up, nothing has changed, but I have to legally replace them to keep them up to date. Rollbacks on the federal level, like my colleague said here before me, apply to a different industry that is not even in Colorado. large mammals at SeaWorld, right? This bill is just going to cause confusion, establishes a separate state enforcement system on top of existing OSHA requirements. This is just going to be either duplicative or it's going to be causing confusion in industry. My posters will no longer be right if we continue to change OSHA regulations in this state. I urge an aye vote on this amendment still. Is there any further discussion on the amendment? Seeing none, the question before us is the adoption of Amendment L14. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. No. The noes have it. L14 is lost. Aye. To the bill. Representative Barone. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to come up here again and just reiterate the confusion this is going to cause. Conflicting safety standards leads to two separate evolving rule sets, Federal OSHA versus Colorado. That could diverge in time. Section 18 of the Federal OSHA Act prohibits states from regulating OSHA-covered workplace safety issues unless operating an approved safety plan, which is that 29 CFR, which Colorado does not have. Those other 22 states that were mentioned earlier, they do have that 29 CFR approved by OSHA at the federal level. We are not doing that here. We're creating a separate standard for the state that's going to be conflicting with OSHA regulations federally. That is not the way to go about this. I do agree that we should keep our workers' safety and health 100%. That is not a question here right now. Going about it the right way is what's best for the state of Colorado and our workers. 29 CFR, let's do that. So with that said, I move L15 and ask it to be properly displayed. The amendment has been properly moved and is now displayed. Please proceed, Representative Barone. Thank you, Madam Chair. Since we didn't move the last amendment that would have created a pathway for the 29th CFR, my amendment here it takes it says that it takes this act takes effect only if the federal OSHA occupation safety and health act of 1970 is repealed if OSHA disappears federally this act would take into place and only then now given that OSHA is not going anywhere for a very very long time they're doing a great job at keeping our workers safe keeping companies like my father's and like like these other industries in the state and in par with what needs to be done for the workers safety and health i think this is a fair way of doing it this act of course i would have preferred we go the route of 29 cfr to be able to create our own state plan but since this this bill without that amendment is going to create so much confusion and go against our federal OSHA regulations, this amendment is very important to approve. If OSHA disappears, this bill will take effect, and only if OSHA disappears. I urge and I vote. Assistant Minority Leader Winter. Thank you, Madam Chair. I also rise in support in this amendment. We talk so many times about making sure that we're addressing the problem that we face. And if there is going to be a rollback, which the sponsors have said there is or there's going to be, this basically gives you the pathway to run forward and be able to hold this amendment up within this bill and say, okay, there has been a rollback, and now we're good to go and we're ready to go. I think this is a fair amendment because even though I agree with my colleague that we should use the path that's been laid out in front of us, You know, we know a lot of times that is the minority party that legislation is going to get through. And I think that this would give my party a somewhat feeling that we been heard that if the issue is that workers aren being protected that we bringing an amendment to a bill to say even though we don agree with the process if it becomes that extreme and that crazy, this amendment right here allows you to move forward with what you're going to do. I think this is a good amendment because it's a balance, because there's the proper path to do this, and then there's this amendment. So this gives you time to take the proper channel, follow up the path laid before you, just like the 22 other states did, didn't do it right, but this is the fire alarm. If what you claim is going to happen happens, this amendment right here allows you to break glass. Hopefully you break it a lot better than the governor did when he did special session. That was important. But anyway, this allows you to break glass and be able to move those things forward. So I think this is a fair amendment. I think that this is a great piece to add on to your legislation that allows you, if that emergency comes along, to say, hey, we're working on it the right way, something happened, now let's move forward and fix this problem. So with that, I urge an aye vote. Is there any further discussion on the amendment? Representative DeGraff, you want to talk to the amendment? That sounds like a distinct lack of trust. All right. No, no lack of trust. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. So having worked with... That was... What was that? That was the Empire Strikes Back. All right. So once upon a time when I was in charge of a, let's see, behavioral health, occupational health, flight safety, ground safety, and some other fields. Oh, and environmental management. That was the prime one. Got to deal with a lot of this stuff with the Office of Occupational Safety and Health. There is a lot there. Now, I understand the drive that Colorado has to become number one. I mean, I don't know what's actually keeping us going from like, I think we were number six and now we're something like number four. and I really do understand the drive to be number one in all things,

Representative DeGraff, I've given you a little bit of leeway. I appreciate the history lesson on asbestos. Let's talk about the amendment.

Representative DeGraff, I want to make sure we're on the same page. So the amendment says that the act only goes into place if the Federal Safety and Health Act of 1970 is repealed.

The amendment that we're discussing.

The amendment that's on the jumbotron. Thank you.

Okay.

We're talking about the amendment. It doesn't go into effect unless OSHA is repealed.

Is there any further discussion on Amendment L15? Seeing none, the question before us is the adoption of Amendment L15. All those in favor say aye.

All opposed, no. The no's have it and Amendment L15 is lost. To the bill, Representative Garcia Sander.

Representative Mabry. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I also heard this billing committee. I wanted to come up and talk about what we're actually doing with this legislation. So right now, under Colorado law, the mechanism for dealing with workplace health and safety violations really only exists through the workman's comp system, which is an after-the-fact remedy. That means there was a condition that was unsafe at work, let's say a line at a factory that is operating so dangerously that it could cut off your finger. workman's comp compensates you after the fact. What we're talking about here is creating a mechanism for Coloradans to get a stop work order so that they don't have to go to work while that dangerous condition that might chop off their finger exists. The mechanism for damages will still be workman's comp. dozens of states have codified a general duty clause without having a state OSHA plan including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, West Virginia. The state of New York has a similar provision in their law that allows a private right of action, a mechanism for somebody to use the courts to enforce workplace safety standards on the front end to prevent harm. It's been used once. It's been used once So there been a lot of conversation about the status of OSHA and people are saying that we can rely on OSHA Well I disagree The evidence does not show that because the current administration spent its first 100 days waging a war against workers fired tens of thousands of federal workers, slashed the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers on federal contracts. They've issued executive orders that specifically roll back or review existing regulations that are covered under OSHA, including an order directing agencies, including OSHA, to eliminate 10 existing protections without implementing any new guidance. They've effectively eliminated the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the sole agency that is responsible for research that informs OSHA policymaking with evidence-based assessments of workplace safety. Eleven OSHA offices have closed across the country in states with some of the highest workplace fatality rates. they've eliminated 34 offices of mine safety and health administration which protects coal miners and they pause new rules that are supposed to protect coal miners so osha has not been dismantled in statute but if the workers who are supposed to do the work that osha is charged with are being fired en masse and their capacity has collapsed to the point that they're not able to effectively do their job, we as a state have a role to step up and say, we're going to create a mechanism where the courts can step in not to issue millions of dollars in damages. That's not what this bill is about. Damages will still be dealt with in the workman's comp system. This bill is about creating a mechanism to get a stop work order. so that if the line is chopping off people's fingers that workers can complain and say, hey, my boss is telling me to go to work, but three people got their fingers chopped off this week. Can the court issue an order telling them to fix that before I go to work? This bill is essential. How can we say we're working to fill the gaps that are being created by people getting fired, by OSHA offices closing down? Already as things were, OSHA was at capacity and did too few inspections. This bill does not create a private cause of action for all kinds of money damages. All that will be covered, all of that will still be covered by Workman's Comp. All this bill says is if your workplace is unsafe, really unsafe, so unsafe that it's currently illegal, right? So we're not creating new workplace safety standards. We're just creating a new mechanism for enforcement. you are not entirely reliant on OSHA. You can go to a court, and a court can issue an order that the workplace has to be safe. And cases like this rarely come up. Like I said, in New York, where there's sort of law exists, only one case has happened. But this is a really, really critical guardrail. It will save lives and protect workers. I'm proud to vote yes.

Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. If only we had coal miners left in Colorado to protect. but that is not the bill. I just wanted to relate a few more details. Like I said, we're a little all over the map on the underpinning of this bill. Is OSHA going away? Is it not going away? Is it providing adequate protection? Is it not? The sponsors started a little bit earlier by saying that OSHA was doing a fine job protecting our public workers, and this would only apply to those in private industry. So I don't think we can have it both ways. We should not, if we feel that OSHA isn't providing adequate protection, be providing that protection, that lesser protection to those that we employ. I don't know how we would look ourselves in the face if that were true. So we heard about the one statement from one congressman about getting rid of OSHA in 21. That certainly hasn't happened, but again, I wanted to provide a little more detail on the occurrence that seemed to underpin this that was part of the fact sheet that was passed around by supporters when this came through committee, and that was OSHA's proposed change back in 2025, midsummer, to exclude from the general duty clause enforcement hazards that are inherent and inseparable from certain professional activities, including entertainment, sports, animal performance, stunts, journalism, and similar work. It was a pretty narrow change. and it was generated by the death of ORCA trainer Don Branchow, who was killed in 2010. OSHA didn't have any specific ORCA training rules, so they relied on the general duty clause. that seemed to be very, very much too broad, so that's why this rule was proposed. And like all rules, this was OSHA docket 2025-0041, there was an open comment period. That comment period ended last year on November 1st. If this was so important, you would have thought Colorado might have commented that they might have opposed that change in the rule. Colorado did not. Now, in 2026, an election year, we've decided we've got to do something about this horrendous change, something that a few months before session, we weren't even willing to comment on. This bill is duplicative. It does open up new causes of action. It does employ lawyers. That's a good thing. Everybody should be employed in this state. That's a good thing from some points of view. But it is duplicative. It relies on the rules that are already in place. It attempts to provide a state remedy for a federal issue. And again, if we are not doing this right, if we are not setting ourselves up under a state plan, then we are risking federal preemption and more lawsuits between the federal government and the state without providing one bit more protection for our workers. We all care about our workers. This does nothing for them. I urge a no vote.

Representative Sucla.

Representative Barron.

Employees rights to refuse unsafe work from OSHA explicitly allows workers to refuse to perform a task if they reasonably believe that the task risks of death or serious injury There isn enough time to get it corrected through normal channels. They've asked the employer to fix it and it wasn't addressed. So that is some of the reasons that you have the stop work authority. Now in my industry, and I know this of the construction industry as well, we have a sheet that before we ever even start work, it's called the JSA, Job Safety Analysis. It's a long sheet, and I know we can't have any props at the well here, but I do have some if anybody wants to see it. It goes through a whole list of safety and health problems that might arise from each job. The foreman goes through this with the crew members, What do you guys see? Is there any slipping hazards? What's the weather like if it's cold, if it's too hot? What breaks we're going to have? What's our muster point? If anything goes wrong, a muster point is a safety area that everybody agrees to go there if something goes wrong. Just like we have a muster area when we have a fire alarm. The same thing happens. That JSA is signed on by every member of the crew and the foreman and the landman. The landman that's on location or the company man that we work for signs on to that JSA. Whenever somebody comes on site to our work site that wasn't there for the JSA meeting in the morning, has to review the JSA and sign off on it. So that person knows the safety and health risks of that job site for that day. That happens every single day. Those JSAs are saved in my office for five years. So if anything happens in the future of somebody saying, oh, I got hurt on this day because we didn't go over this, here, we have the JSA for that day. You signed off on it. It was listed on there that this was a risk that didn't happen. So that's to protect ourselves and to protect the employees as well. So we can regulate these industries as much as we want, but you cannot, you can never, ever eliminate human error. Ever eliminate human error. Of course, we want everybody to go home, but human error exists and it will never go away. Unfortunately, unless we bring in machines to work in those jobs, which, of course, we don't want that. we want to be able to create, to work our own jobs and get our paychecks to be able to feed our families, but you can never eliminate human error, unfortunately. We are not made perfect. There is only one perfect, and that is God. So I urge a no vote on this bill. Let's go about it the right way. Go to a 29 CFR, create a state plan, get it approved by federal OSHA, and do it that way. It's going to take time. It's going to take money. But if you think it's really worth it and you think the federal OSHA is not enough, let's go about it that way. To me, it seems like this bill and the bill previous to this one is brought forward by an unreasonable disagreement with the current administration, which is wrong. I urge a no vote. Is there any further discussion? Representative DeGraff.

Representative Velasco.

Representative Root now.

I urge your aye vote. Thank you. Seeing no further discussion, the question before us is the passage of House Bill 1054. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. No. House Bill 1054 is passed. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title

Representative Martinez. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Finance Committee report.

Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, the question before us is the passage of the Finance Committee report. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. The Finance Committee report is passed.

Representative Velasco.

Representative Gonzalez.

Representative Sucla.

I move Amendment L-002 and ask that it be properly displayed.

What this amendment does is it keeps the bill the way that it already is

Representative Martinez.

Is there any further discussion? The question before us is the passage of Amendment L2. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. No. L2 is lost. To the bill, Representative Taggart.

Sir, any further discussion on House Bill 1230? Representative Martinez.

Representative Velasco you want to speak Okay Seeing no further discussion the question before us is the passage of House Bill 1230 All those in favor please say aye All those opposed please say no House Bill 1230 passes Representative Froehlich please come to the front Mr Schiebel please read the title

Committee report and the Appropriations Committee report. To the Appropriations Committee report.

That is an appropriate motion Any further discussion on the appropriations committee report? Seeing none Members, the question before this is the adoption of the Appropriations Committee Report. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. The ayes have it. The Appropos Report is passed. To the Health and Human Services Committee Report, Representative Froehlich.

Is there any further discussion on the Health and Human Services Committee report? Seeing none, members, the question before is the adoption of the Health and Human Services Committee report. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. The ayes have it. The Health and Human Services Committee report is passed. To the bill, Representative Froelich.

Representative Velasco.

Any further discussion? Representative Barron. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, I can't believe I'm up here again defending OSHA. You're on a roll, Representative. I'm looking at this bill, and it has been stricken down. It's been down to basically a femur. I'm not saying a full skeleton, but basically a femur. of data collecting But we looking at this fiscal now I mean it a really expensive FEMA It not it says right here the types of impact minimal state revenue 5 I mean 400 first year 5.3 the second year, 5.5 the second year, and then it goes back down to 5.1 million. That's not a minimal state revenue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll spare the Star Wars analogies today. I also question this fiscal note. I question why we're spending so much money on data that's already being collected for something already the federal government does, especially when we're cutting services for the IDD community, we're cutting services for provider rates. This is a big fiscal note. The representative just came up and spoke about that just for data collection. Just to reemphasize, OSHA, through their duty clause, has to show a variety of things. And then the people that came to testify, especially from the mining, I take lots of notes, lots of notes when people come to testify. But the Mining Association came, the Colorado Stone and Gravel Association came and said that the MSHA requires standards for all employees. So I looked that up. The MSHA is the Mine Safety and Health Administration from 1977, and they have rules for mines, too, along with everything that OSHA governs. The MSHA has detailed requirements for hazard controls, ground control, ventilation, dust control, methane and explosive gas management, equipment safety, conveyor systems, heavy machinery guarding, lockout tagout procedures, electrical systems and underground environments, emergency protections and environmental work conditions. so everyone that came to testify didn't understand because they're already so regulated. And they're so regulated because let me just put in this for everyone listening. Employers don't want their employees to die. They don't want them to suffer from heat stroke. They don't want them to suffer from frostbite because then all of their systems go down. If I'm an employer, I want my employees to be as healthy and as safety, following safety precautions as possible because then guess what then my business benefits all these regulations are doing or going after the good actors not the bad actors and the bad actors that are doing this people shouldn't work for them they should not work for them and then their business collapses if if employees don't work for the bad actors that are making people stand up on roofs and collapse from heat stroke and they get rid of all their employees then their business collapses. But the good actors and every single one that came to testify, president of the Colorado Contractors Association, industry is heavily regulated. We don't treat our employees well. They'll go somewhere else to work. This is a cost to employers. They already pay for PPE. They have 53 employees, $150,000 they spend on PPE. Colorado Stone and Gravel Association provide temperature and water protections for employees. General contractors, plumbers, electricians don't feel that this is an issue at all. Michael Cox, duplicative work out at the federal level. CDC has already analyzed existing data sets. They have a whole entire website called heat.gov that does all of this. Colorado is already under the jurisdiction of OSHA. Director of Government Affairs of the ski areas, 20 areas opposed to the model standard. no worker cold emergencies in the past four years. OSHA mandates this, not widespread data for this, because this isn happening in 20 different ski areas They have had no worker cold emergencies The Ute Water Conservatory District takes worker safety very seriously a mandate one And now this is just data collection because it's only data collection now. And the next year we're going to come back with rulemaking authority or a law that says we're going to govern this or legislate this for a one-size-fits-all model. We do the data collection. When the data collection comes back, then we put more requirements on the good people of Colorado, the good actors, instead of going after the bad actors. And if we would just allow the free market to work, the bad actors would disappear. But instead, we continue to legislate on the good actors that are doing their good diligence. I've worked at a health care facility for 26 years. If they were bad actors, I wouldn't work there. Let the free market work. Why are we so scared of the free market working? if they were making me i'll tell you who's a bad employer this place is a bad employer five minute bathroom breaks and you want to talk about heat temperatures geothermal over here it gets 100 degrees in this building it gets cold in the winter why are we regulating this building this employment should be under this for goodness sake it's freaking hotter than 80 degrees in this building we have to work 16 hour days we're not regulating this building no we're just putting more laws regulations and taxes on the good people of colorado and strangling small businesses this is silly this is silly to spend millions of dollars on data collection that we already do through the cdc on heat.gov website we have the idd community that is begging for caregiving hours We have provider rates being cut by the millions. Stop. Update a fiscal note. Okay. $138,000. $236,000 next year. $73,000 the next year. That's almost a half a million dollars. What are we doing? We're already collecting this. The CDC is already collecting it. 20 ski areas have not had a single cold weather emergency in four years. Get rid of the bad actors in Colorado. Stop punishing the good actors. We heard from group after group after group after association after contractors saying this doesn't happen because they want their employees to be safe. They treat their employees. They spend $150,000 in PPE for their 53 employees. Employers want their employees to be safe. If bad actors aren't doing it, then go after the bad actors. but you cannot continue to strangle the employers of Colorado and expect them to continue to take this. What are we doing? Nine days left. Thank you, Jesus. I urge a no vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I agree with my colleague. I also urge a no vote. Let me tell you this right now. We just got, like, seconds ago, we got an updated fiscal note. And to be honest with you, I want to say it's better but still bad. So we're still spending a half a million dollars on something that's absolutely unnecessary. It's a bill just to have a bill. When they're talking about how many times a year people are suffering or dying from extreme weather, from extreme temperatures, that includes, I want you to understand what that includes. In that, they're including fires, lightning, avalanches, floods, traffic from ice, mudslides. and on and on. It's not that someone is standing out in the middle of a field and they're keeling over. That's not what's happening here. The data that shows that is available shows that many of these deaths are actually related to things not from what an employer is doing or not what an employer is actually putting their people through. No employer wants harm to come to their employees. As a matter of fact, most employers put their employees ahead of them, above them, at every possible notion they can. I know when I had my business, I took care of my employees like they were my children. I went without so they could have. And to say that companies in Colorado aren't doing the same is dishonest. in Colorado 2.34 times a year someone dies from extreme weather and we're going to spend a half a million dollars trying to show that 2.34 people die a year and guess where I got that information federal government guess who's already doing this data collection the federal government so for Colorado to duplicate the same information that the federal government is already doing and then spending a half a million dollars to do so, that shows absolutely, in my opinion, fiscal irresponsibility. The data is already there. It's already being done. Collar doesn't need to redo what's already done. This bill is unnecessary, like so many that we've seen that come across this desk every single day. Colorado is a stunning problem and this bill right here this shows us why I'm asking for a no vote

this fits into the category that I've mentioned before as a young pastor I've done everything everything out there to support my family when our churches were small. And I've worked a lot of outdoor in the heat stuff here in Colorado and in Texas. And I've roofed houses. But here's an interesting thing that I, one of the stories that came up about roofing houses and somebody died. There's something wrong with that story. And I don't know exactly all the details just from what we were told, but there's something wrong with it because after you get over about 90 degrees, your roof shingles start getting warm and you can't roof anymore. Your feet start putting footprints down into the roofing tiles. I've roofed hundreds of homes over the years. That was one of the things that I did to support my family. I also did a lot of concrete finish work. It gets really, really hot. You say, okay, well, then you shouldn't work in that heat. I get that, except that then you don't get paid. And here's another bill where we're doing the same thing, like the farm workers. You're taking money out of people's mouths. You don't get paid. If you want to work in extreme temperatures, which I didn't mind because that's how I got paid. So I would get upset if the boss would say, well, it's getting too hot. And that did happen a handful of times. It's getting too hot. We have to stop. That was mostly in the roofing jobs. We have to stop We hurting the shingles We hurting the roof Now I upset because that an extra day that it going to take for me to get paid for the job I was getting paid per job Same with concrete work per job. And this just is another bill that takes money out of people's hands. I don't understand why we come up and defend people and say, well, they need this, they need this, they need this. And the only thing you're doing is taking food off their table, making it more difficult to feed their family. This is, when do we stop, take a step back and say, wait, maybe, just maybe, we're not accomplishing what we thought we were accomplishing. We're actually hurting people, specifically lower income people. We're hurting them. And this bill will just

thank you chair just wanted to uh and i looked you know i was in charge of uh occupational health behavioral health public health flight safety ground safety all of those things i've worked in extremely hot environments the flight line in del rio texas 110 110 degrees on the ramp, open up the canopy and feel that very cool 110 degree air going across you. And I've also flown in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where we would stop flying at minus 40 degrees. Or you wouldn't stop flying at minus 40 degrees. You would stop going outside the pattern because they put some lieutenant in a freezer until they measured that his feet would be going into frostbite and said that's probably as long as you could take. But if you look and just do a quick search on OSHA and cold injuries and hot injuries, there's whole sections on how to deal with that, most of which is going to be around water. water, but also you have places like Phoenix for the heat issues. They are going to start probably at like 4 in the morning as soon as the sun comes up. They're going to be, if they have to do a roof in that time frame, they're going to be nailing away. If it's a cold issue, one of the benefits of living places where it's cold, I mean, as they told me the benefit was, is because you can only where it's hot you can only take off so many clothes before you get arrested but in the cold you can just keep bundling up and um you know there's there's pages and pages of occupational health as what the uh the personal protective equipment standard uh 29 cfr 1910 dash 130 dot 132 delta requires every employer in the industry to conduct a hazard assessment 1915.152, 1917.95, 29 CFR, 1926.28, 1926-95. Record keeping. Sanitation standards for cold. Hard hats in the cold. You can go, well, that's, and the same on the hot side. Like how do you, that was getting hard hats and the heat. What are the risk factors that contribute to cold stress? How does it... These are all... I'm not sure what the data collection bill is going to do because these are things that we have massive amounts of data on already. We have all kinds of things exposed. And the sponsor did bring up a really good point in terms of energy because like schools for instance schools are you know they become excessively hot because rooms a lot of times have been prioritized and optimized for air conditioning and not air flow And when they're optimized for air conditioning instead of air flow, and then somebody comes and says, you can no longer use air conditioning because we think it's destroying the planet, then you have rooms that become too hot. And when you look at the overall, you have to step back and look at this ideology behind it, because what we're talking about is a temperature increase that has already largely been realized. That was the big fear. If we didn't reduce it, it would be increasing two degrees average from the pre-industrial ice age, which was the pre-industrial ice age. Two degrees over 200 years is 0.01 degrees per year. and that's what we say is an unsustainable for adaptation and that's what we're using to justify restricting our energy and what actually kills people is the inability to use air conditioning. Why can't they use air conditioning? Well, because some tree hugger decided that we needed public safety power shutoffs instead of reliable energy and then people lose their energy, they lose their air conditioning, they lose their refrigeration, and those are all choices that are made, largely by the governor. But those choices are what kill people, making heat unavailable for people, making it too expensive. Cold injuries kill far more people than heat injuries. Every year, inexpensive things like misters can greatly decrease the heat, the thermal stress on your body because water, when it evaporates, it removes 600 calories per gram. So there's drinking water. And the choices, the actual choices that are made by this body in addressing a non-event, are what is actually killing people. It's not working outside. It's not being in school. It's not all these things. It's the lack of air conditioning. Again, it's the lack of heat in the winter because somebody wants to restrict the energy because they think that carbon dioxide is causing global warming. And that is just absolutely baseless. But even if we did say global warming was caused by carbon dioxide, the 33-degree greenhouse effect for Colorado would be 0.00125 degrees Celsius. If you looked at the possibility of the globe spending trillions of dollars every year, tens of trillions of dollars every year, you could possibly change that temperature if this was true. Most of the temperature is due to convection because if you condense air from about 1,500 meters above the surface and bring it down to sea level, it raises by about 15 to 30 degrees. That's where your global warming comes from. But if you said all of that net zero and we committed to spending trillions of dollars per year as a globe, you could maybe theoretically change that outcome by 0.4 degrees Celsius per year. That is a half an hour's worth of temperature change in a day. Yet the decisions that are made from that drive things like energy costs going through the roof They are the driver for people not having air conditioning They are the driver for people not having heat Both of those are what kill. So what is actually killing people is the climate agenda. And until we sort that out, so those who are pretending that they're saving the planet, the downside is that you're killing your neighbors. And at some point, you're going to have to come to grips with that because thousands of people die yearly because they can't afford heat. Going to heat pumps, for instance, going to heat pumps, they don't work when it's cold. And if the electricity goes out, they really don't work. So this past year, during the socialization of the public safety power shutdown, Fortunately, it wasn't really all that cold. But had it been a few weeks later, during a cold snap, then you would have had a... Now, you might not have lost as much material to refrigeration, but you would have lost a lot more people from cold death and cold injury. Why? Because the governor has decided to spend $17 billion a year to... $17 billion to lose 40% of our power, of our dispatchable power, with the complicity of the General Assembly. The General Assembly is killing people, not because of climate change, but because of climate superstition. So we have plenty of data on this. There's all kinds of data on heat injuries. There's all kinds of data on that. So I'm going to be a no on this bill just because we have the data already. and what invariably happens when we form a committee of predetermined conclusions is that the conclusion is that we need more regulation by the state. There are plenty of regulations already available by the state and the last bill actually said if any of those change, then if any of those OSHA regulations change or become less stringent, then we're going to roll in and make them more stringent. So, anyways, I would suggest if we actually want to save people's lives instead of sacrificing them as humans are prone to, since the Aztecs and prior to was sacrificing their neighbors to the weather gods, I would suggest getting a grip on the climate agenda instead of pretending that this is a climate, that this is a man-made climate change issue. We have an energy problem issue. That's what's killing people. I suggest we start looking at science.

Mr. Schiebel, please read the title of House Bill 1327. House Bill 1327 by Representative Ferre, also Senator Mullica, concerning health care support for large employers' workers.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move the HHS, the finance, and the appropriations report. And please also move the bill. and House Bill 26, 13, 27. To the Appropriations Committee report. Thank you. In Appropriations, we added some additional protection protective language. We replaced the wellness clinics option with a benefit buy-in option for employers, expanded gifts, grants, and donations language to match federal funds. It adds a severability clause, clarifies the board's rules, added a labor person on the board, and then clarifies supporters workers do not include people receiving SSDI or SSI. And I ask for a yes vote. Representative Bradfield?

I'd like to propose an amendment to the appropriations report. I would like to move L-009 to House Bill 1327. Representative Bradfield, will you just restate your motion and say I move L009 to the Appropriations Committee report?

I would like to move. I move Amendment 009 to the appropriations report for House Bill 1327. To the amendment.

This amendment is quite simple. It simply says that in two years, and that would be in three years from now, in 2029, that the enterprise is dismantled and the bill is repealed. Would you like a glass of water?

Thank you.

Yes, Representative Bradfield.

In this bill, there are things in a committee that we certainly agreed with on Rep. Farray's assessment of Medicaid, and that we agreed that Medicaid here in Colorado has some serious problems. They have had enormous amounts of fraud, and then also the claims that Medicaid patients have submitted have certainly been more than was ever budgeted. So we agree that there is a big problem, but we are not sure that this is the answer to coming up with funds to help the Medicaid problem. And in this bill, as Representative Frey will tell you, is that there are companies that hire a considerable amount of people that are less than full-time. And some of these companies have well over 500 employees and a great many of them 22 to 50 percent of those employees are less than full employees In fact they are below the level of which the company would be responsible for paying a portion of their health insurance. So this bill, were it to be enacted and my amendment would be approved, it would give the bill a couple years to see how this works. the asking of money from the big companies to pay for a portion of the Medicaid. And then, let's see, three years, and then the bill would be repealed and the enterprise would be abolished. And so why would this be a good way? this would be a good way because we have tried something and if in three years we can't come up with something better then we need to go back to square one so I am asking for an aye vote on my amendment 009 thank you

thank you Mr. Chair and I also support this amendment in short, we are doing something that is without data. This is stepping into a realm that we have not seen across the nation. By doing this amendment to separate the two, we can collect the needed data to ensure. Is this doing what is suspected this bill might do, or is it actually not? And then it gives us time to change it without having to chase every single year more amendments to switch current law. This adds a safety net just in case an IRGS vote.

Representative Furey. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for bringing the amendment and for your kind words around the bill. We don't collect the enterprise money until 2028, so this wouldn't help the bill, and so I'm asking for a no.

I have an amendment. Do you mind? Do you mind? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have an amendment, and I wanted to interject myself before they started going again. So I move L12 to House Bill 1327. We're on the Appropriations Committee report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sponsor. Thank you for trying to tackle what's really the biggest driver in our budget problems in this state. I know it's not a mystery that I don't care for new enterprises, and we haven't gotten to the bill in chief yet to talk about the substance of it, but sometimes the committee reports require we jump ahead a little bit. So the bill, as it's written, is kind of unique, and it does recognize that the people have limited new enterprises as to $100 million collections in the first five years. What it does, which is unique, is allow any monies that come in over that $100 million to spill over into a Tabor-impacting fund. So it caps that at $100 million, which is what the voters asked for, but truly still allows for higher collections, which I don't think was the voters' intent those years ago. What that mechanism that the voters approved has required many new enterprises to cap and then reduce fees as monies have come in. Without the mechanism in this bill that allows that spillover, there's nothing that kind of drives a potential fee reduction. so I'm going to move L014 to House Bill 1327 and ask that it be displayed

I move L014 to 1327

I'd like to move it move it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, absent a mechanism that would ratchet down the fee if we hit the $100 million cap, and without that cap, there being no restraint truly on increasing the fee to ever and ever larger amounts. This amendment would allow the new Enterprise Board to reduce the fee if they chose to, but if they needed to increase it, come back to us. And not that I don trust some future board that hasn been established yet but we have done so much damage to the companies and the economic engine of this state to allow us another body to kind of put a stick in the spokes of that economic engine without coming back and speaking to us I think would be unwise So for increases in fees to come back to this body so we could judge whether it was necessary to do so or assess what potential damage that could do to our business community, I think would be unwise. So I would ask for a yes vote on this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I also am not a fan of new enterprises, but I do like this amendment because it sets a cap that the fee cannot continue to be raised because it ends up into dangerous territory of becoming a tax. I like when we have the ability to always decrease a fee based on numbers and data. I would urge a yes on this because it keeps the fee at a fee instead of making it a fee in cheap clothing, which we all know is a tax. I urge a yes. This makes this better policy and encourage you all to do the same.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing this amendment. I think inflation would disagree with this amendment, so I'm also in disagreement with this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I ask for a yes vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we did a couple of changes for HHS and this clarifies who is not subject to the fee. It also required employers to offer affordable health care insurance to qualify for the exemption. It moves the fee collection and enforcement to DOR. So a lot of the stuff we were doing at HHS was really working out the devil in the details of how this enterprise would work. It also created a reporting system to have some accountability around any of the employers trying to reclassify people. It also establishes a formal review process and appeal process for the employers to make sure

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This, I don't know if you've heard that I'm running a bill around large employers. What? I am. I'm going it alone a little bit over here, and I appreciate all your support and attention. Thank you. This is not easy. I don't want to bring this bill. I don't think anyone wants to fight these large companies. but when we look at our budget and what we're cutting, we need to look at how we can continue to make sure Medicaid is stable so the people that are working in our state on Medicaid can still be supported. This is over about 10 months of what we had created to try to create a policy that would allow for employers to be supported in providing health care, offering health care, or supporting Medicaid for those employees that they've hired. So there's a lot of details in here, and I've talked to all of you, I believe, at length for several months. So I'm happy to continue to answer questions. I know there's a couple amendments coming and a spirited debate. may or may not happen, but I really hope that we can have this discussion, hopefully move this forward, and really bring some accountability and conversation around what is a very expensive business model in Colorado. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do want to say thank you to the bill sponsor for all the efforts she's had and the tremendous amount of talking she has with all of us and the stakeholders. I do still think, though, House Bill 26-13-27 will further harm businesses in Colorado by adding yet another costly mandate. This bill aims to raise taxes, more so payroll taxes, on large employers if they have employees that are on Medicaid. This is the perfect example of how government harms the people it's trying to help. Remember when Colorado placed the mandate on businesses, both large and small, that required that they'd have to offer insurance if they were full-time employees? I do. I know how hard that hurt my district. Then a lot of folks were moved to part-time employees because the businesses couldn't keep up with the high cost of offering insurance for everybody. That also de-incentivized the free market idea when people are looking for jobs, which one's offered better insurance or offered insurance, which one's offered better vacation. Back then, it was also said we didn't have the data of how that would affect us. And yet here we are, and we're seeing a lot of employers, both large and small, who now revert to having part-time to save that cost instead of the full-time because of that mandate. This bill, I fear, also will do the same. I'm voting no, and I urge you all to also vote no, because if passed, this will chase even more businesses out of the state. This will raise prices for consumers because when businesses face costs, that has to come from somewhere. And unfortunately, Colorado, that will come off of you and from your wallets, the people who are hardworking, and lead to more layoffs to account for the increased taxes or more robots to take over the jobs so they don't have to offer that insurance in the first place. I urge a strong no. Colorado and Colorado's business sector cannot keep taking on these forced mandates.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with what the previous representative was up here with. And I do think the bill sponsor, I sit in front of her. We talk a lot about health care and wanting to get to a place where health care is not so costly. But unfortunately, my constituents on commercial health care keep having their premiums raised, too. I just read an article that came out May 1st that they're going to go up another couple hundred dollars. And we keep passing bills like this, and we're kicking the can down the road. And I appreciate all of her work on this bill, but truly this bill is a Colorado employer Medicaid penalty tax, is what we should call the name of this bill. It's going to reduce job opportunities by putting a tax on jobs and stigmatizing workers. It's going to push workers off of Medicaid by limiting access to jobs. And that's where I'm coming from. First of all, the government shouldn't be involved in this in the first place. And I know that we're probably trying to get to a single-payer insurance. It doesn't work for countries. It's not going to work for a state. But here we are. We're going to continue to probably say no to this bill and kind of force us towards that. It's not going to work. But I'll keep debating it. The problem with this and what I talked to the good representative about is that you going to limit jobs for the people who need them the most including my son My son is 17 needs a part job is applied to about six different golf courses hadn't even get calls back. My other son, you all know, is disabled. If I were these large employers, I wouldn't employ any of them. I would say no to part-time employment. I'd say no to disability communities. I would say no, no, no. And that's what's going to happen. That's what we mean by stigmatizing workers. You're going to cut jobs for the people who need them the most, including students, parents, seniors, people with disabilities, and workers newly entering or reentering the workforce. Entry-level jobs. This is going to hurt the people that need entry-level jobs. Fewer jobs equals fewer people able to qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid should support low-income workers, not punish employers for hiring them. And let's talk about what has happened since 2020. Employers have absorbed major cost increases, including FAMLI payroll tax, minimum wage hikes, massive amounts of retail theft. I tried to put a stop to that. That bill was killed. We're going to try to put a stop to retail theft. Nope. 2.3 billion impact in Colorado of retail theft alone. And where did those large employers put that cost? They're not like, you know what, we're going to take a decrease in our pay. no, now a gallon of milk costs you $5 because they are not going to cut their costs. They're going to put it on to all the people in our districts. Here you go. Eggs increase. Milk increase. All of your groceries increase. All the things that they sell, they're going to increase because of bills like this. This bill adds yet another massive burden of between $15 million to $100 million in new annual costs for employers. This means higher costs for consumers, store closures, and reduced investment in businesses leaving Colorado. We have talked up here. We are the sixth most regulated state. We have had 98 businesses leave Colorado in the last six years. With that, it takes about 14,000 jobs. With that, it takes consumer spending in our states. I don't understand it. I mean, Colorado Medicaid is facing real challenges related to fraud. I've come up here a million times. We had one federal audit, $285 million for one federal audit in Medicaid fraud in the state. The ABA audit had $78 million in fraud, another $25 million in Medicaid transportation, and we had a wrong code for wheelchair transportation. We don't even know how much fraud that is, tens of millions of dollars. So instead of correcting all of that, here we are putting a Medicaid penalty tax on large employers in the state of Colorado. And I think it raises some serious legal concerns with ERISA. I think that we are going to be in big trouble when it comes to ERISA. ERISA, for those of you who did a lot of research this weekend, is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. which protects the national administration of employer benefits. So ERISA, in other words, is intended to avoid employers having to modify employee benefits to meet state-by-state requirements. So to meet state-by-state requirements. This bill is preempted and will be declared by the courts to be unenforceable. ERISA prevents states from indirectly enforcing employers to structure or fund benefits in specific ways. That is the whole Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 And that why bills like this in other states have been shot down because of their legality ERISA establishes comprehensive federal regulation of employers provisions of benefits to their employees This bill indirectly forces employees to modify their ERISA-covered health plans. There has been lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. When you violate ERISA, it always wins. To accomplish this goal, ERISA includes expansive preemption provisions which are intended to ensure that employee benefit plan regulation would be exclusively a federal concern. A state law has an impermissible connection with the plan if it directly regulates or effectively mandates some element of the structure or administration of employees' ERISA plans. That's this bill. That's this bill. Why aren't we getting rid of the $2.3 billion in retail theft that these corporations are having to deal with? Why don't we put criminals in jail? Why don't we prosecute retail theft crime? Why is the solution always to go after the employers of the state? Why is it always to mandate and to tax and to feed them to death? Why is that always the solution in this building? And now it's to go after part-time employees. They're going to be the stigmatized employee that doesn't get a job anywhere because these big retailers should not employ them. Because of bills like this, they are going to get the shaft because we think we're doing what's right and we're kicking the can down the road. I've got more to say, but I'll let more members of my caucus speak. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This bill moves Colorado in a direction that should worry anyone who cares about a healthy job market and long-term economic growth. If large employers hire certain workers, the state attaches a new price tag to each of those jobs. When the government starts penalizing businesses for giving someone a job, it inevitably changes how many jobs are offered, what those jobs look like, and where they are located. The first concern is the basic idea of per-employee fee. When the state ties high fees to each worker in a particular category, it's not just making an abstract statement about health policy or fairness. It's changing the math on every hiring decision. Employers look at total compensation, wages, benefits, payroll taxes, workers' comp, unemployment insurance, and all the other costs that go into bringing someone into that team. Add a new fee, reoccurring state charge on top of that, and the total cost of adding one more worker goes up significantly. At the margin, some of those positions will never be created. Some hours will never be offered. Some expansions will never happen because this is how business budgeting works. Employers do not employ people out of charity. They employ people to get work done, to serve customers, and to generate revenue. If the cost of doing that work rises faster than productivity, employers will adjust accordingly. As a business owner myself with a long lineage of entrepreneurs in the family, I understand how business works and what happens when more costs are imposed. In this scenario, they will cut back on entry-level positions, they'll consolidate roles, and they'll raise prices. Employees will absolutely feel this squeeze, especially for the varied people whose opportunity are already limited. lower wage workers part workers and those in high turnover industries The second concern is the way the policy punishes growth and scale When the state draws a line and says once you are big enough and employ enough people in certain situations we will start charging you extra. What message does that send? To me, it screams that success will be taxed. Why would a business want to expand, especially if they have locations in multiple states? They'll expand in a state that doesn't impose an outrageous amount. Instead, they'll add their 200 to 300 jobs at their other out-of-state location. Also, think about a large employer hovering just below the line. They're deciding whether to open another location in Colorado or in another state. This bill will undoubtedly encourage businesses to expand in other states. Third, there is the impact on wages, hours, and job quality. Every added cost has to be absorbed. If we raise the cost of employing certain workers, employers generally having only three choices, raise prices, cut labor costs, or accept lower margins. Raising prices is hard in competitive industries, but if they do, it will be trickled down to consumers. Another, or accepting permanently lower margins is not sustainable. That leaves labor, which is most likely to be hit. there won't be new hires. Instead, we'll see hiring freezes. Instead of pay increases, you'll get wage compression and smaller raises. Instead of full-time slots, you get more part-time schedules designed to minimize exposure to added costs. The intention of this bill may be to help lower-income workers, but this is economics 101. That mechanism makes employees more expensive to employ and therefore over time less likely to be employed. Supporters will argue that employers can simply absorb the cost because they are large businesses or because they benefit when workers are healthier, but those same employers are already dealing with rising minimum wages, new leave mandates, insurance premiums, and other state and federal requirements. This is a cumulative effect. When policymakers add just one more cost, they often treat it as if it exists in a vacuum. Businesses do not experience it that way. They experience the total load. For some operations, this additional weight is exactly what tips the scale towards layoffs, automation, or relocation. Lastly, this bill sends a damaging message about Colorado's competitiveness. When lawmakers start imposing bills and laws like this, it tells business communities that the cost of employing people here is not only high, but also unpredictable. If the amount can be ratcheted up over time, employers cannot reliably model their future labor costs. Not when we have higher mandated costs, new fees, and greater regulatory risks. Uncertainty is itself a cost. Capital seeks environments where major cost drivers are stable and predictable, and it's becoming apparent to companies that Colorado is not. For those reasons, this approach is bad for business, bad for workers who depend on those businesses, and bad for Colorado's competitive standing. It treats jobs as tax bases to be tapped rather than as opportunities to be encouraged. This is the wrong direction for our state, and I urge a no vote on this bill.

looking at this in a very interesting way when what is at stake here are our rural hospitals. And what is at stake here is Medicaid. Our budget situation is not better next year. In fact, we are expecting to have the exact same exercise that we went through, cutting and cutting and cutting services and services and services next year again. We know that at some point in time the overarching money required for Medicaid in this state is going to be about the same size as our current state budget. Exactly when are we going to start addressing that? I mean, we've cut just about all of the state's additions to Medicaid this year. I mean, all of that is pretty much gone, and we're down now to almost basically just what the federal requirement is, and we can't afford that. And what we're saying here is that it's okay for the taxpayers of the state of Colorado to cover health care for businesses that can't afford it. Walmart is not leaving our state. They are not going to have a massive price hike sale. This is to cover their employees in this state. It will net positive. I mean, it will net negative a typical Walmart investor pennies. We're going to close the hospitals. I grew up in a community where a small town hospital closed. It was devastating. 20 minutes either direction for us to get to a hospital, people died. Except for here in Colorado, that 20 minutes is an hour. That 20 minutes for Summit County Hospital when it closes is two hours if everything is going great on I-70. And what we're saying is that companies that have been drawing the line on 30 hours and making sure that their employees fit a certain box so that they don't have to provide health care to the tune that they end up on Medicaid, on health care for the poor, is crazy. When we solve this problem that we have in Colorado, I think that it is quite fair for us to look at our largest employers and say, you have benefited from this policy for many, many years. You have profited from this policy for many, many years. We are in dire straits here, and the situation is going to get no better. and I don't think that it's improbable to say everybody's got to do their part we're going to close the hospitals the lobbyists that have talked to me about this I have asked them the same question how many hospitals do you have as clients you should probably get them to talk to your other clients about this one. They don't reopen.

perspective and i see what you're trying to do here but the issue is is recently in house district 47 safeway came in and they pulled two stores out of the district one in lahuna colorado and one in Lamar, Colorado. And people went into mass panic because we hear about it all the time, especially in the urban areas, about food insecurity, food deserts. Well, even though we grow most of the food and we do have farmers markets and things as such, big box stores have ran the little guy out of small towns. We all know that. That's just the business model. That's how it works. And to what the representative just said, talking about hospitals, it's no difference for the small grocery store, the small person. Once they close down, they're not coming back. So I want to take it from that point of view because if we're going to talk about it in the hospital space, we've got to talk about it in the food space and then in the job space. So when it comes to the food space, we had a couple groups try to get together and open some small markets within these communities. But when Safeway did the layoffs in Lahuna, people went into mass panic because they were a large employer for the community. And in some of the urban areas, I know that there are large employers as well, but these are keystone employers. You lose your job at Safeway here, maybe in the Fort Collins area, or even here in Denver, there's a good chance you're going to be able to go find work somewhere else. The store that's coming up to compete with it, you're either going to go to work there, or you have more job options. But where I'm from, there aren't many job options. Some people, they'll work their whole career at Safeway. There are so many people that start right out of high school and then retire as a checker, and I've known some of these folks. So when we talk about this, what's going to happen is your inner-city Walmarts aren't going to close. They're not. It's not going to happen that way. That's where the population center is. And we see this in all parts and different sectors when it comes to health care and everything. You all know this isn't something I'm expounding on that I don't know what I'm talking about. Where it's going to happen is in my district. So now we've lost a Safeway in each of these communities. So they each have a Walmart. Then there's a couple more Walmarts within my district. but at the end of the day, when this hits them, everybody has a business model. So when I talk to the folks from Safeway and they explain to me why they had to close the stores, any person that's of a smart business mind would have done the same thing. Because to keep your business going and your model going, you have to make adjustments. And that's, myself and my colleagues talk about that all the time in the well. When we talk about legislation, being able to make adjustments, well, business people do that as well. And when they laid out to me why they did it, They actually did it because there were some places that had worse food insecurities. Another town in my district, Walsenburg, their Safeway was dilapidated. It needed tons of work. So part of their model was to close the other Safeways. That way they could throw money into a remodel there because there were a couple other big box stores. Because they did keep the community in mind. I want to say that. For anybody that says these corporations don't care, I was on a phone call with them and Labor, and they hated that they had to shut these stores. and they actually helped. They actually, I think in Lahana, I don't want to speak out of line, but they actually made a deal with a small-time guy to open somewhat of a store in that community and with the building. I think they sold it to him at a pretty good price because they wanted the community to know. Needless to say, when they shut down that Safeway, they were the only provider of pharmaceuticals for veterans in the valley. So that was a scramble as well. So not only did it take the jobs, did it take the food security, It also was a pipeline for veterans to get their meds And if any of you know us in rural Colorado we don have a lot of faith in big government and the postal service is a disaster and it not the employee fault It's just run horrible. It's been run horrible forever. But a lot of these veterans, they hope they can get their meds by mail-in, which is a lot longer than somebody has to drive to the store. So I'm kind of laying out some of those things. Now we talk about, we put this on the big box store.

Representative Bradley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. and I just want to address the representative from Arapaho, but I don't think... Oh, he's right there. Hey. So you came up here and you made some points, and I want to make some points back. Statistically, in 2004, 8% of Coloradans were enrolled in Medicaid. 2004, 8%. Today that number has increased to 300%, so that nearly 1 in 4 Coloradans rely on the government for health care. This is not a space that I believe we should be in. Medicaid is growing at an estimated increase of 8.8 percent. So much that the JBC members have said it's unsustainable. It's 8.8 percent. Every year, three times the rate of inflation. And I'll tell you why. Because in our state, we've made it into a hammock, not a swing. We're going to bring you food and drinks and give you a place to live. You just lay there. It's an entitlement program that we have incorporated into the state. We don't account for the fraud. We have over $400 million in fraud just by three different audits. We started a program that was supposed to cost about $24 million, now going to cost our state $130 million. And now we have decided that because of all the fraud and because of all the growth, unsustained growth in Medicaid at 8.8%, who should pay for it? We should make the large employers of Colorado pay for it. Who's next? Do we adopt a family? If you're a private-paying citizen, we're going to adopt a family, pay for their health care too? We have grown Medicaid 300%, and now we are going to make the large employers of Colorado pay for health care. That's what we're going to do in the state of Colorado. we our policies have done it it is not hr1 hr1 didn't grow medicaid from eight percent to 300 percent more so that one in four people in our state are on medicaid that was not hr1 that is the policy in this golden dome and until we stop the madness we're going to put this on big corporations to fund the cost of the policies that we continue to incorporate in this building fix the problem stop putting a band-aid with duct tape around it fix the problem fix the fraud in the medicaid program stop making an entitlement program bring it back to the people that were supposed to originally be on medicaid stop making it a hammock for people just to lay on and not work and stop forcing the large employers to pay for it that then put the cost onto the consumers. You see what happens when the large employers have to pay increased costs? Guess who pays that? It's not rocket science. They then force that down to the consumers in all of our districts. They're not taking a rate pay decrease. They're just going to pass that on to the consumers. It is already one of the fourth highest states to live in is a family of four. It's about $150,000. We were one of the highest states as far as affordability to live in. You continue to kick the can down the road. And people in rural Colorado aren't going to get jobs because of bills like this. I have more to say Thanks Speaker Pro Tem Thank you Madam Chair It an honor to serve with you Madam Assistant Majority Leader It's an honor to serve with you, sir.

Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. and I actually very much appreciate the comments of the good representative from Larimer that kind of teed up the points I wanted to make and kind of an illustration of how two eyewitnesses to the same event can walk away with a very different picture of what happened. So I was going to say that prior to the one we talk about so much of late here in this room, There was a big, beautiful bill back in 2010, and it was called the ACA, Obamacare. It was going to fix a whole lot of things in this country. And if you remember, after it passed and people could read what was in it, businesses and government saw two things. Businesses saw that you don't have to provide benefits to people that work less than 30 hours a week. That was a big takeaway. That was a reaction to the action that that bill took. It might not have been the intended one, but that is one of the driving forces behind why we see so many large businesses that have part-time employees now, because it was a way to get around a cost that was going to be inflicted upon them by the federal government. Now, the reaction at the state level was what was just discussed, that 100 funding of Medicaid expansion for a time and Colorado jumped all over that So those are the reactions to that big beautiful bill that we seeing today We saw a greatly expanded Medicaid that we cannot afford, and we've seen employers with large amounts of part-time employees. It's natural. I mean, we like to think that only the thing we're trying to impact when we pass a bill is going to be the only thing that changes when a bill is passed. But we're changing an ecosystem and an economic system, and businesses and local governments or lower-level governments are going to react when higher-level governments pass a bill, and those were the reactions. So we've seen big businesses with large numbers of part-time employees and, again, expanded Medicaid rolls that are no longer fully funded by the federal government that becomes a burden on the state. That's what we've been dealing with during these budget cycles. So rather than our own state-level Big Beautiful Bill related to health care, I'd like to propose we scale this back a little bit. I move L015 to House Bill 1327 and ask that it be displayed. Okay, to the amendment. All right. So when the ACA passed, I don't think the intent or the expected outcome was states ruining their budgets because Medicaid had expanded so greatly they couldn't afford it again, or that a lot of folks that had been working full-time had been reduced to part-time work without benefits. That wasn't the intent, but when you make big sweeping changes, sometimes the outcome is unpredictable. So as I said, I think if we start with small steps and evaluate the outcome, maybe we'll get to where we want to go. It might take a little bit longer, but the outcomes might be a little more predictable. So I would propose with this amendment that we focus only to start and see if it works on businesses with more than 500 employees, of which over 50% receive Medicaid benefits. Pass the bill in this form, we'll see what the reaction from the business community is. If it is a positive step, then perhaps we go further. If it's not a positive step, then we try something else, but we don't make a huge sweeping change that will have consequences that we cannot predict. So I recommend an aye vote on this amendment or a yes if you prefer.

Representative Furre. Thank you, Madam Chair. this would only boil it down to just one company. So it kind of guts the bill. So I appreciate the thought here, but no, thank you.

Representative Hartzook. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair. There's been a lot of discussion on impacts, what predated a series of things. There's a lot of data that's been thrown out. And that's kind of the key piece that we're missing, is the data piece. Because we're trying to make some decisions and some legislation here, and we're not looking at accurate data. Therefore, I move L08 to 1327, request that be properly displayed. Okay, to the amendment. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you'll notice here on what this amendment is saying, we're starting out with a qualified independent third party. So you've got somebody that's going to come in that is independent, is going to look at this thing. They're going to study and assess the impact of fees on the employer, employees, wages, other compensation investments, legal risk. I mean, the whole picture, the whole gambit that we're going across. Because that's where we get the data from. It's been said in this well on this bill, and thank you to the sponsors for bringing this. Because I think this is a very good conversation to have. People talk about how great Medicaid is and how great it's expanded and the things that we've done. And I'm pretty sure that when the ACA passed, somebody read the 1,800 pages that were in there. because of legislation that has been passed extensively here at the state capitol over the last eight years and over the last few decades at the federal level, that impacts businesses. That impacts cost of living. That impacts the requirements. Businesses must adjust to the laws that are passed and levied upon them. And that is how they look at, are you going to be at 30 hours? Are you going to be at 40 hours? Are you going to be at 60 hours? Every single time we pass legislation, the businesses look at it, they have to figure out how to comply with it, and then they have to adjust their business model so they can continue to survive. The ones that can't figure out how to do that go out of business, close their shop, or move to a different place. Others will downsize, others will lay people off, others will quit carrying a certain amount of amenities or services. but make no mistake, businesses are forced to adjust to legislation that we pass. The laws that come out of this building, they have to comply with it, and they have to figure out how to do that. So they are simply operating within the constraints that we give them. If we do this study, then we can look at all of these fees. We can look at what's the impact on wages, costs, prices. What's it going to do to the consumers? What are the multiple second and third order effects? Because this is not a one-time deal. This will have ongoing impacts, multiple ongoing impacts. There's been a lot of discussions about the Medicaid. We also have seen a lot of discussions here and across the country on the fraud, waste, and abuse that's going on. It's admirable that we're looking for ways to fund things, but we ought to probably fix the problems that are there before we can figure out what we actually need. And then in order to figure out what we actually need, maybe we should do a study so we have accurate, independent data that tells us what direction or what courses of action we should develop to solve the problem. Way too often we come on in and we pass legislation here and then we come back and go oh now we got another problem to plug Now we have another issue to fix Now we have another tax and fee and enterprise Everything keeps growing and growing. But ask yourselves, are the businesses growing? Are consumers getting more money in their pocketbook? Why are we not looking and focusing on businesses that generate revenue, that generate jobs? Things like energy, manufacturing, aerospace and defense, IT and AI. These are all emerging technologies. But so often, just like in this legislation, we rapidly want to stick something in there to limit something, constrain it, or eliminate it before we've even studied it. We need to study things and figure out what we're going to be doing. What are the impacts? far too often we legislate and then we wonder why businesses react and then we wonder why we have additional problems. Maybe we should step back, gather all the data first and then make a decision. I urge an aye vote. Thank you.

but no thank you. Is there any further discussion on L8? Seeing none of the question before is its passage, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. No. L.A. is lost. Representative Johnson. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would have loved to see that amendment. Too often in this building when things happen through legislation and then we see the consequences a few years later and we say this is why, we look at each other unsure. We misplace blame or we correctly place blame, but people don't believe us. and I would have loved the data from an independent place to see why our business is relocating or doing different hiring practices. Much like we heard from Assistant Minority Leader in rural Colorado, it is almost like a sibling relationship between big businesses and small. Yes, originally when they came in, we had a lot of heartburn because they were chasing out small businesses. But now that they're here in our communities, they're the ones offering a lot of the employment. They're the ones giving a lot of the dollar back to the communities that drive whether someone can go to seek, you know, extracurricular activities or go to get health care needed practices. And I am very concerned if we put more mandates on them. Right now in House District 63, which is 12,500 square miles, I see only two Safeways and two Walmarts. and when the market hits because it's weather or labor patterns, I now see in my district folks from Denver driving out to fill those shortages, not folks from our area. And I see people that are cross-driving between Logan and Morgan County. Those are the two counties that have these big misses, not the other areas of my district. It is very much in that bubble. And my fear is if we add more mandates, they're going to act like a business. I can't blame them. They're going to do a cost analysis. And I fear I lose two in my district. And you going to have patients who are having to drive farther to the pharmacies You going to lose businesses You going to say well if you want to keep the job you have to now commute And the commute between Sterling and Fort Morgan 50 miles on a good day could be about an hour On a bad day, it could be two, two and a half hours based on weather. We're going to put a lot of burden on the people that we are claiming we want to help while chasing business out. Not saying they go completely out of Colorado, but I am fearful they will go out of House District 63 and other rural areas, leaving a gap in the dollars that we have in our economy, leaving a gap for the pharmacies that we have, leaving a gap for who can fill to work there. And if they manage to stay, I fear that a lot of those businesses, job openings will move to robots. You see one checkout person per five to ten machines. It used to be one checkout person per machine. Where is that going to take us as we are adding more costly mandates and they are looking to still become a business and maintain a profit? Would love to see the data ahead of time so that way we can come back and say why were these areas relocated or taken out of locations? What are the hiring practices now? I am still a no, and I think this still needs a lot of vetting out. And I would urge you all to look at Colorado as a whole when doing your vote. Representative Bradley. Representative Bradley. Thank you, Madam Assistant Majority Leader. So I just wanted to talk about when we say we're going to cover people, that that will reduce the cost of the emergency rooms. I believe that's an oversimplification of what's actually going on. Emergency rooms are not a substitute for primary care for most of us. And I believe that what typically happens is when we cover people, what happens is there's a cost shifting. And what usually will end up happening is that it increases people's ability to go get diagnostic care and other things that drive our health care system up. ERs are functionally get a lot of reimbursement from the federal government and from different types of things. So just to say that if we cover people, the hospitals can still operate above red line because they're getting covered is a little bit more of an oversimplification. When we add coverage for all, that usually adds a lot more of the increased diagnostic testing and more visits to different specialists and things like that, which drives our health care prices up as well. So I just want to put that on the record. I want to move, or I'm moving, I move L-006 to House Bill 1327 and ask for it to be displayed. Okay, it is displayed. Thank you, Madam Assistant Majority Leader. This bill is intended to force large employers to provide health care coverage to part-time employees. Employers may either pay a $2,300 fee to a new state enterprise or demonstrate that affordable health coverage is offered by or through the large employer to a worker who works 20 or more hours per week or 80 or more hours per month. Any fees the employers pay are not used to provide health care for their employees and instead are used for general spending on Medicaid costs and provider reimbursements. This bill suffers from significant legal deficiencies. If passed into law, it will be challenged in court and the bill will be struck down as violating federal employee benefits law. The enterprise created by legislation violates the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, Colorado Constitution, Article 10, Section 20, in several ways, which at a minimum means that revenue collected by the enterprise will count against the state annual spending limit It goes on to talk about the enterprise violating the taxpayers bill of rights excludes from a governmental entity such as the state's so-called enterprises, which are government-owned businesses, Colorado Constitution, Article 10, Section 20. Enterprise revenue does not count against the state's fiscal year spending limit. Several features of this bill violate the taxpayers' bill of rights limitations on enterprises. First, the fee. The enterprise is authorized to levy is in actuality a tax. The underlying logic of a fee is that the person is being charged for a service or benefit that is provided to the person. See Barber v. Ritter. Charges a fee when its primary purpose is to defray the cost of services provided to those charged. Tabor found versus Colorado Bridge Enterprises 2014. we look to see if the primary purpose of the charge is to finance or defray the cost of services provided to those who must pay it. The fee here, however, is not tied to paying the cost of health care for the employees of the employer paying the fee. It is used to support the state's general spending on Medicaid. Second, there is no nexus between the fee payer and the service as would be expected from a business interaction. You can see Nicole versus E470, Public Highway Authority. As noted above, the enterprise is not paying health care costs for employees of a fee payer. It is paying generally for Medicaid expenses. By way of example, a fee payer with operations located only in Colorado Springs is subsidizing provider reimbursements in Mesa County. This breakdown in the nexus between the payer and the service is contrary to the concept of a business under the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights. Third, the enterprise is not engaged in a transaction with an employer. It will use coercive revenue-raising authority for which there is no private sector analog. This type of authority is similar to taxing, which as the Supreme Court held an enterprise cannot have because the ability to levy general taxes is inconsistent with the characteristics of a business. Here not only is the fee compulsory, the enterprise has, can impose civil penalties for noncompliance. The authority granted to the enterprise is governmental in nature and not that of a business. So this amendment is just referring it back to the people under a referendum so that the people can decide whether or not that they agree with imposing and collecting a fee from large employers in the state that employ more than 500 workers in the state who receive non-disability-based medical assistance program benefits to pay for the state's cost for providing those medical assistance benefits to workers and to reimburse a large employer for some or all of the large employers' cost. I believe that the people should have the right to be able to vote on this, and I urge an aye vote on this amendment. Thank you. Representative Ferre. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for bringing this amendment. I believe we have a lot of things on the ballot this year, and so if this doesn't pass, maybe next year we can run this together and bring it to the ballot. So for now, no. Thank you. Is there any further discussion on L6? Seeing none, the question before us is its passage. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, please say no. L6 is lost. Representative Luck. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'm wondering, I did have to step out and talk to the lobby corps for a moment, so I don't know if this was covered or not. Forgive me if it was. But I'm curious as to why... The legislation has exempted certain employers. I understand the rationale behind exempting those with less than 500, or at least I think I do. I can make reasonable guesses. But the exemptions don't just apply to the number of employees. They also apply to the type of employer. So for those who haven't had an opportunity to read this, listening at home or even in the room, this bill exempts employers who provide affordable health coverage. That makes sense to people who are already, sorry, to workers who are working 20 or more hours per week or 80 or more hours per month. Okay. But then it also exempts franchisees, registered nonprofits, public employers, so we're exempting ourselves, and then collective bargaining, those who have collective bargaining agreements, which the fiscal note, as they do their analysis, suggests that that will take of the pool of people. So the data isn't there, as was noted earlier, and so there's a lot of assumptions being made. And the fiscal analysts noted that there's likely 61,000 Medicaid-enrolled workers employed by firms meeting the bill's large employer threshold. So a potential population of 61,000 folks. But by excluding these various entities, it brings it down to 34,000 folks that will be covered of that 61,000. So 44% of this population, of the 500 employees or more population, won't be covered under this bill at all. And I'm just wondering why we're applying different standards to different entities. So that's my question. Representative Foray. Thank you for the question. So when we were looking and we were narrowing it down, a public entity is limited by TABOR and how much they can raise. So that seemed fair to us to carve it out. With nonprofits, they have open books, and most of that money is going towards their mission. So we thought that's also fair. And unions, they have the power to negotiate already. So those are kind of our high-level thoughts around what we should be excluding and not. Additionally, when we were looking at some of the numbers, the trends of the highest utilizers of Medicaid in those companies were that of big box retail for-profit entities. So while they were still on the list, some of those that were exempted, they were much farther down the list, as opposed to the top 15 to 20 were just very, very different numbers in terms of the percentage of how many employees they had and how many were on Medicaid. So that's kind of how we deduced it. Is there any further discussion? Okay. Seeing none, the question before us is the passage of House Bill 1327. All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, please say no. 1327 is passed. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1016. House Bill 1016 by Representative Phillips concerning the continuation of open educational resources policies. Representative Phillips Thank you Madam AML HB 261016 this is continuation of open educational Representative Phillips, I'm sorry to interrupt. Can you move the bill and the appropriations? I move. I move HB 261016. And the appropriations report. And the appropriations report. Okay. To the appropriations committee report first. Representative Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. The Appropriations Committee, we put amendment into it, cutting the allocation or appropriation down to $500,000 this next year, as opposed to the original $1.1 million. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no further discussion, the question before us is the passage of the Appropriations Committee report. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. The committee report is adopted. To the bill. Representative Phillips. Thank you, Madam AML. 1016, this is a continuation of Open Educational Resources Program. It's called the OER. It's a critical piece of college affordability for Colorado students. As of today, Colorado has saved students 59.7 million, and the grant program is only five years old. This is common sense. Reducing or eliminating the cost of course materials through OER is one of the few solutions to continue marching towards higher education affordability. It's an impactful, cost-effective, and fiscally responsible decision. Good bill. Great return on investment. Vote yes. Okay. Is there any further discussion? Representative Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. Both of us have the opportunity and take advantage of that opportunity to teach at a collegiate level, and we know that books on an ongoing basis cost our students somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,300 to $1,500 a year. I know for my course alone, it's over $200. The open education resource allows our students very, very good materials at no cost to them. And the dollars, then, you might ask, well, where do the dollars then go? The dollars go by way of grants to the professors that develop courses and then degrees around these open education resources that are made available by other authors and or publishers of this type of material. this is really important when you think about for a second thirteen to fifteen hundred dollars that can be upwards of twenty percent of tuition at a community college for a given year and i would ask for your support on this bill thank you is there any further discussion seeing none the question before us is the passage of house bill 1016 all those in favor please say aye All those in favor, please say aye. All those opposed, please say no. House Bill 1016 is passed. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1428. House Bill 1428 by Representatives Rodan Taggart also Senators Bridges and Kirkmeyer concerning measures to improve the administration of publicly funded programs available to students who are not full in students and in connection therewith requiring the Department of Education to report on online and part enrichment educational programs and authorizing an extension of the designation of a Board of Cooperative Services to administer the statewide supplemental online and blended learning program Thank you. Who would like to move the bill after Mr. Schiebel takes a breath? That would be Representative Sirota. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 1428 to the bill. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this bill does a few things. It requires CDE to produce a report to the JBC regarding enrichment, online schools, and Colorado digital learning solutions. CDE is only able to collect data that they are authorized in statute to collect. So this report to the JBC asked for financial data that CDE doesn't currently collect. So the bill is authorizing this one-time survey of districts for data related to enrichment programs and online schools. It's also authorizing a temporary extension of CDLS while CDE does the report so that the JBC can evaluate any necessary programmatic changes that may be required. And it also authorizes CDLS to collect student IDs for the report. Ask for an aye vote. Is there any further discussion? Representative Taggart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's important for both online programs and enrichment programs that we are constantly looking at the quality of these programs and the academic performance of the students that participate in this program. So this is a methodology of making those comparisons and making them for them in comparison with students that are educated in our brick-and-mortar public schools. So a very good report and a very good bill, and I ask for your support. Okay. Seeing no further discussion, the question before us is the passage of House Bill 1428. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. House Bill 1428 is passed. Madam Majority Leader. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the committee rise and report. Seeing no objection, the committee will rise and report. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. The House will come back to order. Mr. Schiebel, please read the report of the Committee of the Whole. Madam Speaker, you're committed with the whole begs-leave to parties under consideration the following attached bills being the second reading thereof and makes the following recommendations are on. House Bills 1016 as amended 1054 as amended, 1230 as amended 1272 as amended, 1327 as amended, and 1428 passed on second reading, order and gross in place on the calendar for third reading final passage, and Senate Bill 160 as amended passed on second reading, order revised and placed on the calendar for third reading and final passage. AML Bacon. Members, you have heard the motion. The motion before us is the adoption of the report of the Committee of the Whole. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. Sukla and Valdez. Please close the machine With 43 I 22 no and zero excused the report of the Committee of the Whole is adopted Madam Majority Leader Now, Speaker, I move to lay over Senate Bill 43 until tomorrow. Surprise, surprise. See no objection. Senate Bill 43 will be laid over until tomorrow. Okay, just kidding. Mr. Schiebel. There we go. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to Senate Bill 12. Senate Bill 12 by Senator Danielson, also Representative Velasco, concerning compensable losses under the Colorado Crime Victim Compensation Act for enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 12 on third reading and final passage. Representative Velasco. Thank you so much, Madam Speaker. I would like to request permission to run a third reading amendment. Please briefly proceed. Thank you, Madam Speaker. And this amendment is just to make sure that our bill is all updated after the couple amendments that we did on second. Thank you. Members, the question before us is permission to run a third reading amendment. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 65 eyes, zero no, and zero excused, permission is granted. Representative Velasco. Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you, colleagues. I move L009 to Senate Bill 12, and as it will be properly displayed. It is properly displayed. Please proceed. Yes, so we're just making sure that the language in the bill, it's in line with the amendments that we made on seconds, and I ask for a yes vote. Seeing no further discussion. Representative Kelty. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is the adoption of L-009 to Senate Bill 12. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. Brown and Luck. Please close the machine. With 60 I, 5 no, and 0 excuse, the amendment is adopted. Madam Majority Leader Thank you Madam Speaker I move Senate Bill 12 as amended on third reading and final passage Representative Kelty Thank you Madam Speaker I move Senate Bill 12 as amended on third reading and final passage Representative Kelty Thank you, Madam Chair. We heard this in committee, and I had some issues with the bill, not because of who they're trying to point the bill towards, but who they're not, who they're leaving out. You know, there's a lot of communities in Colorado that have their own traditions, whether they are within the Scottish American, African American, Asian American. They all have their different traditions. And for some reason, this bill is leaving all of them out. is targeting just one specific, the Native Americans that are in Colorado. And for me, if you're going to have different traditions to be recognized, then we should make it for everyone to be part of this, to have their traditions also respected. That is why I was a no, and I will still be a no today. when you're including things for clothing and meals and sweat lodge and smudging ceremonies. And, you know, like I mentioned before, you know, there are other traditions, there are other communities that are being left out. And for that, I cannot agree with something that is for one and not for all. Thank you. Seeing no further discussion, The motion before us is the passage of Senate Bill 12 as amended on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 59 ayes, 6 no, 0 excuse, Senate Bill 12, as amended, is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1222. House Bill 1222 by Representatives Garcia and McCormick, also Senator Kipp, concerning the modification of tax expenditures and the connection therewith, making additions to the definition of federal taxable income for tax years commencing on or after January 1st, 2027, and creating the family affordability credit. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1222 on third reading and final passage. Representative Flannell. Thank you Madam Speaker. This bill isn't a question of whether child poverty matters because it does to both sides of the aisle The question is whether the method chosen here is sound sustainable and consistent with our constitutional obligations If we believe that a child credit should be made a priority for the state then we should make that case to the voters and ask them to approve the necessary revenue But we don't. Instead, the bill achieves it through a complicated reshuffling of the tax base that leaves some taxpayers paying more, others receiving more, and the public wondering whether their constitutional protections still mean what they say. Every dollar of new revenue is directed to a child tax credit, and therefore this somehow escapes Tabor limitations. Directing where the money goes should not change the basis character of what we are doing here. We are increasing taxes and expanding state collections and spending, and we're doing it without voter approval. Tabor does not ask whether a tax increase is used for a popular purpose. It requires a vote when the state is increasing revenue through a tax policy change. Calling it a comprehensive tax policy or bundling it without a handout does not erase the fact that certain taxpayers will pay more. If a citizen's tax goes up because of this bill, then for the family of that business, that is a tax increase. This is exactly the kind of change the Constitution says belongs to the people to decide, not just the legislator. Supporters argue that in the aggregate, the state is roughly breaking even or that an additional revenue gain is incidental or de minimis. A business that loses a longstanding deduction will not experience this as incidental when it has to cut a job, slow a wage increase, or scrap an expansion. A family that sees its state liability rise does not feel comforted by the claim that everyone else's refund made the books. Balance on paper, or I'm sorry, refund made the books balance on paper. To the individual taxpayer who is paying more, the loss is neither incidental nor insignificant. Additionally, revenue-neutral redistribution is still redistribution. The state is picking winners and losers. One set of taxpayers who invest heavily in equipment, production, and research will be required to pay more so that another set of taxpayers can receive larger refundable credits. Whether one likes the destination of the dollars or not, the mechanism is still mandatory redistribution enforced through this tax code. Businesses and workers who are on the paying side of that equation are not less deserving of constitutional protections just because the new spending is politically attractive. They still have payrolls to meet, leases to pay, and investments to justify. And in many cases, the very same businesses that are being asked to pay more are the ones providing the jobs that parents rely on to support the children we all want to help. This bill also sends a troubling signal to businesses that are reconsidering where to invest and expand. I've already mentioned multiple times these past few weeks that Colorado has lost 98 businesses in just a few years, and that has resulted in almost 1,400 jobs. That has lost almost 1,400 jobs. If you think this bill won't hurt more jobs or workers, you're wrong. When the cost of financing equipment, upgrading technology, or investing in research goes up, because tax deductions are curtailed, those dollars have to come from somewhere. Often it means slowing hiring, delaying raises, reducing benefits, or fewer opportunities training and advancement. The rhetoric suggests we are simply trimming tax expenditures for faceless entities, but in practice we are squeezing the very investment that create high-quality jobs for Colorado families. For these reasons, I will be a strong no on this bill. It increases taxes on some Coloradans without their consent, picks winners and losers, and sends a discouraging message to the businesses and workers who drive our economy. Supporting families and children is a shared value on both sides of the aisle, but this isn't the question here. The question is if this bill keeps faith with our Constitution, our taxpayers, and our long-term economic health. On that question, the answer should be no, and members, I urge a no vote on this bill. Representative DeGraff. Thank you, Madam Speaker. So as we can expect, that all of the infinite number of tax increases from here on out will come with spending increases to magically negate each other. Now, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights deals with an increase in revenue, which this bill does. The tax, the Tabor cap deals with how that revenue is spent. So this is two tax bills rolled into one, just like we talked about the other day. Maybe you have the and, modification of tax expenditures, and in connection there with making additions to the definition of federal income. Okay, maybe those are the same bill. But when you get into and, creating the family affordability tax credit. Family affordability credit, modification of tax expenditures. Now, the sponsors, the tax and spenders, would have us believe that these are somehow related in a single subject, that they're somehow a single subject in the sense that they both deal with money. And apparently the only thing that citizens money in Colorado for, tax widgets of Colorado, the only reason that you have money is for the General Assembly to take it. And as long as you have it, expect this. So what does this bill do? Well, let's see. There was the tax code thing that expanded because it talks about how the state income tax is imposed on federal taxable income, imposed. So all of these, so more imposition. And the crimes for which this bill is the judge, jury, and execution are expanding the business interest deduction, expanding the bonus depreciation, and creating an elective 100% for qualified production property. Sounds like that would be something that you would use to put property back into production. and that it created a new section to deduct domestic research and experimental expenditures. But the bottom line is this is two policies. It two policies combined by an and in order to cancel each other out so that what you have the tax revenue increase that you have on this side is offset by the spending increase also on this side Now who's going to pay these prices? Who's going to pay these taxes? Well, the tax widgets of Colorado are going to pay these. the sponsors are going to tell you that these are going to be paid by businesses the businesses that they're actively trying to chase out of colorado and doing a dang good job but i think this is just one of three bills in the same genre simultaneous tax and spend what the majority party does best. Representative Garcia.

Representative DeGraff, this is your second time to speak. You have six minutes and 14 seconds remaining.

Representative, I'm sure you are not accusing members of lying. Representative McCormick.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1222. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes Please close the machine With 42 I 23 no and zero excused House Bill 1222 is adopted Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1289.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1289 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1289 on third reading final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 42 I, 23 no and zero excused, House Bill 1289 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1223 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1223 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 42 I, 23 no and zero excused, House Bill 1223 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1221 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1221 on third reading, final passage. Mr. She will please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 42I 23 no and zero excused, House Bill 1221 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1065 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1065 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 44I-21 no and zero excused, House Bill 1065 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1004 on third reading and final passage.

Thank you. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1004 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 51 I 13 no and one excused House Bill 1004 is adopted Co Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 141 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 141 on third reading final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. please close the machine with 49 I 16 no and zero excuse Senate Bill 141 is adopted co-sponsors Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1328 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1328 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Clifford. Please close the machine. with 56I 9 no and 0 excused House Bill 1328 is adopted co-sponsors please close the machine Madam Majority Lead No

Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1111 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1111 on third reading, final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine with 45 I, 20 no and zero excused House Bill 1111 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move to lay over House Bill 1117 until tomorrow. House Bill 1117 will be laid over until tomorrow, May 5th.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 150 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 150 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 39 I, 26 no, and zero excuse, Senate Bill 150 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 151 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 151 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Yes Please close the machine With 52 I, 13 no and zero excuse, Senate Bill 151 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move Senate Bill 142 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 142 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 55 aye, 10 no, and 0 excuse, Senate Bill 142 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1423 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1423 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Thank you. Pascal Story Valdez Please close the machine. With 65 eyes, 0-9, No and zero excused. House Bill 1423 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1014 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1014 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. with 59I 6 no and 0 excused House Bill 1014 is adopted co-sponsors please Close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1059 on third reading and final passage. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1059 on third reading and final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote.

Representative Camacho votes yes. Please close the machine. With 61 I, 4 no, and 0 excused, House Bill 1059 is adopted. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move House Bill 1255 on third reading and final passage.

Representative Story. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The FBI launched a search warrant process to identify the user, which requires a three-step sequential demonstration of probable cause. First the IP address, then for the URL, and finally for the user's contact information. Federal and state law currently allows social media companies 35 days to respond to a judicial search warrant. And according to law enforcement companies often utilize every single one of those days In the case of the Evergreen High School shooting this three process took about 70 days from the initial report until the file reached the Jefferson County Sheriff. The shooting happened two days prior. The file identifying the user arrived two days after. It's heartbreaking and maddening. If the file had come three days sooner, there would have been one day to interrupt or disrupt the shooter's plan. If the file had come four days sooner, there would have been two days to interrupt or disrupt the shooter's plan. Just a few days would have meant life-threatening injuries could have been avoided. Just a few days would have meant that students and staff wouldn't be dealing with the life-altering trauma and PTSD that will be with them forever. Just a few days would have meant parents wouldn't be suffering with the realities of their children that faced that day. the whole community wouldn't still be enduring the pain of that tragic event. It's time to set a search warrant response time that aligns with the speed of our world and the technical ability of social media platforms to respond. The critical need for a timely response means that days and hours truly matter. It is time for these platforms to partner with our communities and recognize that reporting specific imminent threats that violate their own policies will protect people from trauma and save lives. This will protect communities from the immense harm that Evergreen and Conifer are experiencing today. No one wants this in their community. And this policy could interrupt plans that are in the works right now in any of our neighborhoods. I also wanted to share a little bit of data that came to light. According to the Journal of Pediatric Healthcare, 76% of school shooters had social media posts that contained disturbing content. 44% posted that at least one photograph of a gun. 40% posted a threatening message on more than one social media platform. According to the U.S. Secret Service, in 94% of the cases, plotters shared their intentions about carrying out an attack with others. And according to the National Threat Assessment Center, in 100% of school shooting cases studied, perpetrators displayed observable warning indicators before the event. Those are significant statistics. And this policy is meant to address those incidents, those times, scores and scores of times, huge percentages of times that those that are plotting some kind of tragic or violent event, often tell somebody or post on it in particular. I also understand the reasoning behind my colleagues' wish to leave it at 72 hours. But the reality is that 72 hours is two more days, obviously, than 24. But when you have to go through the process three times to get a search warrant that provides the user's contact information, that's six additional days. Three days would have made a difference for the Evergreen High School shooting. six days is too much time. There's an article that came out a couple of days ago about a woman who was being stalked online, and she believed it to be an ex-boyfriend, and she kept trying to identify for sure. she was horrified by the comments that kept being made about things that she was done and doing and places where she was and couldn't figure out how this ex-boyfriend knew all of this information and in time she was killed in advance of that law enforcement was working to through a search warrant process to identify the user that was making these claims. And they hadn't identified the user yet. But after her death, they went and asked for a search warrant on the contact, the user's information, and they got it in an hour. An hour. But after she died. People shouldn't have to die for us to figure this out. There's no reason why 24 hours can't happen. And nobody, nobody is complaining about this. There's no reason why we can't do this. And we should. I'd like to read one more testimony from a parent on September 10th, 2025 my 17 year old son walked into the hallway to refill his water bottle he stopped for a moment to talk with a favorite teacher representative story you have a minute left seconds later he heard a loud noise and just a few feet away turned to see a gunman gunman fire directly at him he could have been killed at home i got a text from my husband to coach at school shooter in the school i have our son our daughter is running for the daughter it was less than two weeks into her first year of high school and across town her 11 year old sat in the dark hiding under his desk Her son struggles to sleep and he on edge The daughter is afraid to be alone gets sick from anxiety Both of them now spend part of their lives in therapy And as a parent, they feel it too. A siren, a loud noise. It's all horrible. Trauma has changed our family in immeasurable ways. The maddening part is knowing it didn't have to happen. Representative Story, your time has expired. If this bill had existed before the gun was ever bought and brought into their school, they wouldn't have to have run for their lives. Thank you. I urge a yes vote. The motion before us is the adoption of House Bill 1255 on third reading final passage. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. please close the machine with 36 I 29 no and zero excuse Taos bill 1255 is adopted co-sponsors Please close the machine. Madam Majority Leader. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move to lay over Senate Bill 149 until tomorrow. Seeing no objections, Senate Bill 149 will be laid over until tomorrow. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move to lay over House Bill 1307 until tomorrow. House Bill 1307 will be laid over until tomorrow. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move to proceed out of order for consideration of Senate amendments to House bills. Seeing no objection, we will proceed out of order for consideration of Senate amendments to House bills. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1183. House Bill 1183 by Representatives McCormick and Duran, also Senators Cutter and Pelton B. Concerning the continuation of the licensing of pet animal facilities by the Commissioner of Agriculture in accordance with the Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act, any connection therewith implemented the recommendations contained in 2025. Sends a report by the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Madam Majority Leader. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move to concur with House Bill 1183. With House... With Senate Amendments. Yeah, let's start over. Thank you. Madam Majority Leader, could you repeat the motion? Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move to concur with Senate Amendments to House Bill 1183. Excellent. Please proceed. Representative McCormick. Thank you Madam Speaker In the Senate they adjusted the guidelines in the bill regarding the advisory committee to have a more fair process for the seats on the advisory committee and they also adjusted the bill language to align with the previously passed bill House Bill 1011 and that why we concur with what they did over there and ask for an aye vote Seeing no further discussion the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1183 Mr Schiebel please open the machine and members proceed to vote Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. Ricks please close the machine with 46 I 19 no and zero excuse the motion to concur is adopted Madam Majority Leader Madam Speaker I move for the repassage of House Bill 1183 as amended the motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1183 as amended Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Yes. Representative Camacho votes yes. Garcia and Story. Please close the machine. With 43 I, 22 no and zero excused, House Bill 1183 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1184. House Bill 1184 by Representatives Lukens and Morrow, also Senators Cutter and Marchman, concerning the continuation of the Colorado Forest Health Council and in connection therewith, implementing the recommendation of the Department of Regulatory Agencies in the Department's 2025 Sunset Report. Representative Lukens. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move the House reject the Senate amendments to House Bill 1184 and that a conference committee be appointed with permission to go beyond the scope of differences between the House and Senate. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Speaker. There was a typo that was discovered, and we need to fix it in a conference committee. We ask for your yes vote. I'm sorry, Representative Lukens, could you repeat that? I didn't hear. Oh, I'm sorry, Madam Speaker. There was a typo in one of the amendments that was added on. to the bill in the Senate and we need to fix it in the conference committee. Thank you. Members, the motion before us is not to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1184 and instead proceed to the conference committee and go beyond the scope. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Representative Camacho, how do you vote? Oh! Two places at once. Representative DeGraft. There we go. Please close the machine With 65 ayes 0 no 0 excuse the motion to not concur and proceed to conference committee and go beyond the scope is adopted The conference committee for House Bill 1184 will be Representative Lukens' chair, Representative Morrow, and Representative Johnson. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1194. House Bill 1194 by Representatives English and Barone, also Senator Hendrickson, concerning the continuation of the Office of Combative Sports and in connection therewith, implementing the recommendations of the Department of Regulatory Agencies in the Department's 2025 sunset report. Representative Barone. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Members, I'm sorry. I move that the House concur with Senate amendments to HB 26-1194. Representative English Thank you Madam Speaker DOR recommends changing his amendments to reflect the current license types available in the program and remove adding the new license types for matchmakers and managers in addition the original amendment struck promoters in this section promoters should be unstuck as that is still an active license type within the program. And we ask for a yes vote. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1194. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 58 ayes, 7 no and 0 excused, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move for the repassage of House Bill 1194 as amended. The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1194 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 53 aye, 12 no, and 0 excused, House Bill 1194 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1026. House Bill 1026 by Representatives Marshall and Hamrick, also Senator Colker, concerning an expansion of plan options for the Public Employees Retirement Association. Madam Speaker, I move... Representative Marshall. Thank you. Sorry. Madam Speaker, I move... I move to concur with the Senate Amendments to House Bill 1026. Please proceed. To explain the huge differences we have between the Senate, we are going to invoke Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. So you say either and I say either. You say neither and I say neither. Either, neither, neither, neither. Let's call the whole thing off. You like potato and I like potato. You like tomato and I like tomato. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Let's call the whole thing off. However, on this bill, we move that the House concur with the Senate amendments to House Bill 26, 1026. So the Senate wanted to change our pay to the fund, basically, to allocate it to the applicable fund. Very important changes, but we're willing to accept them and not fight them on it, so we asked for a yes. I'm speechless. That was an outstanding performance. Members, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1026. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 63 I 2 no and 0 excused The motion to concur is adopted Madam Majority Leader Madam Speaker I move for the repassage of House Bill 1026 as amended The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1026 as amended Mr. Schiebel please open the machine and members proceed to vote Please close the machine. With 51 I, 14 no and zero excused, House Bill 1026 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1008. House Bill 1008 by Representatives Lukens and Taggart, also Senators Marchman and Ricks, concerning measures to enhance outdoor recreation opportunities in the state and in connection therewith, expanding the Division of Parks and Wildlife Capacity for Outdoor Recreation Coordination, Planning and Management, and Making Appropriation. Representative Lukens. Thank you, Madam Speaker. In an effort to support outdoor rec across the state, our local governments wanted to play a role in how we recreate. So we added an amendment to which our local partners said, wow, that's great. Therefore, I move that the House concur and Senate amendments to House Bill 1008. Thank you Any additional conversation Seeing none the motion before us is to concur with Senate Amendments to House Bill 1008 Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. please close the machine with 61 I for no and zero excuse the motion to concur is adopted Madam Majority Leader Madam Speaker I move for the repassage of House Bill 1008 as amended The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1008 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. with 46I19 no and zero excused House Bill 1008 is repassed as amended co-sponsors please close the machine Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1053. House Bill 1053 by Representative Morrow, also Senators Pelton B. and Wallace, concerning the administration of duties related to the ownership of a vehicle and a connection of the earth making appropriation. Representative Morrow. I move to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1053. Please proceed. I rise with purpose, steady and restrained, a bill once clear, now altered, rearranged. Not all I hope remains within its frame, yet progress, even changed, still serves the aim. So with reluctance but a duty to fulfill, I concur with Senate amendments to the bill. And ask for your aye vote. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1053. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 65 ayes, 0, no, 0, excuse, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move for the repassage of House Bill 1053 as amended. The motion before us is to adopt House Bill 1053 is the repassage of House Bill 1053 as amended Mr Schiebel please open the machine and members proceed to vote Please close the machine. with 65 ayes, 0 no, and 0 excuse. The House Bill 1053, as amended, is repassed. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title of the House Bill 1088. House Bill 1088 by Representatives Clifford and Taggart, also Senators Cutter and Colker, concerning entity filings made by the Secretary of State and in connection therewith making appropriation. Representative Taggart. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move that the House concur with Senate amendments for House Bill 1088. Please proceed. Weak. That was. Worst gobble I've heard this year. Representative Clifford. In the wild west of filings where fraudsters play their games, some sneaky shell pops up and tries to hide its shady name. But Senate tweet the script with wisdom sharp and true, no bogus agents riding shotgun in our business crew. We void the bounce check phantoms, swift as mountain air, dismiss the cousin's grudge complaints that waste the SOS's care. No more letting crooks impersonate with glee. We slap a warning label on all for the state to see. We urge an aye vote. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments on House Bill 1088. Mr. Sheba, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 65 ayes, 0 no, 0 excused, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move for the repassage of House Bill 1088 as amended. The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1088 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 65 ayes, 0 no, and 0 excused, House Bill 1088 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine Mr Shebo please read the title to House Bill 1320 House Bill 1320 by Representatives Nguyen and Garcia, also Senator Benavidez, concerning statutory requirements for ballot title language and in connection therewith, requiring the use of accessible language and allowing for the modification of statutorily required ballot title language. Representative Nguyen. Madam Speaker, I move to concur with the Senate amendments to House Bill 1320. please proceed good job to honor Star Wars Day in May the 4th twinkle twinkle little Death Star how I wonder where you are up above in the sky of Alderaan flying through the Death Star run flying through turbo blasters using my navigation computer for today I concur with the Senate with their amendments representative Garcia Well, to tell you what exactly happened, in regard to the legislative instrument mandating the implementation of linguistically accessible nomenclature within ballot initiatives, the deliberative upper body has merely executed a formalistic technical recalibration to ensure rigorous ontological alignment with the requisite statutory codifications. We ask for an aye vote. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1320. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 53 I, 12 no, and zero excused, House Bill, oh, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move for the repassage of House Bill 1320 as amended. The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1320 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 43 I-22 no and zero excused House Bill 1320 as amended is repassed Co-sponsors Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1019 House Bill 1019 by Representatives Leader and Bacon also Senators Roberts and Rich concerning mandatory health care coverage for preventive kidney function screening services AML Bacon Thank you Madam Speaker I move that the House concur with the Senate amendments to House Bill 1019. Please proceed. Want me to do it? Here, I'll do this. AML Bacon. When it comes to legislating, we all try to do our part. We reminded the Senate that everyone has kidneys, even though they may not all have hearts. Oh, representative leader. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Yeah, I said I'm not doing a poem. So, colleagues, the Senate made one technical amendment at the request of the Department of Personnel and Administration. DPA apologized for bringing a late amendment. So all it does is it modifies language in Section 3 from must not to are not required to. It's a small change that gives DPA flexibility rather than a prohibition in administering and administering the state employee's benefit plan. So the core of the bill is unchanged. It's bipartisan in the Senate, and it passed 32 to 2. So we asked for an aye vote. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1019. Mr. Scheeble, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 65 ayes, 0 no, and 0 excused, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader.

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1019 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 45 I, 20 no and zero excused, House Bill 1019 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. First we co-sponsored. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1318.

Representative Wynn.

Please proceed. Representative Froehlich.

Representative Wynn?

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1318. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Kelty Richardson Ricks Soper Please close the machine With 58 ayes 7 no and 0 excuse The motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader.

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1318 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 46I 19 no, zero excused, House Bill 1318 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1214.

Representative Jackson.

Please proceed.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1214. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Cardinal Carter Clifford Degraff Please close the machine With 65 ayes, 0 no, 0 excuse The motion to concur is adopted Madam Majority Leader

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1214 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. with 43 I 22 no and 0 excused House Bill 1214 is repassed as amended co-sponsors please close the machine Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1258.

Representative Soper.

Representative Titone.

Seeing no further discussion, AML Winter.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is not to concur with Senate amendments to appoint a conference committee and that the conference committee be granted the ability to go beyond the scope of the two chambers. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. AML Bacon is excused. Please close the machine. With 61 I, 2 no, and 2 excuse, the motion to not concur is adopted. The conference committee for House Bill 1258 will be representatives to Tone as Chair Soper and Martinez Mr Schiebel please read the title to House Bill 1260

Representative Princess Leia Wilford, thank you very much for the proper recognition, Madam Speaker.

Representative Garcia.

Please proceed.

Representative Wilford.

May the fourth be with you Seeing no further discussion the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1260 Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote DeGraff Please close the machine With 64 I, 1 no and 0 excused The motion to concur is adopted Madam Majority Leader

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1260 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. with 65 eyes, zero no, zero excuse, House Bill 1260 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1283.

Representative Joseph.

Please proceed.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House bill 1283. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Basinecker and DeGraff. Please close the machine. With 46 I, 19 no and zero excused, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader.

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1283 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Please close the machine. With 43 I, 22 no, and zero excused, House Bill 1283 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1313.

Please proceed.

Speaker Pro Tem Basinecker.

The Senate adopted a number of amendments, including a stakeholder process to inform planned allocations in years where there's decrease in funding. You might remember some conversation around this in relation to an orbital bill we passed. We also worked on proportional unit counts and then some affordability covenant clarifications, and we asked for a yes vote. Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1313.

Madam Speaker, I move for the repassage of House Bill 1313 as amended.

House Bill 1006 by Representatives Velasco and Martinez, also Senator Roberts, concerning the designation of state institutions of higher education as thriving institutions.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move that the House concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1006.

In the Senate, my colleagues to the right will appreciate the petition clause that was added on, as well as redefining what role institutions mean. And I will concur in a state of defiance by saying live long and prosper Representative Velasco Thank you so much Madam Speaker Thriving students is the goal not enrollment alone

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1006. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Carter. Please close the machine. With 55I, 10 no, zero excuse, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader.

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1006 as amended. Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote. Ricks. Please close the machine. With 43 I, 22 no, and zero excused, House Bill 1006 is repassed as amended. Co-sponsors. Please close the machine. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1312.

Representative Clifford.

Yeah.

Please proceed.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is to concur with Senate amendments to House Bill 1312. Mr Schiebel please open the machine and members proceed to vote Please close the machine. With 65 ayes, 0 no, 0 excuse, the motion to concur is adopted. Madam Majority Leader

The motion before us is the repassage of House Bill 1312 as amended Mr. Schiebel, please open the machine and members proceed to vote Please close the machine. Oops. Representative leader, how do you vote? Representative leader votes yes. With 47 I, 18 no and zero excused House Bill 1312 is repassed as amended Co-sponsors Please close the machine. Members, any additional announcements? Madam Majority Leader.

And members, just to pause a moment, the next nine, eight days are busy. We will be working late. A round of applause for our amazing House staff and all those listening, OLLS, JBC, LCS, and the Auditor's Office. It is definitely a team sport. Madam Majority Leader.

Seeing no objection, balance of the calendar will be laid over until tomorrow, May 5th. Madam Majority Leader.

The House will stand in recess until later today.