Colorado House 2026 Legislative Day 078

Bottoms, Bradfield, Bradley, Brooks, Brown, Caldwell, Camacho, Carter, Clifford, Representative Clifford. Excuse. DeGraff. Duran. English. Representative English. Excuse. Espinoza. Foray. Flannell. Froelich. Garcia. Garcia-Sander. Gilchrist. Goldstein. Gonzalez. Hamrick. Representative Hamrick. Hartsook. Jackson. Representative Jackson. Johnson. Johnson. Joseph. Kelty. Leader. Lindsay. Representative Lindsay. Luck Lukens Mabry Marshall Martinez Morrow McCormick Wynn He's here Pascal Phillips Richardson Ricks Representative Ricks is excused Routenel Rep. Routenel excused Raiden Sirota Representative Sirota excused Slaw Smith Rep. Smith excused Soper Representative Soper excused Stuart K Stuart R Story. Representative Story. Excuse. Sukla. Taggart. Titone. Valdez A. Velasco. Weinberg. Wilford. Winter. Woodrow. Woog Zokai Representative Zokai excused and Madam Speaker Here. with 56 present nine excused we do have a quorum members if I could have it quiet in the chamber representative frolic

members you have heard the motion that the journal be approved as corrected by the chief clerk all those in favor say aye all those in opposed no the ayes The ayes have it, the motion is adopted. Announcements and introductions, representative leader. Representative leader.

Representative Bradley. Thank you, Madam Speaker. And members, I know this is a little long, but we rise today in support of Representative Leader's brother and my niece who tragically passed away two and a half years ago when she was 16 years old, signed up to be an organ donor, and gave eight different people a chance at life. So I'm so grateful to be here with you to talk about Ambria Diane McGregor. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was just talking about my niece who donated her life unselfishly so that eight people could live. How is National Donate Life Month recognized? Events include illuminating government buildings, hospitals, and driver's license offices in blue and green lights. Many hospitals and businesses across the region will also be holding flag-raising ceremonies, the cornerstone of National Donate Life Month. These ceremonies honor the donors, celebrate transplant recipients, and recognize those in our community still waiting for a life-saving organ transplant. When a donation occurs in a hospital, like my nieces, a Donate Life flag is often flown. to honor the gift of life. During April, this cornerstone event expands beyond the hospital to include the entire community. Across the country, flags are on display to provide an opportunity to come together to honor deceased donors and their families. This year, the Colorado State Capitol will release a flag in observation on April 6th and light up in blue and green on April 9th. So remember those families when you see those flags. Donor Alliance is shining a light on the importance of registering to be an organ, eye, and tissue donor and spotlighting the need to save and heal more lives in our community. Donor Alliance will be distributing lighting kits that you can place on your desk to support registering to become an organ, eye, and tissue donor. How is Donor Alliance involved? It is a nonprofit organization that facilitates organ and tissue donation for transplantation in Colorado and most of Wyoming. They honor a donor's decision to give the gift of life and walk alongside the family during the organ recovery process to ensure their loved one's gifts are safely received at a transplant center in a timely manner. And that was detrimental to my sister and our niece's life. Donor Alliance also recovers tissue to save and heal more lives across our community. Donor Alliance manages the Donate Life Colorado and Donate Life Wyoming donor registries. If you have the little heart like I do and like my niece did on your driver's license, that means you have joined the Donate Life registry. Through Donate Life, the symbol of the cause, Donor Alliance, educates and inspires the community about the importance of registering to be an organ, eye, and tissue donor. And I would put it out there to all of my colleagues to make sure you put that little heart on your driver's license. It is of the utmost importance to our community. So thank you.

Representative Joseph. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today we are marking the start of Child Abuse Prevention Month. This year's team, Pinwheel of Possibility. Each one of you has received a pinwheel at your desk. It celebrates the limitless potential of children and families when communities across Colorado come together to support them. The blue pinwheel, the national symbol for children or child abuse prevention, represents more than positive childhood experiences. With families at the center, each turn of the pinwheel reflects the systems the systems, programs, policies, and everyday acts of care that strengthen families and help them thrive.

Representative Wynn. Public systems often spend more responding to crises than preventing them. Investing in early family-centered supports strengthens communities, reducing long-term costs, and keeps families safely together whenever possible.

Representative Joseph. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today we have a representative from Illuminate here. Please stand and be recognized by our colleagues.

Representative Mabry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. Judiciary Committee members, we're going to be meeting at 1.30 in room 107. We are going to hear House Bill 1288, House Bill 1312, House Bill 1329, and House Bill 1100. 1.30 or 10 minutes upon adjournment, room 107.

Representative Sutton. Thank you, Mr. McBride. Joint Technology Committee members, 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, SDR. 352, we're going to have a bill draft discussion and some other committee business. Please be on time, 8 o'clock.

Thank you, Rep. Brooks.

Representative Gilchrist. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. The Health and Human Services Committee will not be meeting today.

And then I also wanted to announce it is National Walking Day today. So hopefully you all, yes, exactly, Minority Leader of Caldwell. The American Heart Association and the governor are recognizing National Walking Day and hope that you all can join them on the Capitol steps at 1230 today to celebrate and walk around the Capitol. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's see. It's Representatives Froelich and then Representatives Wilford.

Boring state affairs will not be meeting today

Majority Leader Duran. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. I move to proceed out of order for consideration of resolutions.

Majority Leader Duran. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. I move for the immediate consideration of House Joint Resolution 1025.

concerning Sexual Assault Awareness Month and in connection therewith, recognizing April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month and designating April 29, 2026 as Colorado Denim Day.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. I move for the adoption of House Joint Resolution 1025 and ask that it be resolved clause be read.

that we, the members of the Colorado General Assembly, recognize April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month and designate April 29, 2026 as Colorado Denim Day, a statewide event aligning with Denim Day events across the world, and we are proud to recognize CCASA and other organizations that work to unite Colorado communities in support of ending sexual violence. Majority Leader Duran. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. Thank you, Representative Johnson, for your partnership in bringing forward this Denim Day resolution and to stand firmly and unapologetically with sexual assault survivors across Colorado and this nation. Today marks the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, a month not just of recognition but of responsibility, a month where we shine light into places that have too long been kept in silence, A month where we tell survivors we see you, we hear you, and we will not look away. Every year I've carried this resolution because awareness is not a one-time act. It is a commitment. It is a promise that we will continue to show up, continue to speak out, and continue to do the work to prevent sexual violence and support those who have endured it. And we carry this message through Denim Day, a movement born out of injustice. In 1998, the Italian Supreme Court overturned a rape conviction, arguing that because the victim was wearing tight jeans, she must have helped remove them, implying consent. But women did not stay silent. The very next day, women in the Italian Parliament came to work wearing jeans in solidarity. What began as outrage became a global movement, a refusal to accept victim blaming, a refusal to let harmful myths stand, and a call for truth, accountability, and change. Denim Day is more than a symbol. It is a statement. A statement that we reject culture that excuses or minimizes sexual violence. A statement that consent matters, that survivors matter, and accountability matters. It is also a call to action to invest in the services, the advocates and the organizations who walk alongside survivors every single day, helping them find their voice, their strength and their path forward. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault for their unwavering commitment to survivors and for the work they do to endure so no one has to navigate the journey alone. And today I make this ask of this body. This is my last year in the House to carry this resolution, but this work does not belong to one person. It belongs to all of us. I ask that this caucus continue this resolution forward year after year and that we do it together, Democrats, Republicans alike, because sexual assault is not partisan, pain is not partisan, and healing is not partisan. Let's do this. Let's be the place where we rise above politics and we stand with humility because survivors deserve that and more And I ask for your yes vote today Thank you Representative Johnson Thank you Speaker Pro Tem And I am humbled to be on this resolution with Majority Leader Duran

Madam Majority Leader.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move the following bills be made special orders on April 1st, 2026 at 9.32 a.m. Senate Bill 18 and House Bill 1322.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Rule 14, I move that debate on House Bill 1322 be limited to three hours during special orders on April 1, 2026. The motion before us pursuant to House Rule 14 is that debate on House Bill 1322 be limited to three hours during special orders today, April 1, 2026. This is, again, a non-debatable motion pursuant to House Rule 15E that requires a majority of all members to pass.

Representative Woodrow.

Representative Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair, members, I'm excited to be here with my fabulous co-prime to present you Senate Bill 18. Oh, and in order to talk about it, I will move it at this exact moment. So I move Senate Bill 18. To the bill, Representative Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. What this bill does, it's actually very, very simple and very narrow in its scope. What this bill does is if there is a minor that wants to change their name for any reason, let's say they're adopted, let's say they are escaping domestic violence, let's say they want to change their name for gender-affirming reasons, let's say they need to correct their name because something was incorrect in their birth certificate, there's many, many different reasons why a minor may need to change their name. So what this bill does is it adds a level of protection for the minor that chooses to change their name by suppressing the record. So it's automatically suppressed. That means that it's not searchable. You can't find the record any longer. Why is this important? It's important because I think all of us in the last several days, well, all of us as long as we've been here, actually care about kids and we care about keeping kids safe and protecting kids. And this is one of the steps that we need to take in order to continue to protect kids if they end up having to change their names. I want to talk a little bit about what the process looks like because I know that there were some questions in committee about parental notification, about parent engagement. and I want to say that a minor cannot change their name without parental permission. The parents, if there are two, have to sign a petition, Petitioner 1 and Petitioner 2, in order for the child to get their name changed. If there is a non-custodial parent, they will be notified. They are signing a different form. But there is nothing in this bill, there is no intention. I want to make sure that is very clear for folks that like to comment on intention, that there is absolutely zero intention here of hiding anything from any parent. This is about keeping kids safe. So how does this work? The child and custodial parents agree to file for a name change. If there is a non-custodial parent, they must be notified of the name change. Hear me when I say that. A non-custodial parent will still be notified. If a child is over 14, they must do a fingerprinting with the CBI and FBI. Get it? If the child is over 14, they still get a background check before anyone grants a name change. A petition is filed in court that has either both parent signatures or proof of notification of non parents There is a hearing where a judge evaluates the reasons for the name change and determines if it is a good reason or not. This is not a willy-nilly kid just walks into the courtroom and says, please change my name from, I don't know, Lorena to Maria, because I feel like it. That doesn't happen, and it won't happen. There are multiple steps, there's multiple spaces where parents are informed, notified, have to give permission to sign off on this name change. This bill is about making sure that the privacy of minors is intact. If anyone in this room who has children who needs to make a correction of their kids' names, or maybe because you get a divorce and you marry someone else and that other person adopts their kid and they want to change the name to that name, I believe in my whole heart that none of us and none of you parents want that information out in the world for anyone to find. This is a simple bill that suppresses a record. It does not seal. It suppresses a record for a minor's name change for the protection and the privacy of the minor. And with that, I will turn it over to my colleague.

Representative Garcia-Sander. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I think we've heard a lot in the news about name changes and how difficult that can be sometimes. And a name change is a major thing. It involves changing Social Security cards and birth certificates and passports and driver's license and school records. It can be something that just takes a lot of time and I this is a major decision especially if you have a divorced or split household and you share custody. I have a question for the bill sponsor and this is really coming from the parent involvement area. I was listening to you and there was some talking and I may have missed it but I want to make sure that both parents are giving signed consent to a name change? That's my initial question.

Representative Garcia-Sander. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just for clarification, does the parent sign off on anything or is it just a verbal consent? Representative Garcia.

Representative Garcia-Sander. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I think I heard you say that both parents must sign unless it's a non-custodial parent with rights that have been revoked. Is that correct?

and determines if it's for good cause. AML Winter. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to move amendment L014 to Senate Bill 18 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it. petition clause. We bring this amendment all the time. We believe that the folks of Colorado should be able to redress their grievances with their own government. We look at this as a staple of our American values and the ability to step in. We understand that in some of the bills that we pass in this building, there is an absolute need for a safety clause. We also believe that ever since COVID hit, the use of the safety clause has been way thrown out of whack. And we would just like the ability for anybody, whether it be parents, basically, you know, especially after what we've seen this year with all the things that are making the ballot. Obviously, the people of Colorado want to be able to redress their grievances with the state. And we think this creates the ability for them to do that in a manner that we can in our society, the republic that we represent, be able to do. So that urge an aye vote. Any further discussion on 014? Minority Leader Caldwell.

I'll accept majority leader.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Any further discussion? Representative Froelich.

Any further discussion on L014? Seeing none, members, the question before us is the adoption of Amendment L014. All in favor say... A division has been called. Thank you. Thank you. Members, the question before us is the adoption of Amendment 014. A division has been requested. All those in the chamber not entitled to vote, please sit and remain seated. All those in favor of Amendment 014, please stand and remain standing in one place, or raise your hand and keep it raised until the count is taken You may be seated. All those opposed, please stand and remain standing in one place, or raise your hand and keep it raised until the count is taken. You may be seated. Amendment 014 is lost. Back to the bill, Representative Luck.

Thank you for your patience, Representative Luck.

my questions so far. Representative Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the questions, Representative. What I can say is we are not, we're not, we would not entertain putting court rules and process into statute. I think that is something that we've often seen and have often debated around the differences of, or around the powers of can we actually legislate what courts do in their practice, how judges operate. So the difference in this case and the reason why we can legislate on suppression is because we do already suppress all minor records, except for in this case. So we are catching up here. When it comes to, let's say, a 16-year-old has a job and they change their name, we are limiting online publication here. That doesn't mean that the family doesn't get to walk away without their certificate of a name change that then they use to update their name change for all of the reasons that exist, that you would have to update a name change, whether it's a school registration or if it's a job update of your documents. So they still have their proof saying this is where my name change is. We are explicitly saying you cannot publish online for any reason. The other thing is that a family could choose to not have their child's records suppressed. They could effectively say, don't suppress my child's records. So that's where I hope I answered your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And in addition, this process leads you to the Social Security Administration. Your Social Security number remains the same. So your employment and your name are linked at the Social Security at the federal level in perpetuity until you go through the process again.

Representative Garcia. I appreciate the question. It's not something we actually have to legislate for that type of, like for a parent to say, I don't want it suppressed. It just happens. It just is.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I ask to move actually I don ask I move amendment L015 and ask that it properly be displayed

This amendment asks that we are not only covering up felonies, but we are also including the minor was adjudicated for a misdemeanor offense involving a crime or violence, threats, sexual conduct, drug distribution, stalking, or witness intimidation. I think there's a lot of other crimes that aren't felonies that need to be acknowledged when considering the risk of suppression. I think that by doing this, it gives accountability. The idea that even low-level offenses should have, I mean, they should have real consequences. Public records are reinforced that actions matter and may deter repeat behavior if there's a reputable impact. Public safety awareness. Schools or neighbors may want to be aware of these incidents and prevent others from harm if there's a future offense. When records are more visible, people can track repeat offenses, prevent someone from being treated like a first-time offender over and over. There also is victim transparency. Victims may feel the system is more fair when offenses are hidden. I'm sorry, when offenses aren't hidden and there's visible acknowledgement of wrongdoing. And then lastly, preventing system abuse. Some argue confidentiality can be misused. Repeat offenders cycling through the system without escalating consequences. And lack of transparency may reduce trust in the judicial system. So a lot must take place for a felony conviction, especially in a state that is soft on crime. We shouldn't be covering for minors who have a lengthy record of criminal activity. And as a result, I urge my colleagues to be a no on this bill. but a yes on the amendment.

Representative Ferelik.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I support this amendment. Hope you will as well. I think we need to get away from these bills that allow identity laundering and hiding crime in behind the name change. machine. This is a great amendment to make sure that we are tracking and we're not losing track of things that we should be tracking. So name is a way to do that. We need to make sure that people can't just launder their identity by such an event because I'm sure even with parental consent, parents would love to be able to change their kid's name to get them away from any association with misdeeds. I recommend an aye vote on the amendment and a no on the bill.

Representative Frolick. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. We're going to ask for a no vote for a couple reasons. A, we're talking suppression, not sealing. B, criminal records follow a name change. And C, wow, thank you for expressing a desire to make sure that minors who've committed a crime are held up as examples of criminality. So we ask for a no vote.

Representative DeGraff. That's kind of unfair to allege at the very end because kids that don't change their name would have that criminality, that record of criminality follow them. So now what you would be encouraging is name changes for the purpose of evasion of responsibility for criminality. And when you create an evasion like that, you take away some of the disincentive towards that. So unless we're going to start expunging and create an equal playing field, because, yes, the name change will follow, the criminal record will follow the name change, but you're not going to have any indication of who that individual was. If that kid changes their name and you go back and you look in the court cases, are they going to change all of the records in that court case and in the references to that person who committed the crime, are you then going to amend that and say who the new name is? Because if you're not, then you're just making it possible for and encouraging kids that have run afoul of the law and are likely to run afoul of it again, you're encouraging them to go in, use this process, clog up the courts, and clog up the system in order to evade their history. So this is a good amendment to stop at, you know, if the sponsors really want to just help kids under abuse, then you carve out the ones that would abuse the system. I recommend an aye vote on this. Stop the identity laundering.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm here in support of this amendment. It goes up to age 18. So we've got 15, 16, 17-year-olds, almost 18-year-olds, who are drug dealers, who are violent criminals. And we see it every single day. And we want to allow them to have the protection of changing their name so they can skirt the system. No. Violent is violent. If they're a violent criminal, if they're a drug dealer, I mean, come on. We've seen it. We're in schools right now. In our high schools, we have people who actually go into these schools, not even in their district. They'll go to whatever school they want where they know the money is. They follow the money. And these 17 drug dealers these 16 drug dealers are not there to actually learn They there to deal drugs If these people are caught these are criminals Again we protecting the criminals and not the victims If these are criminals, they should not be able to change their name to skirt the system. That's what this amendment helps. It helps where these violent criminals are not able to take advantage of this bill that's being brought to us today. So I'm asking for a yes vote on this. Stand for the victims, not the criminals. Okay.

Representative Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I go through the bill, and I appreciate it being very short, I do have a question for the sponsor regarding the affidavit. I know under the page 2 six through ten or so, it talks to the fact that a party to the case can verbally authorize and then somebody who wants the records can present an affidavit saying they were verbally authorized by a party in the case. But I am curious and couldn't get an answer from folks I had talked to on this side is, can a minor actually provide that authorization to unseal a court record as a basis for that affidavit, or does it have to be a parent or an adult? Yeah, I guess my question is, can a minor child who's had their record suppressed, still a minor, is that a valid, can that minor child validly give a verbal consent to have their records unsealed to a third party? Because the way this reads, a party to the case can give that verbal authorization, but that could still be a minor child that's giving authorization to a random adult. I mean, maybe not random, but... Representative Garcia.

Merci, Mr. Chair. Darion, Representative Soper. And it's an honor to serve with you. It is an honor to serve with you. I rise in opposition to the bill. We've seen different iterations throughout the year. or years. The issue is still the same. The courts have the ability right now to suppress the records of a petitioner who's wanting to have their name changed. There is no restriction on what factors the court can consider. So they could consider the fact that the child was in an abusive situation, a criminal situation, that they're a victim or a survivor of a crime or if human trafficking. So there's an unlimited list in which the court can consider. It's really what the petitioner wants to make an argument about. In terms of newspaper publication, the court can... also waive that requirement for the same reasons as well. So the court has a lot of discretion and a lot of power in this area to do so. You just have to make your case to the court. And I guess that's where I have a little bit of a problem with the bill, is it erodes judicial discretion and infringes on the independence of the judiciary. That is a constitutional right of the judiciary to be able to make these findings on the record within their courtroom. Instead, it's now the legislative branch dictating to another branch of government how to conduct their affairs. We certainly would be shocked if the, for example, executive branch decided to write an executive order telling us how to conduct our affairs in this chamber. I think there would be protests. But instead, we have a bill that wants to dive into the inner workings of the judicial system and tell them, no longer can you consider this to be factors when someone makes an argument for why certain records should be suppressed or why publications should be waived. The other reason why it's important to have a general rule of publication, whether you're a minor or an adult, is to let the entire world know why the name change is taking place and to give notice. And you could be giving notice, for example, to creditors. You could be giving notice to, for example, a victim, if you're the perpetrator of a crime, that you might be someone they want to pursue civilly for wrongs that you had committed and being able to pay for those wrongs. We publish for a number of reasons. and it's to really let the world know if the new name change. I believe, by and large, most Coloradans are good people and they also want to call each of us by the right name. But how do you have notice to use an individual's correct name if nothing has ever been published? Nothing in a newspaper, nothing in a court record. And if you say to an individual, hello, person, and then fill in the blank, and they say, that's not my name, and by the way, there's another law on the books that makes that also an actionable offense for calling me the wrong name. How do I have notice? How do I have notice that I called an individual by the wrong name when, in fact, I should have known the right name, but I didn't know what the right name was without notice? And that's why publication is really important. We want to encourage Coloradans to do the right thing. We want to make sure that they're respectful, that they call people by the right name, by the name that the individual wants to be called. But that also means letting the world know what that name is, what the name was, and what the name became. We change names all the time in Colorado. I mean, whether it's an individual who's getting married, for example, taking their spouse's last name. There's cultures, like for example, the Thai culture. Any significant life event in the Thai culture requires a name change of your first and last name. So that a great example of when an individual gets married their name is changed when they graduate from college their name is changed When they get their PhD their name is changed When they have their first child their name is changed Their second child, their name is changed. When they land a promotion and a job, become a partner, their name is changed. And that's just for cultural reasons. You may have individuals who don't like their name. I mean, every one of us campaigned for office, so we all had our walk list that we go through. It's amazing how many people you and I know that as we're walking door to door, we're looking down at the walk list, and we say, huh, I thought their name was so-and-so. But in fact, you realize they're going by their middle name. Or their last name might be different, and you realize that they preferred to go by their mother's maiden name rather than by their father's name. They may not have legally changed that name, but it's really clear as you're looking at the voter list and you're going through the walk list that this person had actually gone by a different name. And then you have individuals who have a complete alias just because they didn't like their name. And sometimes they go through the legal process of a name change and sometimes they don't. But for those who do, It's important that all of us have the ability to know what the name is so that we can be respectful of that individual. I don't want to send a letter to an individual and use the wrong name. You know, when I'm writing my constituents and I'm sending out a few hundred letters, I want to use the right name. but under this bill it cuts off that that knowledge net that change so it kind of puts us in a very difficult situation for teeing us up to always be using the wrong name for an individual and that's wrong so those are just a couple of the reasons why I'm going to be voting no on the bill. I certainly appreciate where the sponsors came from on this. I mean, we heard the adult version, what was it last year, and this is the minor version. So I really do appreciate the intent there. I just see that the courts already have the tools to do what's in the bill, and we should leave it to judicial discretion. Thank you.

Representative Barron.

Please just give us one moment to display the amendment. It has been properly displayed to the amended Representative Barron.

Oh, sorry.

Minority Leader Caldwell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly agree with the intent of this amendment. If we're talking about automatically suppressing records in order to protect children. We do this a lot here where we do this all or nothing approach. And so if the argument is that this is for safety reasons on why we're automatically suppressing these records, what this amendment does is clarify those situations in which safety is the actual issue here. And so, again, we're always coming at this with all or nothing. We're saying we're going to automatically suppress all of them because of safety, but what about for all the ones that have nothing to do with safety, and that's not what it's about? This amendment clarifies that and says here are the instances where if we're suppressing the record for safety purposes, if they fall under this, then it will be automatically suppressed. Again, this all-or-nothing approach is what we do a lot here, but it's not necessary. We need to be a little more specific with it. This amendment does that, so I certainly urge an aye vote on this amendment.

Representative Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, just a reminder, the intent of this bill is to protect the privacy of minors. It is to protect the privacy of minors if they get a name change. What's interesting particular about this amendment, considering we just had a representative come up here talking about the bounds between when the legislature can legislate the duties of a judge or tell a judge what to do or not, And then here, we are having the legislature, we are proposing an amendment that tells the legislature how to decide what a reason is, a right reason to change a name or to support privacy or not. This amendment itself is a stark violation of separation of powers. So please vote no.

Representative Graff, please come back to L011.

So I am in favor of this amendment. Some of the reasons, as my predecessor here just said. But let me read the title again. Legal Protections for Dignity of Minors. Protections. Now let me read the amendment. Documented safety risk to the minor. Legal protections, documented safety. And then domestic abuse. Legal protections, protections, domestic abuse. Stalking. Legal protections, stalking. Legal protections, human trafficking. Now that one's a real ringer in this room. Legal protections, human trafficking. Credible threat of harm. Legal protections, credible threat of harm. This amendment is the bill. This amendment greatly appears to be the bill. But this is what's happening is we are seeing the House of Cards that is this whole context, this transgender ideology, we're seeing the House of Cards collapsing. I'm sorry, did you guys need something? No? I'll repeat it. You probably were talking. So this is about this House of Cards falling apart. We're already seeing it internationally. We're starting to see it nationally. The Supreme Court is already pushing this, and we're seeing lawsuits all over the United States for this, this House of Cards is collapsing. This is an ideology, and it's folding right in front of us. And this is why this bill and the next bill, this is why they're brought up. Because we're not actually trying to protect minors from credible threat of harm. We're harming them. These bills harm them. These bills are an attack against children, attack against also the created sovereignty of God. These are attacks. That's why these bills are being run. And I like it because it's just another display of what happens in this room to attack families, to attack children, to attack the idea that we want to stop a credible threat. And the credible threat is the bill. That's the credible threat. That's why the amendment will not be taken because it's addressing the actual issue of credible threat. We want to stop. Our side over here wants to stop credible threat. And that is what this amendment is about. The bill's the opposite. The bill is the threat. The bill is the attack. But the good thing is this House of Cards is collapsing. And here's the interesting thing is when you seal these things, this is what's going to continue to help the lawsuits. These lawsuits, they have already started and they are a coming because of the credible threat to children that we're trying to stop. Legal protections, legal protections, that's not what this bill is about. Credible threat of harm, that's what we're trying to amend, but that's actually what the bill is about. Credible threat to minors and we're trying to stop it. and we've continued to try to stop it and we will.

Representative Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, this bill, again, is about protecting the privacy of minors for any reason they change their name. But one thing I do want to address is I am actually grateful that this amendment is brought forward, even though we're going to ask you to reject it because I think that there's finally, finally acknowledgement that there is a real credible threat of harm to trans kids. Thank you.

Minority Leader Caldwell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I just want to address something that was mentioned a few minutes ago by the bill sponsor that my colleague from Colorado Springs, which I know there were two of them that were speaking, that's the taller one who talks more but a little bit quieter. this issue of the separation of powers and where the legislative branch judicial branch this entire bill the entire point of it is to direct the courts to do something and the paragraph that this amendment is addressing let me read it to you and you tell me if it sounds like we're telling the courts what to do and the separation of powers it says beginning July 1st 2026 if a petitioner under 18 years old at the time of filing the petition. A court record associated with a petition seeking to change the petitioner's name is a suppressed court record. Notwithstanding section 1315-102, the suppressed court record may be used by the court for administrative purposes, but the court shall under, excuse me, but the court shall not under any circumstance publish the petitioner's name. This entire bill is telling the courts what to do. is, may, shall. So when I hear this separation of powers argument, not telling judges not telling courts what to do we are the legislature This is what we do We pass the laws and then the judges follow those laws I used to hear it all the time in judiciary about when we increasing penalties or something Well we don want to tie the hands of judges The judges are following the laws that we pass, that we were elected by our constituents to pass these laws, and then the judges follow those laws. So I just, I continually hear this argument. Why are we tying the hands of judges or telling them what to do? We pass the laws. The judges follow the laws. We were elected by the people. This is our job. And so what this amendment is doing, to bring it back to the amendment, is changing that part, which that entire paragraph is telling judges what to do. And we're saying under these circumstances, you don't just automatically suppress it for any reason. These are the circumstances laid out. The amendment makes sense. It gets to the point of the bill. If it's about safety and protecting children, this is what that amendment does. And so I certainly urge an aye vote on this.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Colleagues, we didn't really get a chance to discuss what that amendment was as thoroughly as we would have because we wanted to let the proponents of the amendment state their case. And I'm glad that we did because I think a lot of things were illuminated in that discussion. But let's be clear, there are a lot of reasons why minors change their name. And some of them are happy and celebrated. You know, Jan Marcia and Cindy Brady are Brady's. They don't carry whoever their father was, but it's the Brady Bunch, and those three kids, okay, they're fictional, but they wanted to have the same last name. But there are lots of cases in which a stepfather adopts the children, and they want to match their stepfather's name. They want to match their sibling's name. There's religious conversion in which a child converts to a religion and wants the name associated with that religion. and yes, sometimes it's to escape abuse or to be kept safe. That amendment would have said that's the only valid reason. And what we're saying is the reason a child, a minor, wants to change their name is private. The reason is private, as will their name change be private. It's none of our business what the motivation is. The parents are consenting to this, and yes, sometimes it's to affirm a gender identity, and I think we heard that that is the one reason that is untenable, and I'm glad we got that on the record, because we think, A, none of your business, why a minor may want to change their name if the parents are consenting to this process, It's none of our business whether it's a happy reason or it's a scared and protective reason. But the whole process should be private. And it's not because they're a teenage criminal, by the way, because crime records follow your name change. So we've been all over the map with reasons why we shouldn't allow this privacy to occur. And so, again, I'm grateful that the main reason, the reason why we have a lineup in the well, is because of this one reason, and that's to affirm a gender identity. And that's where the problem is. So we are saying, please respect the privacy of minors, no matter what the reason is. happy or danger, sadness, none of our business.

Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So I want to shift gears here a little bit. we just heard a statement about the reasons on the bill. So let's talk about something specifically in the bill. On page three, starting at line three, in the ring gross one, we're telling the courts that anything that's filed before the implementation date of July 1st, they're going to make everything retroactive. Now, in the fiscal note, it shows zero. It shows zero in the first fiscal note. It shows zero in the second fiscal note. However, the fiscal note does state on the technical note on the second page, it says the safety clause, so if you follow me for a minute, it says the safety clause in the bill results in an effective date that will make timely implementation difficult for the department and may result in noncompliance with certain provisions of the bill. A January 1, 2027 effective date would allow the department to train and make system updates. So we've got the judicial branch, the department over there, saying they, A, need more time, and any time you make changes, you need two things in resources. You need personnel and you need funding. Right now, the JBC has been working diligently for, I don't know, six, eight, ten months, however long. It hit the news a week and a half ago that we're $1.5 billion short. The JBC has been working adamantly to correct that. we still have a huge budget problem making cuts in all kinds of places, but we are now going to add to that demand of the judiciary and tell them you have to do these things in 90 days from when this is passed and signed. That doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any fiscal sense. It doesn't make any personnel sense. Everything that we've argued about on the budget, that doesn't comply. Therefore I move amendment L010 and request it to be properly displayed That a proper motion Please give us a moment to display L

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if you'd notice at the amendment, all we're simply saying is that outline that I addressed moments earlier on page 3, we're going to strike lines 3 through 7. because lines three through seven are telling the courts that anything that is filed prior to that implementation date, so it will all be retroactive, they have to do all of that on top of everything else. So let's look at this. We A, know we're in a budget crunch. We have a structural deficit. We are telling the judiciary that you have to do something that they have told us they are neither trained for, staffed for, or anything else. And they said, if you give the implementation of 27, maybe we can get there. But we still have all these retroactive issues. But somehow we come up with zero amount in the fiscal bill, and yet they're saying that it's going to cost personnel, time, and money. So we can't have it both ways. We have a structural deficit. We have JBC working their tail off to try to figure out how to get these cuts in there. and now we're telling another Department of Government, hey, you have to do this thing not only going forward, but you have to deal with anything that's been retroactive. You have to do it immediately upon the signing here, and we're not going to give you extra bodies. We're not going to give you more money. We're not going to give you additional resources. We're giving you nothing. You must take this out of Hyde. So what is going to have to be given up? That is not addressed. We don't ask that anywhere in the bill. We don't talk to the judiciary to say, what is it you can't do? They're telling us that they can't meet this timeline. They're telling us that things are going to be in noncompliance. So from a fiscal perspective, a personnel perspective, we are levying a requirement upon the judiciary that they are telling us they can't meet. That is not responsible government. That is not common sense. That's not even logical. and yet the bill says it doesn't cost anything. And the judiciary is saying it's costing us the ability to do our job over there. I recommend that we vote an aye on this amendment and we strike that clause from those lines from page 3, lines 3 through 7, to give the judiciary a breathing room. I urge an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I just wanted to point out that the part about not telling the judiciary what they should do, and again, this bill telling the judiciary exactly what they should do and exactly what they should do in the past. and it is kind of interesting that the sponsor comes up here happy glad whatever brady's that was a published name crime records follow the name change yeah but the name change doesn't necessarily follow the crime records so you have two different things you have these records that are attached to the name are they going to go back through and are they going to change the name in all of the crime records in all of the judicial proceedings in all of the documents where that old name is used Are they going to go back and change all that Because that not a fiscal note That's not a $0 fiscal note. And in the future, when they put somebody, when they try somebody, are they going to have to just start giving them a number so that they can facilitate this name change? that could be coming down the road because whatever the name is of somebody going through court is most likely going to be changed. And then if you go into the court case, you have no idea who that is on the other side. And the bill currently has two provisions that affect implementation of the bill. First, although the bill prohibits the publication of name change petitions, there are other Judicial Department publications requirement that are unchanged by the bill. Second, the safety clause in the bill results in an effective date that will make timely implementation difficult. So you're going to need manpower and resources, and look, oh look at that zero dollar fiscal note. So it's going to expend more dollars in fiscal. So what does that tell you? What does name changing laundering and trafficking for a trafficking bill tell you if it has a zero dollar fiscal note? It tells you it's one of the governor's priorities.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This was discussed in the Senate, and judicial accepted an amendment that was adopted in the Senate with the timeline that they said, yes, we can do this. And now they're taking that back, and we don't buy it. So that's why we are not making any further adjustments for the urgency of the privacy of minors, this is about 15, maybe 15 kids that have the option of asking, please suppress the record. So if we are going to say and claim that if maybe 10 of those 15 cases come back to judicial and says, please suppress the record, that that is going to break the courts. Well, that's a lot of power those minors have. So please vote no.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Interesting comments when all the time in this body, in committees and in this chamber, we all the time look at what is said to us as to what are things going to cost and listening to people that things go back and forth. I think it makes no sense if the judiciary, and we don't know the reasoning, but if they're submitting an updated fiscal note, a re-engrossed bill that's saying they can't do this, and we're going to go, ah, we don't care, again, that's bad governance. It's bad policy. It's bad fiscal governance. We're in a fiscal crisis with a structural deficit, and we're going to say it doesn't matter. We're going to require the judiciary to do this no matter what. That's not right. I urge an aye vote on the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chagpuram Sameach.

Passover, my bad. Chagpuram Sameach. Chagpuram Sameach. Okay, so for four years I've just tried to understand what our purpose is in this room. Because for every single year I've come down to this gold dome, a new bill gets introduced to limit my rights, my wife's rights as a parent. I don't understand it. I've mentioned this every time for four years. Why don't we just lower the age of an adult to 12 years old, and all of your bills make sense? Overnight. Literally, overnight. All of your bills make sense. 12 years old. Take away an adult's right to manage their kids. I just don't get it. Clearly, this is a contentious issue. What's the first sign we tell it's contentious? you limit speech and debate to three hours. What is the reason that we have the committee of the whole? It's to talk about this. It's to talk about it. The reason it goes to committee is so that the public can have their say, that parents can get in a room and tell you how they feel about your idea to run this bill. And then we get the secondary duty to debate it as legislators. This whole bill diminishes parental rights. That's what does it for me. You're taking away an adult who has children. If there's anything that a child can do without the consent of their mother, their father, or their partner, I want to know how this bill protects parental rights. That's all. And you want to do the debate thing? Then do it. Let's talk about it. Get up here and tell me how it doesn't infrage on parental rights. That's all.

our good friend from Loveland was not here for the beginning of the debate in which we said three times the process of what happens in this bill and what happens when you go to court. I will, for the benefit, it's off of the AG's website, and I will just, again, read what I wrote out, which is, again, off of the website. A child and custodial parents agree to file for a name change. If there is a non-custodial parent, they must be notified of the name change. If a child is over 14, they must do fingerprinting with the CBI and the FBI. A petition is filed in the court that has either both parents' signatures or proof of notification of non-custodial parents. There is a hearing where the judge evaluates the reasons for the name change and determines if it is for a good cause. Previous amendments suggested that the only good cause was to be protected from child trafficking, although, and a series of other violent crimes. The previous amendment to that said, can't do it if you're a child criminal. That was interesting. But we are saying that it is the judge that evaluates the reasons for the name change and determines if it is for a good cause.

Thank you. So now we're engaging in debate, which is great. What happens if parents disagree?

Great question. If the parents that are both custodial parents disagree, then it actually becomes a custody case. And there's not one that has power over another parent. Then it actually goes through a case and a court proceeding and the judges decide. Representative Weinberg, anything further?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to go back to the reason the other amendment was not accepted, and I move L-018 to Senate Bill 18 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When looking at policy and procedures, details matter. I like to focus on the details when we look on the pink sheets. The first one had the same concerns that the re-engrossed second pink fiscal note sheet had. This technical note on the second page reads, the safety clause in the bill results in an effective date that will make timely implementation difficult for the department and may result in non-compliance with certain provisions of the bill. A January 1st, 2027 effective date would allow the department to train staff and make system updates. This amendment amends the re-engrossed bill page 2, line 11 to strike July 1st, 2026 and substitute January 1st, 2027. And then it also does the same on page 3 to make sure we're consistent throughout the bill. When the department comes and says they can't be in compliant and we're looking at having government go and change statutes, should the statutes not be something that could be implemented? Curious why then we can't match the dates to make sure that what the what the bill is wanting to do, which I don't agree with, but if we're gonna make policy let's make it so it's implementable and that we're making it so we don't come back here saying we now have a department that might have to go to audit committee or it has to go and be reconsidered or now they don't have enough money and they're pulling funds we don't have. So I would urge that we do listen to the department that had the same concern since the beginning, was not addressed, still the same concern with the re-engrossed version and let's make this so that way we're not putting departments and government out of compliance that could add extra cost. IRGS vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to my colleague for bringing this. Just to reiterate the point that she brought up, which says the safety clause in this bill results in an effective date that will make timely implementation difficult for the department and may result in noncompliance with certain provisions of the bill. A January 1st 2027 effective date would allow the department to train staff and make systems updates But what this bill does is do January 1st of this year The people of the department that this is directly affecting who will have to implement this and do the training and do the systems updates are telling us January 1st, 2027 is the proper date to implement this bill. And we as the legislature are saying more or less, well, you know, too bad. This is what we're going to do. That's not good governing when the departments tell us. I talk about this all the time when we come up here, and frankly, all my colleagues talk about this. Whether you agree with a law, a rule, regulation, anything, there is a cost to it. And this bill has a $0 fiscal note, and it's because it's an unfunded mandate on the department that is going to be affected by this. And that department is telling us we cannot comply with this bill in time with the effective date that you've put into the law. And what this amendment does is follow what their request is for January 1st, 2027. That is what they're asking us to do, because if not, then they cannot comply with it. And if they can't comply with it, what does that lead to? More lawsuits because they're in noncompliance? I think that's what it's going to lead to. They are telling us, give us this date, January 1st, 2027, and then we can comply with it in time, and we are telling them no. So this is a good amendment. Vote yes on this amendment.

Chair, thank you. I don't know that I need. I might feel compelled because I don't know that necessarily the point was adequately punched into recognition. I suppose I could go ahead and reiterate directly from the fiscal note the danger that we're looking at right now. Now, I understand we're going to say no, we don't like this. You're going to automatically say yes, we do. But I'm going to ask just for a little bit of a pause here to actually, I don't know, this is a little crazy, take a look at the fiscal note, take a look at the policy, take a look at what kind of corner we're about to paint ourselves into where you've got a department saying, will you please not do this with this effective date because we actually do not have the ability to be able to implement in time. Or if we do want to push the implementation date that is written in and we ignored through the removal of the safety clause, the least we could do is then have a little bit of an honest discussion about what that fiscal note actually looks like. Because it would change the fiscal note. Madam, if we're going to change the fiscal note, we should know it's going to change the fiscal note. I will tell you, I have been a little confused about the intent of the bill. I know that when it was originally introduced in the other chamber, that it was something different than what we have now. But yet when we stand up here, now we're trying to say this is what the bill is. Well, what was the bill's original intent? And so that's a little bit of a rub. But it gets into this kind of squishy, wiggly line around what I consider to be the truth, which I believe that we're all supposed to be called to speak to. Sometimes the truth is inconvenient. Sometimes the truth can be unkind. But there is no love without truth. We have to speak truth. The most loving thing we can do is speak truth. So if we could speak truth to what the fiscal note is or what the implication is, that would be a great start. irrespective of the policy or irrespective of what the intent of the policy was at the beginning and what it is now. This is not You can find on either of the two fiscal note packages in your bill folder There are currently two provisions that affect the implementation of the bill Safety clause in the bill results in an effective date that will make timely implementation difficult for the department may result in non-compliance. Let's pass a bill that results in non-compliance. That sounds like a good idea. or if the date is of vital importance, perhaps maybe what we should do is at least have a new fiscal note that shows the cost associated with the date of compliance. I believe there's two choices there, not necessarily a C choice, which is for the convenience of just simply getting this thing passed. we have more of a responsibility to do more honest work than that. I would ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And again, the year of zero dollar fiscal notes is pretty fascinating when we're in a big deficit. But let's talk about again what this bill is about.

I'm sorry, what?

Yes, we sure are.

We are talking about the amendment.

We are talking about the amendment to the bill. Perfect. We're talking about the amendment to the bill, and the bill requires that this be retroactive. These name changes be retroactive, and they also require the retroactive and unpublished. So I am curious how we are going to retroactively unpublish all of these name changes. And now the sponsor says it's only 10 to 15. It's wafer thin. It's not going to be a problem. maybe it's really legitimately zero dollar fiscal note even though the and rep to graph i hate to

from july 1st 2026 so if you could limit your remarks to that you're welcome to speak to the

the date is currently untenable. The date for the court to comply with unpublishing all of the current name changes, for the court to comply with all of the changes that it has to be made. It's saying it cannot do it with the manpower and money and the resources that it has. So in order to give the court a little bit more time to go back and unpublish all of the previous stuff, which is, I don't know how it would not be covered by this, because this bill requires retroactivity, and it requires name changes to be unpublished for the purposes of identity laundering. So this, I don't think this goes far enough. I mean, it's a little bit reasonable. I think the courts are going to struggle with this no matter how long, no matter how long you give it, because this is just nonsensical legislation in general because you're telling the court to do something that makes no sense. And now you're telling the court that they have a very limited window in order to comply with making no sense. And you're going to have people that are, like my colleague said, what are you going to have, lawsuits when the court can't comply with this? And then you're going to have people suing the court because they can't get their previous records unpublished? Are we going to have to how are we going to refer to these name changes in documents that are how old Because what kind of flood of name changes if everybody can come in and separate themselves from a crime in history and change their name and we're going to go back and we're going to go back and redo this, I mean, do you have a feasible process for this? Or did the good idea fairies just come to you and say, twang, do this, and you don't have to justify how you're going to do it. You're not going to have to give a program. You just say, we would like to do it in this brief amount of time. so we can have it done right away so the children can be started trafficking, being trafficked immediately, and that's what the bill is for. So take this, give the courts a little bit of time. You should let the people protest this because this is nonsensical legislation, and it is about trafficking.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Pro Tem. Senate Bill 26018 raises serious concerns about the role of government and family affairs, parental rights, and the well-being of children both inside and outside the courtroom. Even organizations like Planned Parenthood have argued in other contexts that families, not politicians, should be making deep personal decisions. For example, in opposing ballot measure 110, they emphasized that these decisions belong within the family. But this bill takes a very different approach. Senate Bill 18 cuts parents out of majority major identity decisions You cannot say trust families while supporting laws that sideline them They should give us pause. We also hear concerns about government interference in personal matters, yet at the same time we are seeing government control over private conversations between a counselor and a child. if we believe government doesn't belong in an exam room, it doesn't belong in a therapy room either. The bill goes even further. It tells courts they must consider whether a parent recognizes their child's identity while deciding custody and parenting time. That puts a state position of judging parents based on their deep-held beliefs. This is a significant expansion of government power into the hearts of family, and it poses a real threat to parental rights. There's another piece of this that doesn't get talked about enough. What this does to other kids. When name change records are hidden with no public notice, classmates and friends are left in the dark. Kids may not know what to call their friend, how to act, or whether they get in trouble for saying the wrong thing. They put them in uncomfortable situations and can lead to confusion, misunderstanding, and tension in everyday interactions. We should not be putting children in the middle of this kind of uncertainty. On top of that, the bill reduces transparency in our courts, while at the same time giving them more authority over families. At the end of the day, Senate Bill 18 goes too far. Vote no.

it is interesting to hear the bill sponsors have a revelatory moment an epiphany about something i've been saying for four years i don't know where the epiphany was or the revelation so let me let me state it real clear so there's no confusion as to what I'm saying what I have been saying for years. I believe that the transgender ideology is very destructive to kids, all kids. I believe it is manipulation and destructive. I've been saying this for four years. It's kind of an amazing grasp of the obvious that appears here. Let me also state it directly for this bill so there's no confusion. I believe this bill is a transgender bill. It has nothing to do with people of religious orientation or something saying, I'm going to change my name. This is a transgender bill, and this is why I'm fighting against it, because transgenderism is harmful to children. It is destructive for their emotional, mental, spiritual well-being. It is also not scientific. So if this is an epiphany for the bill sponsors, I don't know where you've been the last four years. I've been saying the exact same thing. This bill is a transgender bill, and that is why I'm fighting against it. Welcome to the subject. This is the continuation. But as I said at the beginning of this, and I'll say it again on the next bill, the House of Cards is coming down. We're seeing it legally. We're seeing it in psychiatric movements. We're seeing it in surgery movements. we are seeing where this house of cards is coming down. This is not going to continue. We already seeing lawsuits and rulings that is tearing down this subject So just again so there no confusion I don know why this was an epiphany for you Literally three weeks into my first year here, I said this. Transgender ideology is destructive to children. It is destructive to children. That's what this bill is about. That's why I'm fighting it. I move 021 to 018 and ask for it to be properly displayed.

Thank you, Speaker Pro Tem. This amendment is a religious exemption for this bill. This has already been established by the governor's office, by lawsuit, the last two years in a row. And this has, we already have precedence. I don't have an expectation of it passing, but I do need it on the record because this is already in legal. We already see lawsuits about this, and this is going to continue that move forward to tear down this ideology. Church camps, they've already been addressed, and they have the exemption that says that they can determine who is in what facilities and how they want to determine that according to biological sex. A name change will not be exempt from this, but I am making the amendment so that there's no confusion, that I am trying to make sure that we go by the law, that I'm trying to make sure that we uphold rulings by lawsuit and by the governor's office. And so the religious organizations have the ability to say, no, we can go back and we can find out the name of this person, which will lead us to the biological sex of this person. And so I'm wanting to make sure that we have this on the record for future victories and wins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm up here in support of this amendment. I want you to put yourself in the situation or in the place of a parent who sends their child to a camp. And they're going to be not just playing with or in activities with, but also housing with, sleeping in the same area with, showering with, everything. with a child, could be a teenager, who they don't understand or know that their biological sex is different than what is there in the camp. If I have a daughter and she's in camp and I expect her to be kept safe and she's put in a situation where she's now showering in group showers because many times they just do the group showers. With someone who is not of her same sex, I'm going to have a problem with that. My daughter's going to have a problem with that. As a parent, the camp needs to know and be able to notify parents that this situation is going on. If that parent's fine with it, that's up to them. But I can tell you this parent would not be fine with that. So this amendment is very important to ensure that parents camps are notified they understand the situation and they can make a decision off of that

Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. I rise in support of this amendment as well. We all know the camp that we're talking about. We all know that they won. We all know that they dug back their heels because the camp won. I want to know that my kids are protected as well. I don't want my boys showering with girls. I don't. And I don't think they want to shower with girls. This is a great amendment. If the bill's intent is not to do these things, I don't even know what the bill, I do know what the bill's intent is. I'm sorry. April Fool's. This is a good amendment. This is what the people of Colorado want. And I'm telling you right now, we're going to sue we're already suing, we're already winning we're suing, we're winning so if you don't take this amendment ADF, get ready, we're ready for you here thank you

so I'm not actually sure on the win, but last year the camps all of a sudden found out it's a very interesting thing if you listen to that the lawsuits that we're talking about with that camp. Because you listen to the rulemaking authorities, and everybody thinks the mischief is done in this chamber when we hit May 14 or whatever and we all go home. And really that's when it's just starting, because that's when the rulemaking agencies take all over the authority and moves down to basically down a floor, and the governor's minions start making rules around the laws that we did. And one of the rules last year, when they talked about it, it was a pretty innocuous bill that split. And so that's why you have to look at all these bills in context, because they bring them bit by bit. And one of the bills last year or the year before was to split day camps from day care. Pretty innocuous, right? Well, when they split the day camps from day care and you actually listen to the testimony, the tape of the testimony, it's pretty fascinating. They promulgated the rule in there. and they said, well, the rule is going to be because daycares had this rule that you had to have the facilities. And so for the overnight camps and the church day camps, they said you can listen to it. I mean, this is exactly how it goes. I mean, you can get the actual audio tape of it. And the rulemaking agencies, they're all meeting together in this room, and they go, okay, so we're going to make this rule that all of the bathing facilities have to be basically co-ed. All of the sleeping facilities have to be co-ed. All of the bathroom facilities have to be co-ed. And then they said, should we tell anybody? And they said no. They didn't say no, I suppose. They didn't directly say no. They just took it directly to a vote because they said, should we tell the parents that this is going to happen? Should we tell the stakeholders that this is going to happen? And you can listen to the tape. Somebody makes a motion to go immediately to a vote. They go immediately to a vote to deliberately circumvent telling anybody. So all of that stakeholder nonsense that we hear and hear on a regular basis, that's a matter of convenience. They specifically said go straight to a vote, voted it in, so that only, and it was only one church that found it. One church. discovered what was actually going on in advance. They went to the AG. They asked an AG for a religious exemption. The AG said, lawyer up. And so they did. And then there was a big pushback. And then all of a sudden they say, oh, well, you know what? We didn't really mean that would apply to religious facilities. and they just backed away so they can come back and do it again another day because it is the focus of the ideology to erase all of that. And it's a religion. It's the idea that you are separate, that you and your body are separate. That's a metaphysical idea. It's a religious idea. And so ultimately it's about imposing one religion and saying it's superior to another. And we'll talk about that again on the next bill. But it's making the case, it is the declarative that this religion, that you can be born in the wrong body, that whether there's a God or not, well, let's just see it as a religion that God makes mistakes.

subject and so the camp thing I'm not exactly sure I don't think it actually went to court it was just the AG back down with sufficient with all of the pushback from the camps and the parents when everybody found out what was happening because it was really just meant to happen all at once and then likely just go to all kinds of lawsuits and all that so when it was discovered in advance. They backed away from it, lived to fight another day, because this ideology is, besides this and fetishide, these are the litmus tests. These religious aspects, so this is a good amendment for the religious organizations to exempt themselves from this imposition of religion. This bill is about an imposition of religion. It is about circumventing all of these things to create more confusion. We've taken all of the gaslighting away. You peel back, we've peeled back through the presentation of amendments. It's an imposition of a religion to supplant all others. This is a good amendment. We need to actually honor the first amendment. We need to honor the parental rights. We need to do a lot of things. This bill is intended to override,

Folks, I just want to take a moment to talk about this concept that there should be a religious exemption that allows religious entities to be prejudiced bigoted etc I am a woman of faith I attend church My church has a sign outside that says everyone is welcome It accompanied by a rainbow flag and the line underneath it is seriously everyone So please do not equate Christianity with anything that we've heard today. I don't think it's a monolith. I'm sad that there are folks who feel that any particular faith should be equated with removal of rights of any of our citizens. So just a quick note that there are lots of folks of faith with love in their hearts for all Coloradans.

Chair, thank you. My high road will be to simply say I'll have to agree to disagree. I will reiterate at the risk, I suppose, of sounding like a broken record, which is kind of what faith is supposed to be like, right? Faith is supposed to be something that is unwavering. Faith is supposed to be something that stands strong. So I will not apologize for sounding like a broken record when I repeat that the only way to be loving is to speak truth. You cannot speak in love without truth. You cannot lie to somebody and tell them that you love them. Lying is hurtful. Lying is deceitful. Lying is not loving. The most loving thing we can do is to speak truth. Perhaps it might hurt a feeler. But the only way that we can be loving is to be truthful. Now, if that means that we all have aspersions cast upon us or names hurled our way, so be it. So be it. It will not, however, in any way whatsoever, veer us from the truth. veer us from a faith that sustains that truth. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, Pro Tem, thank you. Bigoted amendments? Ouch.

court records and i will but i'd ask for a little leeway too because i have said none of those things

And what I'm speaking to is remarks that have been

Jeremiah 1.5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I set you apart. Isaiah 44.2, this is what the Lord says, he who made you, who formed you in the womb. I'll go on and on. The Supreme Court decision just came out eight to one, striking down a law in Colorado. We are winning. Our First Amendment is winning. We have won five cases. Let that go on the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, sponsors. I just want to take a moment to kind of review the bidding, some of the things that have been said, some of the amendments that have been brought that have been denied. We asked for a petition clause, and part of that was based on the fact that the impacted department, the judiciary has said that they cannot meet the timelines of this bill within the resources that they have. We asked for a shift to the implementation date for the exact same reason. We heard the sponsors say that they didn't quite believe the information that had come back from the courts. That's fine. That it's only 10 to 15 cases. It shouldn't take too long. We've asked to limit suppression to areas where the child's specifically in danger. That was denied. We've heard that kids change their names for some happy reasons and for some sad reasons. So if that's a 50-50 split for sake of argument, that's five to seven cases. So I'm kind of left wondering why do we have this bill at all? If it's five to seven cases, or even if it's 10 to 15, why can we not just expect during those cases that if there's a need to suppress the record, that it be asked of the judge at that time? Why do we need to put a blanket, everything must be suppressed law in place? If we're talking just a few cases, and all of these cases go before a judge, they are all argued, they're all petitioned. Just make that request at the time that the change is made to suppress the record if it's necessary, and let the judge decide if it's appropriate. This is just a lengthy waste of time, I believe, and the bill should be voted down. But I want to return now to an area we did discuss earlier that I still think needs a little clarification. And to get there, I want to tell a little bit of a story. but several years ago, as a commissioner, my county was sued on behalf of the surviving children of a gentleman who was alleged to have passed because of actions of a county employee. As the board chair, I was authorized to participate in a potential settlement. It took months to get to the table, a lot of back and forth between attorneys, But we finally sat down one day, well over a year later, both sides represented by an attorney, a referee in place, a retired judge. After months of preparation at that table it was determined that one of those children was no longer a minor that the attorney that was representing the surviving parent who was the one that brought the case was not actually representing one of the children that was seeking a settlement The minor wasn't a client of the attorney there. Nothing nefarious was going on. Nobody was trying to hide anything. Just a simple mistake because a basic question wasn't asked. a calendar wasn't looked at. So while the sponsors have confirmed that a minor may not be a party in the case that can consent, that's great. But does the minor know that? Does anybody who's not an attorney or an attorney that's just not paying attention to a calendar know that? So if the sponsors weren't sure, that it's very likely that no non-attorney might even be sure. And I believe that it's wise to be very clear and specify that only an adult party could give verbal consent to have a suppressed record released. And I know the sponsors are hanging on every word here, so they'll be able to respond very succinctly with logical arguments against. But for now, I move L022 to Senate Bill 18 and ask that be displayed. Thanks, Rep. Richardson. That's a proper motion. We'll get it displayed. So, while they're otherwise engaged and not listening, I urge a yes vote.

with our, thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. Going back to the intent of the bill where they said we want to make sure both parents give consent to this when they have a minor, but we feel like the courts are not following the actual court rules, should be statutory protection that both parents, custodial and non-custodial, have to give permission, and we hear story after story that that's not happening. So if that is the true intent to have both parents, the custodial parents' consent, and the non-custodial parent consent. If that's the true intent, then I just want to make sure, so I'm going to offer and move Amendment L023 to Senate Bill 18 and ask for it to be displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. This amendment and talking to the bill drafter, we went over it, it would, after page two, or page two after line four insert, every person desiring to change the person's own name may present a petition to that effect, verified by affidavit to the district or county court in the county of the petitioner's residence, except as otherwise provided in subsection of this section, the petition must include A, the petitioner's full name, B, the new name desired. C, a concise statement of the reason for the name change, and D, the written consent of both parents. If applicable, the custodial parent shall notify the non-custodial parent through certified mail, return receipt requested, and file the receipt with the court at least 14 days before the hearing on the petition. The non-custodial parent has a right to consent or object to the change of name and has a right to be present at any hearing on the change of name. If the custodial parent does not know where the non-custodial parent is located, the custodial parent shall request the court to publish the notice in a legal newspaper in the county where the petition is filed, and the publication must be made within 21 days after the order for the request for publication. If we are truly intent on legal protections of a minor and we're truly intent on both parents consenting and the non-custodial parent to be involved and aware of the situation and we believe the courts are doing their job, then this should be an easy amendment. Because I will tell you that I have had story after story from people all around Colorado telling me that is not what's happening in the courts. And these are not Christian conservative parents. These are Democrat parents reaching out to me, asking me to tell, pleading with me to tell their story. Gene's story. Dustin's story. Cindy's story. Jason Zook, who I feel like is a friend of mine now from Adams County, who raised concerns that this was happening with his children, one identifying as non-binary, another changing their gender and their names, and the position was used against him in family court, and he has been two years without seeing his children. Two years. That is not protecting children. This is a teacher of 17 years that has never had anything go against him in family law except that he did not affirm his children. So if we're really intent on legal protections for minors, like the bill sponsor said, then this should be an easy amendment. We're making sure that both parents are in the know and the non-custodial parent, if they have not been in the know, can petition against it if they so decide or they can be in support of it. if we're really intent on protecting the children and not hearing more stories every day a new story every day another story of a child being taken from their family in the news in Colorado most of the time teachers that are doing it and doing this behind the parents backs so it is happening in Colorado I'm so tired of being told is not happening in Colorado, turn. I can pull it up. I have 10 different stories right here that I can read to you whose children have been taken from them. If the courts are doing what the courts are supposed to be doing, then this wouldn't be happening. So let's not put another bill into the state that allows this to happen. Let's have the guardrails. You want to talk about safety for children, let's have the guardrails. This is what you said that your bill was intended to do. This amendment clarifies these are the steps we're going to take to make sure both parents are involved, to make sure both parents are considered, to make sure both parents have consented and that the non-custodial parent is involved and that they have consented as well. It's not rocket science. It clarity in another bill I ask for an aye vote Further discussion Representative Kelty

Further discussion on this amendment. Representative Luck.

it. Further discussion? Rep DeGraff or Rep Garcia, would you like to go first? Rep DeGraff.

And Reptograph, I'm going to pull you back to L23.

Reptograph. Reptograph. I'm going to pull you back to the amendment and ask that you respectfully refrain from accusations from the well.

That's wonderful, Reptograph, but this is about Amendment L23.

Further discussion on the amendment? Representative Bradley.

Representative Garcia, and Rep. Garcia, before you start, I'll just announce so I don't have to interrupt somebody else. There's about 22 minutes left in the debate. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Further discussion. Representative Luck.

Representative Garcia.

A request for a title ruling has been made. The committee will stand in a brief recess. Thank you. Thank you. The committee will now come back to order. The chair rules that the amendment does not fit under the title. We are back to the bill with 18 minutes remaining. Further discussion? Rep. Kelty.

I move L019 to Senate Bill 018. That's a proper motion. We'll get it displayed for you. Thank you very much.

Further discussion on this amendment? Representative Barone.

Further discussion. Representative Froehlich.

Representative Barone.

Seeing no further discussion, the question before us is the adoption. A division has been called. Thank you Thank you No, don't listen to that guy. Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. The question before us is the adoption of Amendment L-19 to Senate Bill 18. A division has been requested. All those in the chamber not entitled to vote, please sit and remain seated. All those in favor of Amendment L19 will hold one second, friends. All those in favor of Amendment L19, if you are in the chamber not entitled to vote, please have a seat. All those in favor of Amendment L19, please stand and remain standing in one place or raise your hand and keep it raised until the count is taken. You may be seated. All opposed, please stand and remain standing in one place or raise your hand and keep it raised until the count is taken. Thank you. amendment L 19 is lost. Mr.

minutes and 23 seconds remaining.

That's a proper motion. One second, we'll get it displayed. If you'd like to start telling us about your amendment, that'd be great. Thank you, sir.

Representative Barone, there is two minutes and 57 seconds remaining, sir.

Yes, I did say that. Thank you, Mr. The good representative here from Colorado Springs.

Representative, Mr. Minority Leader, and then Representative Garcia.

The superiority of the Caldwell amendment is noted. Representative Rep. Richardson and then Rep. Garcia. We have 48 seconds left.

Happy to do it.

Thank you, Rep. Richardson. Rep. Garcia.

The time for debate has expired. Members, we will vote on the amendment and then we will vote on the underlying bill. The question before us is the adoption of Amendment L-20 to Senate Bill 18. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. No. The amendment is lost. The question before us is the adoption of Senate Bill 18. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, no. No. The bill is adopted. Mr. Schiebel, please read the title to House Bill 1322.

And before we begin, it is 1247 p.m. Time for debate on this bill has been limited to three hours. We'll start the timer with your opening remarks. Representative Valdez.

All right, folks, I move House Bill 1322.

Brett McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. and thank you to my colleague. Appreciate being on this bill with you. I wanted to just bring this to a story about a person so that we have kind of a real-life connection here. Many of you know that I'm a parent of a trans kid, but I want to tell a story of another family's kid. Many Colorado families have lived through conversion therapy, and it's not an abstract policy issue at all. It's really something that has shaped their child's life and their family's life in many profound and lasting ways. One mother's daughter was a young woman full of promise who was deeply committed to her faith, to her community, and to her future. And as a teenager, she began seeking guidance because she was trying to understand who she was. She had questions. And over time, that search did lead her to conversion therapy, including with licensed professional therapists who promised that they could help her change and explicitly told this young woman not to share about the therapy she was going through with her family or anyone else. Instead, what followed was years of deepening shame on her, isolation, and struggle. Her family did not fully understand what was happening with her until the impacts of this situation were impossible to ignore. She suffered from depression, from self-harm, hospitalizations. And that family did what any family would or should do. They tried to get her help. They showed up. They loved her. And still they lost her. After her death, her family was not only left with grief, but with questions about what happened and who had been involved, and whether there was any path for them for accountability for that harm that was done on their daughter. And what they found out was that the timeline to seek justice did not match the reality of what they were experiencing and living through. As we've heard even this morning through our resolution, trauma and grief does not resolve on a particular timeline. Trauma can take years to resolve or to even realize what you're dealing with. So understanding what happened, especially when the harm was delivered in a setting with a licensed professional therapist, who you are supposed to be able to trust, where you are vulnerable, It takes a lot of time when you have to realize that you were harmed by that situation. This law 1322 is helpful because it addresses the gap that that time for healing must take This bill ensures that when licensed mental health professionals engage in practices that cause harm, practices that every major medical, mental health organization and more has rejected as ineffective, dangerous, unethical, Survivors and families, we don't want them shut out of the legal system if that has happened. This bill does not create a new liability, as we've heard. It does not impose criminal penalties. It simply ensures that existing avenues for accountability are actually accessible to these families. And for me, it's more about, it's not just about this policy. It's about what we owe these families and these kids. This really is about loving those kids. We owe them honesty. We owe them the fact that care is grounded in evidence. And it needs to be on a timeline that reflects the reality of what they have experienced. So this bill will make sure that no family is denied the opportunity for accountability when healing takes time. And we urge your support of our bill.

Rep. Valdez. I have one and two. Rep. Valdez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to address that we've heard, we've been listening to folks as we went through this process, and we have a few amendments that we think go to some of the issues we may hear about today, so we want to go ahead and get those out of the way. So with that, I would move Amendment L-001 and ask that it be displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This amendment makes clear that therapists can support patients in exploring or aligning with their gender identity without steering them towards a predetermined outcome. It reinforces that good care is patient-led, grounded in trust, and free from coercion, and we would ask for your support. So essentially what this is going to do is ensure that activity that is sought by patients is something that is not inadvertently caught up in the bill. So I would ask for an aye vote on L-001.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm coming up here to just basically state we should make this a two-way street. What this amendment does here is it strikes lines 22 and 23 of page 5, which I believe in. I do agree with that. But I want to offer L018 as a substitute amendment to L001. And that's to be displayed.

I'm sorry, I move L018 as a substitute amendment to L001 and ask that it be properly displayed, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So as you can see I also strike lines 22 and 23 on page five but I also want to add to after toward on line 19 Well let me put into context so you can understand a little bit better how it is going to be on the bill So sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts means any practice by a licensed mental health professional that seeks to direct a patient towards a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome including efforts to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings towards individuals of a particular sex or gender, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity the patient is directed toward. Now, after that word toward on line 19, we're going to insert sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts. Includes directing a patient towards gender transition. So if we're going to do this, we might as well do it on a two-way street. And I believe this is a good amendment. It also includes the amendment that the bill sponsors have brought forward. I urge an aye vote.

Reptograph. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's interesting because this whole issue with trans, trans would be another, transforming would be another word for converting. transforming, transmogrifying, trans, trans, trans. So this is, there is a very deep level of this idea of fixing kids. And the schools, with the very captive audience of kids like that were here the other day, are often subjective to conversion therapy on a day-to-day basis. They start in preschool, they talk about out, maybe you were born in the wrong body. And they begin this conversion therapy day in and day out. Well, they're talking about climate nonsense, but day in and day out. And these kids are harmed. And when I brought the letter from Gays Against Groomers, they talked about this harm. And they talked about this harm of fixing gay kids and then saying, you were born in the wrong body, and you need to cut something off in order to be acceptable. That's conversion therapy. That is conversion therapy, and I'd argue that is the worst form of conversion therapy. Now, certainly, mental anguish is something, and it's very difficult to get over. But physical mutilation of these children is something they will never get over, and that form of conversion therapy is permanent. This bill does not deal with dysphoria-affirming mutilation. it only deals with the fact it only deals with somebody that is saying that hey maybe maybe you were not born in the wrong body maybe you were born in the right body maybe you're just confused maybe if there's a scale between male and female because if we look at all these gender identities I was looking at about 97 of them earlier today I don't know how we're going to ever sort that out but maybe instead of taking a boy that feels, maybe you help them feel more like a boy. Maybe that's not conversion therapy because if you're taking a boy and then convincing them a girl and then you're convincing them that they need to cut something off in order to be who they really are, you are converting them surgically, permanently, unchangeably. That is conversion therapy. This organization here, this General Assembly, the majority of it, supports conversion therapy. Supports conversion therapy through unalterable mutilation of healthy body parts. That's conversion therapy. Now, when you have somebody that goes into a therapist that has been subject to conversion therapy every day in preschool by a teacher that is promoting the idea of being born in the wrong body or wrong species or wrong something, and that maybe with a mix and match and maybe if you're not comfortable with who you are, maybe if you just change something about yourself, even if it's just your pronouns, that maybe you would be happy. Maybe if you change your name and don't tell your parents, then you could be happy. That's conversion therapy, and this General Assembly majority supports conversion therapy every single day, every opportunity they get. We just had a whole bill on it, supporting conversion therapy. These kids go into school. They're confused. They don't know who they are. They don't understand. They have trusted adults tell them that they might be born in the wrong body, and then if you take them to a therapist, then in some sort of patient-led thing, then the patient is supposed to lead the therapist through this idea and what are they going to do They think they were born in the wrong body So the patient Yes, it needs to serve the interest of the patient, but the laws in this state support conversion therapy. As long as you're converting a boy to a girl, a girl to a boy, or some other permutation of whatever other thing there is. And like there's 97 of them, so I could get the list. 97 of them today. This leads to telling them that altering their body permanently is a way of sorting out whatever their mental issues are, whatever their mental traumas are. Those kids also did not need to be fixed. They certainly did not need to be fixed, literally fixed. When you fix a dog, you fix a dog. When you fix a child, that child is fixed forever. That's conversion therapy. And maybe that unalterable harm could be addressed by a therapist who tells a kid something horrible, like you would consider, the majority I think would consider horrible, that, hey, you know what? You were not born in the wrong body. You are acceptable just the way you are. You are perfect just the way you are. You are an image bearer of God. You were created in the image of God with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don't need to change your body surgically in support becoming a billion-dollar medical experiment. for society's acceptance. So when you look at the cluster B link, because we're talking ultimately about psychology, the onset of the surge in the mid-2010s, 2010s, and money. Interesting. Gender dysphoria has long shown a robust clinical overlap with cluster B personality pathology. Borderline personality, histrionic, antisocial traits, structured interview studies dating back decades predating the trans boom consistently report personality disorder comorbidity in the 20 to 80 percent of gender dysphoric patients with cluster B dominant. One 2014 study using SCID found 41.9 percent of patients met criteria for personality disorder overwhelmingly cluster B. Earlier European data showed the same pattern, identity disturbance, affective instability, splitting, and attention-seeking mapped directly onto a patient's sudden, all-consuming gender fixation supported by conversion therapy in the schools they attend and the media, telling them they might be born in the wrong body. Maybe they need new pronouns. Maybe then with a new name, they'd be happy. That's conversion therapy. These traits predate transition. They are not artifacts of minority stress. What changed was not the underlying psychopathology, but its sudden contagious expression. And a social contagion is things like the Salem witch trials, where bored adolescent girls decided that it would be fun, break up the monotony. And people died. In adolescence, classic gender dysphoria was rare. mostly early onset males with desistance rates of 60 to 90 percent by adulthood What does that mean That means these kids don need to be fixed 60 to 90 percent will work their way out of this just by the sorting out of the hormones that are cursing through their bodies. Instead of taking that little boy and giving them wrong sex hormones, which are going to conflict with their actual sex hormones, or giving a girl testosterone, conflicting with her natural hormones. Both cases, it's kind of weird that they both end up with severe, permanent, physical damage. That's conversion therapy. You convert a child from a healthy child to an unhealthy child chemically is a form of conversion therapy, if not outright torture. Sixteen to ninety percent by adulthood. It works itself out. Then, beginning around 29 to 2010, gender clinic referrals exploded. The UK saw rises from 97 in 2009, increasing 50% annually to 697 by 2014-2015, doubling again to 14-19 by 2015. The sex ratio flipped from predominantly male to 75% natal female. The 2018 study documented the pattern sudden post pubertal onset in teens with no childhood history clustered in friend groups, clustered in friend groups, amplified by social media rioting atop pre-existing anxiety, depression, autism, trauma, eating disorders, precisely the demographic profile of cluster B vulnerability. The surge was not better detection of a stable population. It was a novel, social-contagious presentation. The billionaire-funded wave, the funding wave by porn-addled billionaires, arrived just as this contagion was accelerating. Yeah, they're very interested in the fetishization.

Yeah, absolutely. Haven't left.

One billionaire, we're talking about conversion therapy. foundation to write the largest check 1.35 million and the way it ties into this is because where did this conversion therapy idea come from the conversion therapy idea here is that if somebody has been subjected to conversion therapy to maybe think that they're a duck maybe they shouldn't be encouraged to try to fly that doesn't go well The single biggest trans grant ever, $2 million in the same year, to endow the first chair of transgender studies at the University of Victoria. Friends of the Governor, Blueprint, already active in the causes, pivoted harder into T-specific institutional capture, schools, medicine, law, during the same mid-2010s. therapy paid for by porn-addled billionaires. These grants professionalized affirmation, funded clinics, seeded academic programs, and normalized the idea that biology is optional and dissent is violence, an idea that we're seeing in this bill. The chronology is telling cluster B comorbidities in the psychiatric substrate existed for decades. The adolescent onset began organically via social contagion around 2010. The money followed, supercharging the phenomenon into policy, medicine, and culture. Funding did not invent it. I debt borderline style diffusion or histrionic attention seeking It simply gave those vulnerabilities a glamorous medically sanctioned script institutional power The result is today transgenderism cluster B movement scaled by capital where unstable identities demand societal reality rewriting The data show the sequence clearly. Pathology first, contagion second, cash third, ignoring the timeline helps no one. So we have conversion therapy. It's conversion therapy. It's happening in schools. It's happening with media. It's happening with your endorsement. It's happening with your funding. Now, if someone of these kids goes to, so we need to be able to deal with these kids because if they walk into a therapist and are confused and they've been guided down the path of conversion therapy, by some trusted adult, because chihuahua clutch handbags are no longer hip, so now we need, if you look at Hollywood, where one in three children are transgender, talk about a social contagion. All of these kids need to be treated with absolute dignity and respect. 100% agree with that. They fall clearly in the all that have certain unalienable rights, just like everybody else. But we need to protect them from the conversion therapy that is occurring in our schools and with our media. And when they go to a therapist, and perhaps that therapist doesn't affirm that, and maybe that therapist says something anathema to the current cluster B contagion, that those kids are not born in the wrong body, that maybe they're born in the right body, that maybe they were knit fearfully and wonderfully together in their mother's womb, that maybe they don't need to be fixed with a scalpel permanently, unalterably. We have a pinwheel today reminding us of child abuse, and we have two bills today for child abuse, putting them on a carousel of medicalization. Listen to the harms of these people that want to convert, that want to detransition. does this bill support those that want to detransition or does it only support those who want to detransition that want to retransition from their further and further and further away trying to make themselves happy by continual mutilation of their body that is the kind of conversion therapy we need to protect these kids from this bill does not do that if you want to protect kids from conversion therapy you need to remove this stuff from the public schools and say you can't talk to kids about maybe they were born in the wrong body. Maybe you tell the billionaires to leave their porn at home and don't tell these kids that maybe they could be somebody else if they just cut off some healthy body parts. But I have the suspicion that the healthy body part cutting and mutilation is going to continue with full support because ultimately this bill is to make sure that that is not stopped. Make sure that a child, once they're confused, even though 80% to 90% of them would get off that and they would become healthy adults. I'm afraid we're going to find out through the amendment process that. I won't say the intention, but the effect of this bill will be to keep those kids on the medicalization territory. You start with the pronouns, you change their name, and we know that what's going to happen is they're going to go down that road And they're typically, and they're going to be this glitter bombed into converting. And if they step away from that, then they're shamed. That is conversion therapy. That is not conversion therapy. I suspect that conversion therapy is not going to be addressed in this bill, unfortunately. Ultimately, that bill, that conversion therapy, for the same reasons it exploded, money, is going to continue. But I think we should be helping these kids instead of sending them down a path of medicalization and shortened lives. Look at the history of these kids that are sent down this path. It's tragic. Listen to the stories when they come on to committee and they talk about the damage that's done to them every single day that they have to do to themselves every single day. and the misery and the knowledge. I mean, I have one burned into my head. The knowledge that they were convinced, they were converted into thinking that something was wrong with them and they could fix it surgically and chemically instead of dealing with the underlying issues. And now they deal with it every day and they just said, I'm going to deal with this for the rest of my life. My very short life. that kind of conversion therapy we need to stop. We need to stop telling kids that they're broken. We need to tell them they're fearfully and wonderfully made. They are made correctly. And you help them be comfortable in their own body instead of turning them into a multimillion-dollar medical experiment. So I'm going to ask for a yes vote on this amendment and a no vote on the bill.

We're at Bottoms. It seems a little confusing. If you're going to make it okay both ways, why the bill? That makes no sense. I do want to read from some statements made by Justice Kagan. He's an Obama Supreme Court nominee that was really struggling. He says the problem with Colorado's approach, which is the previous ban, which was overturned, and now this bill, which is the same thing, is that it enables speech on only one side. This is an Obama-appointed justice that says it enables speech on only one side. What he said was, and then he discussed this as an ideological debate. He said, of course it does not matter what the state's preferred side is. we know what the state preferred side is that this bill We know what the preferred side is and that we going to put all of our inferences toward the transition away from biological sex to whatever It doesn't matter. It gets convoluted after that. But we're going to push away from this, and that's why the original bill, the original law, made it illegal for counselors, anybody, therapists, anybody in that arena that's licensed, they cannot speak against the gender push away from biological sex. And he said it doesn't matter which side the state is on. Again, we know which side the state is on.

He said consider.

Yes. Okie dokie. Consider a hypothetical law. This is the direct statement. Consider a hypothetical law that does the mirror of Colorado. Instead of barring talk therapy designed to change a minor sexual orientation or gender identity, this law bars therapy affirming those things. What if we just switched it? If that's the case, if we're really going to make it the same on both sides, let's just switch the law. Let's make sure that it's the exact opposite of what this law says. But this is what Justice Kagan is saying, is this is not the same thing. This is a direct attack on First Amendment speech. It's a direct attack on counselors, therapists, any of these. And it also opens up litigation for years and years. But it opens up the litigation funnel that is going to try to attack all of these therapists, counselors. I have been working in this space for a long time. I've counseled a lot of people back to biological health, back to mental, spiritual health, back to their biological sex health. I have also helped many counselors know how to have these conversations that the law was attacking. but I knew this was an unconstitutional law and I was just waiting for somebody to sue over it because I was on the side of the constitution. I know that. And I've helped many licensed counselors, therapists go against this anti-constitutional law. And I will continue to do this after this one is passed. We know it's going to pass today. I will continue to do this. And the Supreme Court just told me I have been right the entire time. I have been right that this is not constitutional. It's a tack. Justin Kagan continues and says, as this case readily acknowledges, the First Amendment would apply in the identical way. Once again, because the state has suppressed one side of a debate, which is what Colorado has done. continues to do, is doing right now. This is a continuation of this. And if we're arguing that, well, we're going to make it the same for both sides, then take the amendment. You say, well, we've already got our amendment. If you're saying let's make it the same for both sides, then do away with the bill because the bill is a suppression of speech. It's a promoting of a mental illness. It's an enabling of a mental illness. It's an enabling of a destructive philosophy, ideology, as Justin Kagan said, it is an ideology. Because the state has suppressed one side of a debate while aiding the other This is directly this bill This is directly And we all know this is why this bill came is because of the anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling We all knew where the Supreme Court was going with this They had let out some statements to let us know that And then they said, then Justice Kagan said, and this aiding the other, this is the constitutional issue and it is very straightforward. It is against the Constitution. This bill is against the Constitution. Now, we will sue over this. We will sue all the way up to the Supreme Court again. Actually, I don't think we're going to have to because the Supreme Court has set the precedence. I don't think this one's going to ever see the light of day because it's already, already, as of two days ago, not constitutional. This is an attack on the First Amendment. This is an attack on children again. I've stated that in the previous bill in case there's any confusion. This is an attack on children. This is destructive to all children of all ages, of all ideology. It is an attack. And this is not constitutional. So run it. We'll tear it down.

Rep Bradley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to change direction a little bit. I was looking at the bill sponsors amendments compared to this amendment, and I just, I don't think it does, in all due respect, kind of what we believe needs to be done. And I've brought a bill before to protect children from puberty blockers, And so I just want to speak to you from a different tone and a different perspective as a health care worker who has vaccinated my children. I think I've told you guys the story and never been opposed to vaccinations and then started to do a little bit of digging because I wasn't getting informed consent about vaccinations. And I started doing a little bit more digging and thought, why am I not getting informed consent? And so when I started to become a legislator, I started doing a little bit more digging into what we call gender affirming care. So as a mom and a child abuse survivor, and it being Child Abuse Month, I find it very interesting that this bill is definitely coming forward because I don't think that parents and children understand the harmful rhetoric and the false narratives being pushed on them. And that's where I want to come from a place, from a good place, a good heart. Instead of the rhetoric that our caucus has been blamed for, we get called a lot of really bad names and a lot of ugly things. And I think, wow, I'm just trying to protect kids. And I try to say these things. The minority leader brought a bill forward in Health and Human Services. And I have a very big standard when it comes to passing bills. Does it go through random control trials? Are there double-blind studies? all the things that I've been taught in physical therapy school to look for. And so when I started down this rabbit hole, I started looking at what are these kids and these parents being told? Because I want to know that they're getting informed consent because I don't even get informed consent with an MMR vaccination. So are these parents being sold a suicide lie? are they being sat down and told after puberty children will go back to their biological sex? Are they being told the statistical evidence? And I don't believe that they are. And so that's where I'm coming from, a place in my heart, and that's why I run these bills. So I started looking at the data. 90 million patients in one study involving 56 United States health care organizations 90 million patients And what did they find They found that individuals who underwent gender surgery had a 12-fold higher suicide attempt risk than those who did not. 12 times. Okay, let's continue. Another study covering a period of 30 years showed 19 times higher suicide risk for people who had undergone gender-affirming surgery. So when we talk about harmful research and harmful things being done, we have to also talk about what is actually happening. So this one showed not just 12 times, but this one showed 19 times. There's a reason that most countries have either said, caution, we need these kids to go through psychological counseling before we even start this process, or we're going to ban it outright. And a ton of doctors have already said we're not going to do this anymore because we feel like we're doing harm. So when we talk about conversion therapy being harmful, we need to talk about the alternative risks to our children as well. There's never been a random control trial of puberty blockers and gender dysphoria. That was what I just told you. That's the gold standard in medicine. Multiple systematic reviews of the data does not show safety nor that they help. That is the science. That is what we're being told. It's not safe. Major studies on children in the UK and US did not find that blockers helped, nor were safe. Blockers are not FDA approved for gender dysphoria. The most famous study saying regret rates for gender surgery are low. Ages 13 plus did not have data on 30 to 40 percent of their patients. Regretful patients are less likely to follow up. According to the DSM, 61 to 98% of boys and 50 to 88% of girls desist by adulthood. For the many cases of gender dysphoria which desist by adulthood, youth presumably get risks but not benefits. Suicide mortality is not predicted by gender dysphoria. We just said 19 times more likely to commit suicide. So why, I don't understand why we're pushing this on our children. And this amendment would say that we can't. I am worried about the children of Colorado. The bill sponsors are worried about conversion therapy. I'm worried about treating our children like beagles with fleas. I'm at a loss. Every country has researched this and they are saying stop, pause. The U.S. has studies that they have hidden because of damning evidence to our children that we're supposed to do no harm. The most vulnerable, we're supposed to do no harm. Six independent systematic reviews in the UK, two in Canada, five in Johns Hopkins. Three different countries have said puberty blockers are not safe for minors. UK and Canada have no evidence that it helps or is safe. So why wouldn't we accept this amendment? What is the gold standard? The gold standard is that conversion therapy is not safe, but the gold standard is that gender-affirming care is, even though we have evidence that you're 19 times more likely to commit suicide if you go through gender-affirming surgery? I don't understand I'm not for a loss of words very often and then we talk about how parents should be involved when it comes to this when we have bill after bill banning parents in this place from being involved in our children's care happy April Fool's Day because you guys ban parents from the medical room the psychologist room you ban us from every room there is to ban us from. And then you come up here and talk about parents should be involved. You have press conferences talking about that parents should be involved. How dare you? Vote yes on this amendment. Stop the hypocrisy.

Rep. Luck to L18. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am a bit confused by the bill sponsor's statement that the two amendments we're discussing, the underlying amendment and the substitute amendment, do the same thing. And so I just think it's important that we walk through the bill and understand the section we're seeking to amend. We're on page five. The first four pages are the normal title page in Ledge Deck. And then we get into definitions. And we're in the definition section where we're defining one of the most important terms of the bill. Quote the term, sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts. That's the term that's being defined. And it's defined in two ways. it's defined both as what it is and what it is not. The underlying amendment is seeking to change what it is not, whereas this amendment is seeking to change both what it is and what it is not. The underlying amendment is seeking to say that particular viewpoint that deal with gender identity, that particular viewpoints do not fall under the definition. In other words, if you're a counselor, if the underlying amendment passes, there will be certain things that you can't talk about and have a predetermined outcome related to, and certain things that you can talk about and have a predetermined outcome related to. That is the underlying amendment. This amendment says we're going to treat all of this area and all of this conversation the same. and we are going to say that none of that speech is appropriate or would remove you from liability if it is driven by a predetermined outcome And then it strikes the section that the underlying amendment is seeking to amend Why is this significant? I do believe that the representative from El Paso County was pointing to some of why this is significant, and it boils down largely to why this bill exists at all. The bill sponsors highlighted how in 2019 a bill was passed to ban conversion therapy. That particular law was challenged, and the Supreme Court of the United States took it up in its fall term of 2025. And based on other decisions that they've made, as well as questionings from the justices and answers from the various parties, it was reasonable to believe that Colorado's law was about to get struck down. And so I believe that this bill is in response to that. It's in response to the idea that the court was going to say, you can't ban conversion therapy. And so this is a clever way to, again, ban it in hopes that doing it in a different way will pass strict scrutiny muster. But as was pointed out, even justices who support the underlying idea and worldview related to banning conversion therapy rejected this idea. In fact, the decision that came down yesterday striking Colorado's ban on conversion therapy, Childs v. Alazar, was an 8-to-1 decision. Do you know how rare it is these days to get 8-to-1 decisions? and yet they were given in large part because of a viewpoint discrimination. The idea that Colorado raised up one viewpoint or one type of speech, one angle of speech and hindered the other. As drafted, this bill does the exact same thing, unless this amendment is taken, or an amendment similar to this, if the bill sponsors want to parse words. but to say that only affirming is immune from liability is essentially no different than what the court struck down yesterday I rise in support of this amendment and if the bill sponsors if I'm understanding them correctly the crux of the issue is as relates to predetermined outcomes I would venture to say if that is the concern then there shouldn be a desire for predetermined outcomes in any of these spaces especially if that is connected to harm For those who support gender transition and counseling in that direction, there should be no fear to include it in this definition as this amendment contemplates. because the bill goes on to explain how a case must be made. And the case must be able to prove causation that is established by expert testimony, scientific literature, or other evidence demonstrating that sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts are capable of causing the type of psychological injury or illness the plaintiff suffers. If there's no problem with gender transition therapies and counseling, helping people align with their gender identity, then there shouldn't be any opportunity to actually prove causation. Because the expert testimony, scientific literature, or other evidence demonstrating that type of counseling is capable of causing the type of psychological injury or illness. It shouldn't exist. So really there's no risk or harm in adopting this if all of that evidence is true, if what the majority believes about this space is true. There is, however, harm in not adopting this because the court has just said yesterday, Yesterday, they said that this underlying statutory construction is unconstitutional. And if people in this room desire to see this policy implemented, because they are concerned about this area and this potential harm, you'd think that you would want to cure the constitutional defects that were pointed out to us, again, just yesterday. I rise in support of this.

Brad Block. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I think there's some confusion about what these two amendments are doing and why there is this, why there is a difference. And so, again, I'll just direct you to the fact that the underlying amendment, as the bill sponsor just pointed out, is striking what the definition of the behavior that is being prohibited does not include. Does not include. these kinds of treatments. What this amendment is saying is strike that entirely and say that that behavior actually is included in the underlying definition of prohibited behavior.

Rep. Valdez. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Keeping on that note of making the bill a better thing, I'd like to move Amendment L-002 and ask that it be properly displayed. 60.

Thank you. This is a technical amendment. It just creates a fix on the separation of powers. And so as written, it could be interpreted as directing the courts on how to apply the law. This amendment corrects that removing any implication from the legislature instructing the judiciary. So it just cleans it up a little bit. We ask for an aye vote on L2.

Rep McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move L016 to House Bill 1322 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This amendment makes an important update to how conversion therapy is defined in law. In light of the decision yesterday, the amendment clarifies that our ban on conversion therapy addresses conduct, not speech. The updated definition focuses on practices where a licensed provider directs a patient toward a predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome, regardless of what that outcome is. It also makes clear that this bill, what this bill does not do. It does not restrict supportive, exploratory, or neutral therapy. Providers can continue to support patients who are questioning or navigating their identity. What this bill does is ensure accountability when a licensed provider causes harm through coercive or agenda-driven practices. And so this amendment strengthens our bill and ensures that it aligns with current legal standards, and we ask for an aye vote on the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, it's curious, this bill's title, Concerning Civil Actions Against Certain Individuals Engaging in Conversion Therapy Efforts, doesn't, strictly speaking, actually address the substance of the bill because nowhere in this bill up until this point is there even a reference to conversion therapy. It's curious that that is the case. Instead, conversion therapy is renamed under the title, again, that definition we just been discussing at length Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity change efforts Moreover concerning civil actions against certain individuals engaging in conversion therapy efforts I'm not sure, I haven't had a chance to review this, but this seems to be in section 12. Is that right or is that 13? I can't see that far. It says section 12. So Section 12, the rest of this bill looks to be in Section 13. And I don't know of any reference. Somebody may be able to, on the fly, tell me if there is a reference to Section 12. But it seems to me we are creating an entirely new section in law. And so this doesn't seem to fall, strictly speaking, under the title. so I request the title ruling on this particular amendment.

Aye.

No.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and it's an honor to serve with you. It's an honor to serve with you. Plus, I was looking for you for the last 10 minutes and realized you were in the chair. Members, I have some issues with this bill that I'd like to talk about. Certainly this comes one day after the United States Supreme Court ruled that conversion therapy is a matter of First Amendment, and that was an 8-1 ruling by the United States Supreme Court. Colorado, as the sponsor has correctly stated, has banned conversion therapy since 2019. And what the bill seeks to do is have a de facto ban on conversion therapy by creating a new cause of action in which there is no statute of limitations and in which there is no damage caps. Additionally, if someone were to die, and it's related back to conversion therapy and the mental anguish and suffering that might have occurred from those events, then the family has a survival right up to five years after death. I'm first going to talk about why that's problematic. So first of all, the bill creates a new section in page 9, lines 12 to 21, in which it describes the cause of action and that then the person who was subject to the conversion therapy died. died. It's five years. In 1320-101 is where we see the statute for survival rights. There's survival rights and wrongful death actions. Those are the two areas of law that are available in tort after someone dies, when the family can bring action. This falls under survival rights. 1320-101 defines what these are. It does limit it to non-economic damages.

So 1320-101 is our survival action statute. And it talks about, with the exception of libel and slander, all the different areas in tort law, which is what we're talking about, when a survival action may happen and that it's limited to non-economic damages. Furthermore, there's another provision in law that generally limits tort actions to two years after death. What's important about that is this bill, 1322, creates a five-year window for bringing in action after the person has died. Remember, the standard is two years. The two years applies to someone who had been sexually assaulted or raped. That person's family, after they die, have two years to commence an action against the perpetrator. However, if years earlier they'd gone through conversion therapy, it would be five years. Likewise, if a person is killed in a motor vehicle accident, the family has three years under our laws to bring a cause of action. If it was a vehicular homicide, meaning a hit and run, the family or the survivors would have up to four years to bring a cause of action. And if it's a violation of the Dram Shop Act, meaning the bartender watched someone consume 12 drinks, grab the keys, get in the car, and then they roll over and die from over-serving. That's a one year after death to bring in action. I mention these because now conversion therapy after someone dies, and by the way, we've just gotten rid of the statute of limitations, so this could be 50 years after a person had gone through conversion therapy. Then they, let's say they die from a heart attack that's linked to stress, and the stress was from a lifetime of not knowing who they were in confusion. The family then has five years to bring a lawsuit against the former provider, assuming the former provider is still alive. In this scenario, that person could be in their 80s, 90s, or 100 years old. And on top of it, the reason why we typically have statutes of limitations is because we want to encourage plaintiffs to bring their case. We want to encourage timely filings of their case. And I understand from having worked on most of the sexual assault laws over the last eight years that the average age in which at least a sexual assault survivor can tell their story is in their early to mid-50s. So that's not lost on us. But when it comes to conversion therapy, the difference between a sexual assault survivor is the person who was sexually assaulted they did not consent to what happened to them. As an adult, someone who engages in seeking out a conversion therapy provider, they did consent to that. They walked into that office knowing good and well what they were after. The sign on the door was no mystery. There was nothing hidden under a shroud. It was two consenting individuals in which one was seeking the conversion therapy, and the other one was providing that service. We can debate whether or not this is a recognized medical practice, and I can tell you I agree with the sponsors. It's not. But what we can do is we can say that the person didn consent when they walked through the door as an adult knowing what the sign on the door said And we can't say that this is exactly like sexual assault, where someone did not choose to be brutally raped. That's a physical act and a mental act that follows. And removing the statute of limitations for both and the damage caps for both means you're putting them on the same par. But what's not on the same par is when that victim dies and it can be linked to the underlying cause of action. For conversion therapy, it's now going to be five years that the family has to file and unlimited damages, both economic and non-economic. But for that rape survivor, that sexual assault survivor, that family has two years and only non-economic damages. And if you're comfortable with having the statutes be completely disaligned, then vote for the bill. But if you're like me and you can't look a sexual assault survivor in the eye and say, we all of a sudden changed the law to give greater damages and a longer runway after you die for the person who went through conversion therapy than the person who was sexually assaulted or raped, I can't. I can't tell that person that we completely unhitched the level to say that conversion therapy after death is so much worse. Members, to further the debate, I have an amendment because no good debate is without an amendment. And I move Amendment L019 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Members, today is April 1st. Yesterday was March 31st. And as has been said quite a few times today, the United States Supreme Court struck down the states' conversion therapy bans for those states like Colorado that had those. The bill presumed an outcome by the Supreme Court. I'm not real sure what would have happened had the Supreme Court gone the other way. But there were some people who had their crystal ball, and it was definitely a lining right. So the bill seeks to have a de facto conversion therapy band here in Colorado. I'm not going to argue one way or the other on the merits of conversion therapy. But what I will say is that the Supreme Court was certainly clear on the First Amendment. And I would like to think that someone who believed in this practice, they had a client walk through the door, and then let's say they left the practice they want on to do something else ran for the state legislature going to carpentry something completely different years later because we removing the statute limitations someone could come forward and just by raising a cause of action that individual reputation and character are going to come into question and it going to be tarnished. Since there's no damage caps in place, there's no sense of even if you have a general homeowner's insurance, which allows you to basically use your home as payment for a lawsuit should you lose, which I'm sure a lot of us have that as public officials you should. Not even knowing if all your assets could cover what would come down. Having some sense of what this dollar figure could be, because it's so far in the future in which a lawsuit could come, that if we're not going to encourage someone to come forward soon, to sue, to raise their grievances, then we should have a damage cap in place. And this is exactly what we have for Senate Bill 2188, which concerned when an institution was covering up the rape or sexual abuse of a child. And we put in damage caps in that bill to reflect the fact that there needs to be some known amount out there, especially because we had removed the statute of limitations. So if you're removing the statute of limitations, then you have to have some sort of a cap. I mean, it's going to be one or the other. Plus, with a statute of limitations, you can also toll the statute of limitations. You can have a tolling provision in which if new evidence is found, you can toll the statute and it keeps going. But what we're saying here is that if a court finds that therapy was conducted with the deliberate intent to intentionally cause harm, then the action is a $2 million cap. But if the court finds the negligence, you know, if it's just negligence, it's a $1 million cap. this applies only to the non-economic damage side of the equation and I want to point that out because I know not everyone went to law school economic damages are going to be your medical bills so those are going to be the bills that can be calculated perhaps the cost of someone going to additional counseling to recover from the conversion therapy or perhaps they had attempted suicide and there's the medical expenses from the ER. Perhaps this person had to be on certain pharmaceuticals to help with their mental health in terms of their recovery, and let's say they're very expensive pharmaceuticals, it would cover that. So that's the economic damages. The non-economic damages are going to be your statutory punitive damages saying that we as a society believe that the causer of harm, the perpetrator has to pay a certain amount to discourage what's happening. A million dollars for negligence in the non-economic side, and two million if they intentionally tried to cause harm by converting this person against their will, let's say, that's a really, really high number. Looking out across even this chamber, there's probably only a couple of members who could survive this type of economic hit once the bill comes down for court costs and attorney's fees, economic damages, and then the cap on non-economic damages. So this is a reasonable ask that in this space should be considered Another legal reason for why we should consider a damage cap is because the Supreme Court did remove the prohibition on conversion therapy to now have a de facto ban on conversion therapy through this law by unleashing the trial lawyers. If we want to somehow make a differential that we're not immediately just implementing a ban on conversion therapy one day after the Supreme Court lifted it, then you need to have some sort of a damage cap to show that it's actually in line with our other tort laws that we have here in Colorado. And for those reasons, I'm going to be voting no unless we can work on an amendment on the bill. But on this amendment, I'm voting yes. So if we can pass this amendment, we can get somewhere.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for digging in to my colleague from Delta. I appreciate that you were really looking into this. And knowing that this bill that we're running today is about the harm that is done to folks and how they can have accountability going forward in life, this amendment suggests a damages cap. and that would be difficult to accept because it means that we're saying that some survivors that come to terms with their harm may get there faster than others. We know it sometimes takes years, but also comparing this to other areas of law, I think that's a really good discussion to have, and perhaps we need to look at those other areas of law where harm is done and look at changing those areas of law, not necessarily limiting the harm in this particular case. So I welcome that discussion on how we might make things equal across harm that is done to people. But for now, as far as putting a cap on this when this harm is sometimes immeasurable, and to also clarify, all licensed practitioners in the mental health field and the medical health field all have to carry malpractice liability insurance. so you know it's not coming out of their actual pocket it's coming out of their insurance that they have to make sure that they're practicing their standard of care and not going beyond that and harming people so we we ask for a no vote on this amendment but again I do appreciate you

I'm glad we agree on the areas where we should probably be improving other areas of law. That being said, let's talk about the issue of medical malpractice insurance. let's say because we're taking away the statute of limitations and it's not tied to their tenure of practice long after individual retires from the medical field, a lawsuit could commence, and they would not have, for example, their medical malpractice insurance. Likewise, their medical malpractice insurance is likely not to have a policy when there's unlimited damage caps. It would be very difficult for an insurance company to underwrite what an unlimited amount might be. I mean, they certainly couldn't have a stop loss provision because it could be through the roof, but they might be able to have something that goes up to a million dollars, let's say. Even that could be a bit expensive. But long after a person retires, they could be sued. And even just the cost of defending the lawsuit could be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. So even if the person were to win the lawsuit and prevail as the medical provider, they would still lose in terms of the attorney's fees and court costs of just being pulled into harm's way. That's why we have either a statute of limitations or a damage cap, typically, is because the longer you go, memories fade, people die, and so you no longer have witnesses. you may have a different view of what happened 50 years later than you do 5 years after the incident I mean if I were to ask you what happened when you were in high school I mean some of you might have a very clear picture because you're closer to those years than others and I'm not looking at anyone in particular yeah sorry but that's why we have a statute of limitations is I understand you will hear from attorneys who are pushing the bill that it may be very difficult for a plaintiff to be able to prevail the longer out they get, but just the fact that they bring a lawsuit and the attorney has a good faith reason because their client walked through the door and they're sobbing, that still is going to put the defendant in a very difficult position. And heaven forbid, you know, it was a mental health provider who wasn't even holding themselves out for conversion therapy who has a patient in there who's talking about being depressed. They say something to the effect of, I'm having trouble talking to members of the opposite sex. Do you have any advice? and they're really hinting at the fact that they're more attracted to members of the same sex. And what does the provider do at that point in time? I mean, the minute they say, you know, why don't you go to a particular bar or hang out at the vegetable section in the grocery store, wherever is a good place to meet people, the minute they offer that is that now part of the conversion therapy ecosystem? And that's what I fear is that you get a trial lawyer who advertises on the side of a building or on TV hey call 1-800 we can help you get a really big judgment just call us and we'll sue that I am fearful of. I mean for those people who are causing harm absolutely we should unleash the trial lawyers but for those people who are just caught in the middle and may have gone on to do other things or they retired and that was never their intent to cause harm That I do have problems with the way this bill is written

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I rise in support of this amendment for the reasons that were just outlined by the representative from Delta. you know sometimes there are professionals who practice in their best knowledge at the time and maybe that was in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, decades ago but they're going based on what they were taught in psychology school or counseling school and they're going with the best knowledge they have at that time using DSM and come to find out years later if they've done something that causes harm. It's not like they intentionally did that at that time. And the statute of limitations provides some safety for those who didn't realize that 20 or 30 years ago. And they could potentially have even changed their minds on what they did, and they could be saying, wow, I wish I hadn't done this 20 years ago or 30 years ago. My perspective has changed. But now they still have the potential to be sued. And I also am thinking about the litigious society we have. And when we add more potential for litigation on some of these practices, are we going to be running those people who practice out of the state because they're worried about 20 years ago I said this, I've changed my mind, but 20 years ago I said or did this and now I could get sued for who knows how many millions of dollars. So I rise in support of this amendment.

seeing no further discussion the motion before us is the adoption of L19 all those in favor say aye all those opposed say no the amendment fails to the bill.

That's properly displayed. To the amendment, Rep. Richardson.

Minority Leader Caldwell. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll keep it very quick. This just seems like a good governance amendment. We use the term guardrails a lot, and this is clearly and explicitly guardrails. This idea of just having no timeline whatsoever, I'm not aware of anywhere else in law where we do that, except for very few exceptions, like very, very few exceptions. But putting these guardrails in place, putting that timeline in place just makes sense. It's good governance. I actually think without putting some guardrails in place there, we actually are opening opening ourselves up to some kind of lawsuit because we're making this the exception unlike pretty much everywhere else in law. So certainly would support this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also rise in support of this amendment. The note related to insurance, I think it's just worth expounding upon that it's unlikely insurance companies will insure for something as abstract as this, as risky as this, to say that you could be sued at any time for anything. Up until any moment, you could be 99 years old and be sued for a patient who died five years ago. There is no limitation. And so in essence, there won't be anyone practicing at all in this space of sexual orientation or gender identity, I dare say, even if they're not engaged in making predetermined outcomes because they won't be able to get hired by clinics because of bills like this, and they also won't be able to get insurance. And so if you want people to have treatment as they work through some of the issues that have been shared, you probably should want to ensure that insurance companies have a reasonable understanding of the risk and that that risk is limited such that they would actually insure them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move amendment L2-0 and ask that it be displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the behavior that is being addressed here, the behavior that is of concern, is not necessarily counseling or therapy, right? In fact, the exceptions that are listed include exceptions for counseling or therapy that is neutral with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity. The behavior that is being addressed in this bill that, as I understand it, that is being found to be problematic is predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome counseling or therapy. And so I think it's important to add into the definitional section what that actually means. How do counselors and licensed mental health professionals, how do they run afoul of this particular standard? They should know that. It should be clearly stated for them, especially since the risk is so great as has been articulated previously And so to have a definition that gives them understanding of the kind of behavior that they okay doing and the kind of behavior that they not is important from my standpoint. So here we have an amendment that defines what that predetermined sexual orientation or gender identity outcome means, which is an outcome that is determined solely by the mental health professional without input from the mental health professional's patient. If you go into a counselor's office and the counselor, you know, you sit down and the counselor says, okay, we're going to treat you for being a lover of dad jokes and we're going to help you overcome that particular problem of loving dad jokes too much. And that's not why you're there and that's what they treat you for okay then they've engaged in some sketchy business if they have already decided what about you needs fixing without you even articulating what that is or what you're there for yeah there's a problem i think we all would agree with that but if you come into their clinic in this instance and say, you know what, I find myself attracted to this type of individual, and I don't want to be attracted to that type of individual. I want to be attracted to this type of individual, and I'm wondering if you can help me reframe and renew my mind in a way that I can be attractive or hear. And the counselor says, yeah, I think we could probably work that through. That should not fall under the prohibited behavior under this bill. That is patient-directed care. And if I'm understanding the bill sponsors correctly, they want patient-directed care, and so there shouldn't be any sort of concern about making sure that the definition is clear because you don't want these counselors to fear engaging in treatment with their patient at the request of their patient and then not doing it because they're fearful that it will be deemed a predetermined outcome by some outside force. I wish we had actually more time because I feel like I can't go into all of the things that need to be laid as foundation in order to really make these arguments coherent. But I will say that even in the case that has perpetuated or prompted this particular bill, the petitioner in that case, who is the counselor who is challenging Colorado's conversion therapy ban, she herself admitted that she doesn't want to support predetermined outcomes in this space. She doesn't want to support or in any way open the door for counselors to make determinations on behalf of their patients. I don't think any of us disagree with that. It's just important that we define what that means so that there's clarity, which then will ensure that patients get the care and the treatment that they desire.

I move Amendment L004 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members, this is a statute of limitations amendment, and as we talked about earlier throughout this debate, it's important to align this new cause of action that's being created here today with our statute of limitations that we have currently in law. Right now, our longest statute of limitations in Colorado is 10 years, So this would align this new cause of action with the 10-year statute of limitations. More importantly, it talks about if the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered the psychological injury or illness the plaintiff had suffered as a result of the sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts, but the civil action to recover damages must be commenced no later than 25 years after the date of the last treatment session in which the sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts occurred. So what we're saying here is that at any case, the cause of action must be commenced within 25 years after the last session with the provider. But that 10 years is what we're expecting and that we're expecting that individual to timely file their case. I can tell you with the news media attention that's been generated by the U.S. Supreme Court in the last 24 hours by this legislation, the fact that this will probably be in the news for many days yet to come, people who are thinking, I may have a cause of action. Well, they can't bring it under this because it hasn't taken effect. So just to state what we're talking about here, it doesn't occur until after it's signed into law, and then the statute of limitations would come into force. Also, let's talk reality. I think we've had a lot of debate here at the well about things that aren't linked to reality. We have banned in the state of Colorado conversion therapy for the last seven years. we've not had any conversion therapy exist for seven years. Hopefully we can all agree on this. Am I seeing some nods of heads? One person. That's good. So agreeing that we have not had conversion therapy for seven years, we're now going to have this law on the books, which will say there's an unlimited amount of damages that can be awarded, but let's have at least a 10-year statute of limitations with the ability to move up to a 25-year statute of limitations to encourage an individual to come forward. Now, don't forget we have not had this therapy be legal in Colorado for seven years. On top of that, we don't have DORA, the Department of Regulatory Affairs licensing this therapy We don have the medical board licensing this therapy I not even sure if medical insurance is going to provide a blanket insurance policy for this therapy This is where we need to talk in practicality. It's really easy to talk as though we're in the ivory tower and we're analyzing the statute books in a black and white world, but the world is based on practicalities. And if you have someone moving into Colorado after the bill takes effect, looking out at the fact that they don't want to operate as a religious entity providing these services because religious entities are already exempt. Some head nods. So you don't want to operate under the guise of religion. You want to be a private sector for profit, but we know in the medical world you're always a non-profit. But you're operating in that space. It's not been lawful here. No one's probably going to give you insurance, an insurance policy. And on top of it, you now have a bill that talks about unlimited damages. I want to say that once again. Unlimited damages. So if you're looking at the landscape of Colorado, at least let there be a 10-year to 25-year statute of limitations. Because I think about the person who, you know, they moved in from, say, Kansas. This was their occupation. They're continuing their occupation because that's all they know. And let's say they're a millennial. And what do we know about millennials? they change jobs quickly. Yeah, millennial, yeah. Although for a couple of us, we're still here after eight years. But the average millennial, it's like three to four years is their average job. So if you're a millennial moving in from Kansas, by the end of the decade, you will be doing something else. But yet you will still have this liability hanging over your head. at least let that individual know that lawsuits stop at some point in time, that they're not going to be looking at a lawsuit clear up to the day they died. And certainly it's silent on suing the estate, but you certainly can sue the estate. You have a time window to be able to do that. You actually could have one estate sue another estate, which would be really bizarre. So if the windows aligned just right, you could actually have the family of an individual who had gone through conversion therapy 50 years earlier die. Within five years, they could sue, and as the person who had provided the therapy had also died, now you have two estates battling out a tort action with unlimited damage caps and no statute of limitations. While that's an unlikely scenario, one thing I know about the law is we didn't get sets of casebooks a mile long without bizarre fact patterns, and the law is based on reality. And the reality is the chilling effect of someone wanting to go into conversion therapy from the private sector, non-religious, is already here. Let's have a statute of limitations to give assurances to someone who, like the fact pattern I just presented, may have come into Colorado, practiced for a brief time, then left, did something else with their life, but they should know at some point in time when it cuts off. So I'd ask for a yes vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it's notable that the conversation really has not been about the substance of this treatment so much as the legal disparities between the way we're treating this particular issue and all of these others in law because it feels as if it reads as if this is an abnormality. There are so many aspects to this bill that just are not consistent with other areas of law, other standards of law, the way we treat other situations, the way we treat things that are physical. I mean, it's very interesting. And so I want to address another one of those inconsistencies, and so I move Amendment L021 and ask that it be displayed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if we look at what is required when a patient brings a cause of action against their mental health provider, there is a presumption, it's a rebuttable presumption that's created in this bill, that says that the plaintiff, basically, once they provide evidence through what is known as general causation, which is described not based off of their own particular story, but based upon evidence that's generally known within the world, right? General causation is defined under this bill. It includes things like expert testimony and scientific literature. So this general causation, once that's laid out in the court, then basically the plaintiff is in a position of success unless the defendant, the mental health provider, can show by a preponderance of the evidence that the plaintiff's psychological injury or illness was caused solely by other factors unrelated to the sexual orientation or gender identity change efforts. solely meaning there is no aspect of the patient and provider interaction relationship that in any way contributed to the psychological injury or illness None That bar is impossible to meet. It's such a subjective standard. And so I move an amendment that changes solely to substantively. Substantially, sorry. Substantially. In other words, that the defendant could show that they did not substantially contribute to the plaintiff's psychological injury or illness. They didn't substantially contribute. Another way you can think about this is sort of in terms of contributory negligence, right? Under the current bill, we're talking about a strict liability situation. But perhaps fairness would be a better policy, like to have this policy be more fair, perhaps it should be based off of a contributory negligence standard, where if you can prove that the provider contributed 20% or 30% to the harm, that that is the damage amount that they are responsible for, not the whole. And not the whole because they contributed 1%. Under the way this bill is currently written, if the provider contributed 1% to the 100% of a plaintiff's psychological injury or illness, they can be held responsible. for the whole 100%. That's not fair. It's not fair at all. If 99% of someone's harm is caused by other sources, why should the provider be responsible for that 99%? Especially when we're talking about psychological injury. or illness, which is a lot more challenging to prove or disprove and quantify because it is so subjective. And so to require that the plaintiffs, stated another way than what the bill says, require that the plaintiffs show or have had an illness or an injury that was substantially caused is a much fair way to impose a strict liability setup. And if we're not going to change it to more of a contributory negligence type of a setup, I think this is a middle ground that we might pursue. I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been looking through the bill. There some things that don quite jive that I hoping that the sponsors could give me a little bit of their thoughts on There's pretty much three areas that I have questions on. On page five, towards the bottom and leading into page six, the bill excludes supportive, exploratory, neutral, and relation-related counseling. but then exclusion seems to be overridden depending on whether the provider was directing the patient towards a predetermined outcome. So I was kind of curious if the sponsors see that as circular or are there some way to break out of that? Because if you're neutral but you're trying to get to a predetermined outcome, I'm not sure what that means. And the other two really are related to those that maybe have employed these people. So on page 7, I know you're following along, there's a liability attached where a provider was likely to engage in prohibitive efforts, and I'm not sure if a supervisor or employer is supposed to be able to predict what somebody's future behavior is if they were likely to do something. And then it requires that reasonable steps be taken to prevent or stop the conduct. Kind of wondering if the sponsors had some thoughts on what those reasonable steps might be, something that is defensible as reasonable steps. so if you could I'm just curious what what what reasonable steps might be and then again the carve outs for exploratory neutral relationship related counseling but then those carve out seem to be taken away if there's a if the providers still directing towards a predetermined outcome and those two don't seem to jive. So I'm just curious what your thoughts were on that.

I guess I'll answer the question. It's yes. Do you want me to ask him to have it again? No more questions. Okay. So, in light of the sidebar conversation, Mr. Chair, I move Amendment L-009 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members, this is one that, as we have listened to the debate, a lot of talk has been on minors who were forced into conversion therapy by their parents against their will. Because don't forget, if we're talking adults, adults freely consent. They had free will. They made a conscious decision to go to a conversion therapist. we understand that you know parents may have taken their their children to therapy for a very specific reason and we want to recognize that so what we're saying is an action brought pursuant to this section more than 15 years after the plaintiff turns 18 years old is subject to a million cap on total recoverable damages And this is to do two things One is to encourage that individual upon turning 18 to bring a lawsuit within the next 15 years. And the other thing is to give a little bit of known assurance as to what the damages are going to be at $1 million. So if you think about this passing, right away, of course you first have to get someone who wants to practice conversion therapy and not be part of a church or religious faith, which is currently banned in Colorado, just undone, just so we set the stage once again. They're now going to have to come into Colorado maybe sometime later this summer. let's say you know the minor is 15 they have until they're 18 so at least three more years so that's at least 2029 2030 then they have 15 years after that so that'd take them all the way to 2045 to bring a lawsuit and the reason why we want to encourage timely filings of lawsuits is because memories fade, evidence goes missing, perhaps key witnesses die. And that's why for several hundred years within the common law, we have had a statute of limitations for different causes of action, certainly within tort law, and that's important. So for all these reasons, I would ask for a yes vote. Thank you.

Chair, thank you. You know, the last couple of amendments that have been run, one from my colleague from Delta and Mesa, you know, sought to draw some reasonable boundaries around the ability to come back years later. there were two amendments that were offered. Both of those were shot down. This is, of course, kind of along those lines. It's not just purely, obviously, on a time factor, but it seeks to cap the damages. At some point, I would love to have some assistance here with trying to draw some reasonable boundaries around this policy. If it's not just on the years, then should it not be a combination? And it makes a lot of sense to have it as a combination between the years and capped at a specific amount, $1 million. It's perfectly reasonable to try to draw some boundaries around something that we obviously are having a very difficult time with. I believe this is a fair amendment. I believe it's a sensible amendment. And I would ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I move. I move L008 to HB 1322 and ask for it to be properly displayed.

And proceed. Thank you, ma'am. So I'm bringing to you this amendment that I believe should be added to the bill. In the bill, I know when we're making bills, sometimes, you know, you're so in-depth and so entrenched in the creation of the bill, whether it's good or bad, that things can be overlooked or not thought of or accidentally left out. And I believe that I have found an area that has been left out. In the bill, starting on page 5, it states the items that should be excluded, things that the bill should not be included. And A is counseling or therapy that provides assistance to a patient undergoing gender transition. B, counseling or therapy that provides acceptance, support, and understanding of a patient or facilities, or facilitate, sorry, a patient's coping, social support, identity exploration, yada, yada, yada. Well, in here, I realize that it doesn't actually exclude just your average normal standard talk therapy. When you go into therapy, you know, a counselor or counseling, you know, the very first thing they do is they start asking you questions, trying to get the baseline information to help you with whatever problems you're seeking solutions for. And by leaving that out, by leaving talk therapy out and exploratory counseling so they can figure out what's going on with the individual is a disservice to the counselor, to the therapist, and honestly to the patient. Because it may, without having this in there, it may exclude them from, or not exclude them, they may exclude that from their therapy or counseling sessions in fear that they will be in trouble for even going there. So by including this amendment, by including this information into the bill, it allows the therapist or the counselor to be able to do their job and start from ground zero to be able to help their patient the best they possibly can. You know, they're supposed to do no harm, and you can't, in order to do that, you need to know the background. You need to know where the problem has started, where the gender dysphoria or whatever it is has started. And this allows them to be able to get that ground-based information from their patients without fear of being in trouble by this law. So I am asking for a yes vote on L-008.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This amendment actually narrows the definition of harm in a way that excludes many of the practices in the bill that the bill is intended to address. and we know that conversion therapy is not limited just to explicit aversive techniques. So a lot of the harm comes from actually sustained agenda-driven techniques. That's where we're talking about this type of counseling that is directing a patient towards a predetermined outcome. And so this amendment would actually create a loophole in that concept. which would allow some of those harmful practices to continue as long as they not framed as explicitly coercive And that could be a problem and kind of creates some unnecessary vague language We don want there to be confusion about what is covered and what is not so and the bill does make it clear that supportive exploratory neutral therapy is all protected and we don't want to weaken that standard. So we're asking for a no vote on L008.

Thank you, Madam Chair and I disagree that it is clear in the bill that this talk therapy exploratory counseling or any conversion-based treatment that does not involve a documented deliberate attempt to change a patient's sexual orientation or gender identity through harmful methods this amendment this inclusion of the exclusion for a counselor allows them to get that base knowledge. It allows them to do the talk therapy to kind of dig in and find out what's happening with their patient. This is not listed in the bill at all that allows this to happen without having them getting into trouble. So including this will actually allow the therapist and the counselor to go and to get the base information that they need to even start the therapy, to even get started. It has been left out. I don't believe that it was intentional, or I do believe that the rest of the bill is misunderstood, even possibly by those who made it. But this is definitely a step that should be included, and I am asking for a yes vote. We have to do good legislation, and I think this helps strengthen it. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I find it interesting that we talk about taking away parental rights again, because I just looked up how many bills that have taken away parental rights in the last four years, and there's about 10 bills that we have ran in four years that take away parental rights. And so I just want to talk about what I believe this bill does. I think this bill is a clear attempt to circumvent a federal court decision protecting counselors' free speech, and I don't really understand it. I don't understand how we circumvent the right of religious expression for something else. I think instead of respecting constitutional limits, lawmakers are trying to reimpose restrictions through new language. And I think the people of Colorado are very clear that that's what we're doing. I think that we're seeing that all around Colorado. I think we're seeing it in art clubs designed to be art clubs that are actually GSAs. We've heard the story throughout Colorado. I think this bill forces a one-sided affirmation only model. I think therapists should be free to explore all underlying issues, anxiety, trauma, depression, sexual abuse, social influence, identity confusion. I think this bill pressures counselors into single-minded, predetermined outcome, regardless of the child needs And I think that this is why you seeing 10 students be pulled out of public schools I think you seeing a 6 rise in homeschool And why you're seeing people like me that tell their kids never to go see a school counselor. Never. I will take you somewhere else. Please, please, please. Don't go. It forces counselors to affirm, just like House Bill 19-1129 did, which has now been deemed unconstitutional. I think it silences licensed professionals. It tells trained ethical counselors, you may only say what the state approves. And we just heard at a press conference last week that we don't want the state and the government intervening in parental decisions. We just heard that regarding some ballot initiatives. We just heard a press conference say from leading organizations in the state, I have the exact verbiage. They oppose government interference while backing it in counseling rooms. If the government doesn't belong in the exam room, it certainly doesn't belong in the therapy room. One of the major lobbying groups opposes one of the ballot initiatives is protecting children from harm. So which one is it? Are we not wanting government interference when it comes to initiatives, but it's okay when it comes to House bills like this? We want parental rights when it comes to bills like this, but we don't want it in all the other policies that we run in this building. That's when I say there's hypocrisy. I'm not impugning motive. I say it's hypocritical to say, by golly, we want parental rights, except in all of the policies we put forth in this building. Therapists may avoid difficult but necessary conversations out of fear of punishment. That means kids get thorough, less individualized care. And let me just be honest. This side of the caucus, we're not taking our kids. I'm taking my kids and my pastor. I'm taking my kids to my church. That's where my kids are going to counseling. My kids are going to people that I can actually trust. Lawmakers refuse to extend protections for physically harmed children. This body has repeatedly declined to expand the statute of limitations for children physically harmed by gender interventions. We've had detransitioners come and beg. We have run bills to cover detransitioners, people that have had body parts removed, they can no longer nurse their children, then can no longer experience things that they should be able to experience, and we continue to carve them out. We continue to carve them out of protections. It's hypocritical. Reptograph, the representative from El Paso, ran a bill for a second time to protect detransitioners. transitioners, dozens of them showed up to testify about the irreversible physical harm that ruined their sexual function, their health, and their ability to live full and happy lives. But the bill didn't even make it here. We didn't even bring that bill here to discuss for the people harmed by gender-affirming care. We didn't even let the body talk about that. This is how one-sided it is. If we truly cared about kids we would protect all who regret their medical decisions We would allow open therapeutic dialogue We would keep parents meaningfully involved, but we don't. We only keep parents meaningfully involved if it's one side of the coin. We purposefully keep Christian conservative parents out of the loop, away from the stake-holding table, and keep them in the dark. And guess what? We're shining a big old fat spotlight on the state of Colorado, and that includes funding being cut and lawsuits being brought, and I will be at that courthouse when the first one's filed against this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to point to the first two words in the Titleist Bill, civil actions. We've heard a lot about the civil actions, the time frames. I want to get into the medical malpractice law conversation on this. I move L025 to House Bill 1322 and ask that it be properly displayed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So in Colorado, it's no secret that we have a lot of conflicting laws and time frames, which makes it very confusing. Then we get into the health care realm, both mental and physical. And when we have conflicting time frames, it makes it very hard for patients to understand what's going on. This amendment would make sure we are lining up all the time frames. So per the medical malpractice law, which is three years, this is what this amendment does to make sure that when we're talking about patient advocacy, patient rights, it is a set uniform time frame. So they're not confused of, well, for X, Y, and Z, it's three years. But for A, B, and C, it's five or six or seven years. or for whatever other portion of the alphabet, because there's 26 of them. This one has five years. This one has 12. We don't know anymore, and it gets very complicated. Let's make it easier in Colorado. Not that medical is easy at all, but let's do the uniform time base and make it where it matches with the medical malpractice law. I'd urge a yes vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleague for bringing this amendment, because I absolutely agree with this amendment. She mentioned about making things easy. I absolutely agree. Let's make this easy because this entire bill is absolutely unnecessary. It's so unnecessary. Let me tell you why. Because the entire bill is already covered under malpractice. The entire bill is already covered under malpractice. We don't need this legislation at all. So you know what? if we're going to, because I know it's going to pass, because, you know, it always does through here. So why don't we just go ahead and include this amendment, just to keep it straight and narrow, and recognize that we really don't need it. Please vote yes on this amendment.

Merci, Madame Chair. Members, I ask for a we vote on this amendment. Aligning it with our medical malpractice laws only makes sense. After all, we are talking about providers within the medical ecosystem and knowing that they all should have a similar statute of limitations really does mean that our laws are harmonized and uniform. and uniformity of law helps citizens be able to comply with the law and understand and know the law. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Your bilingual choice there confused quite a few folks, so appreciate that. I'm waking some people up in this room. I move amendment L23 and ask that it be displayed.

You can proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. So in the bill, there is an outline of who can be sued via this civil action. And it includes a licensed mental health professional, someone who employs them and meets certain qualifications. The concern that was brought to me was as relates to parents. because strictly speaking, Section B says that the actions can be brought against a person who employed, supervised, or otherwise exercised authority over the licensed mental health professional and the person or entity. And so what was concerning to the folks who brought this to me was that the person could actually be a parent, A parent who employs, supervises, and otherwise exercises authority over the provider in the treatment of their child. And I don't believe that that is the bill sponsor's intent to incorporate parents into this, to open the door for parents to be sued at a future date by their children. And so I am just moving an amendment to clarify what I think is otherwise the intent of this bill, which is to say that nothing in this section allows a cause of action to be brought against a parent who employs, supervises, or otherwise exercises authority over these professionals on behalf of their child. We want to make sure that parents are seeking the treatment that their children would need and that there is nothing that is hindering that particular dynamic or any fear that they might have to move forward in that. So I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members, I come up again here. I know it sounds like a broken record, but I noticed this bill has a safety clause. Again safety clauses are being used like Skittles around here Actually I ran out of Skittles so it probably a good thing So that being said I move L015 to HB 1322 and ask that they be properly displayed slightly to the right place.

I'm sorry?

I did.

You can proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. I did lose, but she was a good sport and she gave it to me anyway. So thank you, Representative from Fort Morgan for allowing me to run this. So, members, Because I'm running this petition clause because I believe we should leave it up to the people if they think that this is necessary or not necessary, especially given the federal Supreme Court ruling yesterday. So I really do believe that this is the right way to go about it. That way we make sure that we are doing the right thing for the people and by the people, and just so we don't get in trouble, especially due to the federal ruling. So I urge an aye vote on this amendment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This bill came to my committee, and there was a lot of discussion on this. And I can tell you that there were a lot of people there that were like, no, absolutely not. If you would have been able to hear, and I know you can go back and listen to the testimony, and you'll see exactly what went on in there and how egregious this bill really actually is. This bill, as I mentioned earlier, is not even needed. It's completely and absolutely covered under malpractice as it is. Children, it's already illegal to do conversion therapy on children, so that's taken care of, so you won't even have to worry about that anymore. And when one of the individuals that came in there that has a religious therapy sessions for her churchgoers and that, I asked, I said, are these adults that come in there, are the adults that come in there for therapy, for conversion therapy, are they coming in on their own accord? Are they coming in on their own? Or are they forced? She goes, absolutely, they're not forced. They are absolutely coming in on their own. So what you're talking about are adults who are seeking a particular type of therapy, conversion therapy, because they have gender dysphoria and they don't know what to do. So they're seeking help from those that they trust. and now you're going to try to hold those individuals to a law that they were sought out for their own for their therapy, for their counseling and you're going to blame things on them and if someone commits suicide later God forbid but if they do now you making it so the family can come in and say oh well we think it was because of this or that and now that therapist and that counselor is going to be in trouble I mean, it makes no sense to me. It's not fair to blame a therapist for someone else's depression, which is one of the main reasons that people do commit suicide or self-harm or any of that kind of stuff. I believe that it's going to open up frivolous lawsuits and cause havoc in the therapy field where there are going to be less and less therapists out there that are going to actually try to give any type of help or counseling to people who seek it on their own but I do have a question for the bill sponsors I do have a question for the bill sponsors I know how to get your attention, sorry about that

Anyway, so I want to know, if you don't mind, does this go the other way? Does this bill cover a person with gender dysphoria who sought out, an adult who sought out counseling for it and whom later has the counselor and they decide that they're going to go ahead and have the surgery or hormone replacement or whatever medical procedures happen after that. Does it cover the person who then later decides to detransition, whose bodies are now wrecked, they can't have children, they cannot function normally after the hormone or surgical transition or possible suicide because of it?

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Representative Kelty. This bill protects those who go to a licensed professional from that licensed professional having a predetermined outcome and therefore providing a poor quality of care. Representative Kelty.

Representative McCormick.

Representative Kelty.

Representative McCormick.

Representative Kelsey.

Is there any further discussion on the bill?

Thank you very much, Representative Sucla.

Representative Bradley.

Representative Luck. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just I'm gonna run an amendment again. I think you know this may be unnecessary but it'll make certain people feel better so I move amendment L017 and ask that it be displayed.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So this amendment stems from the conversation that is brought about in section 6 about what may be presented to the court in an action brought pursuant to this section That particular set of requirements related to expert testimony are very one and one could read this bill to suggest that that is what the plaintiff can present to the court but there is some concern in light of some distrust of the judiciary by certain members of the public, that that may also then apply to the defense. And so this bill, or this amendment, my apologies, this amendment would just simply clarify that the section listed here in section six is as relates to the plaintiff. It does not in any way preclude the defendant from bringing forth their own counter evidence that does not strictly speaking fall within the categories listed here, seeing as the categories listed here, are again one-sided and leading to only one outcome. And so I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As an aside, I used to get a ride when I was in high school from a dear friend who was an upperclassman. And every time we'd get into her car, for whatever reason, there was a short in it, and you'd get shocked. So it was named Shocker. I feel like I need to just rename this room Shocker, like, you know, just shocked that these things don't pass. In any case, I did want to put on the record for future consideration for those who are looking for bills in future sessions that perhaps when we write legislative declarations, we can have a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So as I was saying, in future legislative sessions, it might be a good idea to run a bill that requires that when we put information into legislative declarations, we include footnotes so that the citations for the claims we make can be verified. There's a lot of information in this set of legislative declaration language that I believe is debatable, but it's hard to debate when we don't know for sure all of the sources. My husband is a good historian, and the first thing he does when he looks at books is to check the footnotes and endnotes to make sure that there is substantive evidence to support the claims. And if there's not even that in a book, there's not really an interest that he has in reading it. Similarly, I think that if we're going to make law and make claims to all of these different sites or sources, what have you, make these different claims that we should provide the evidence so as to substantiate them.

Thank you, Madam Chair. just wanted to talk about one other thing the estimated cost of defending this bill early challenge estimated cost is about eight hundred thousand dollars appeal to the united states court of appeals for this bill to the 10th circuit is going to be upwards of 1.2 million dollars u.s. supreme court stage when it's taken up will be upwards of two million dollars, likely total will be upwards of four million dollars, attorney fee shifting, estimated exposure, three million dollars, combined estimate, seven million dollars. Why? What makes this bill especially expensive to defend? Because it directly targets a fresh Supreme Court ruling. Chiles v. Salazar's brand new courts will scrutinize whether this is a workaround. That increases likelihood of fast-track litigation, depths of constitutional review. And I will tell you that in a budget crisis that we're in, where we're seeing Medicaid cuts being taken and the IDD and DD communities wondering what in the world we're doing in this building when provider rates are getting shot up to 4% and rural hospitals are barely operating above red lines and they're dropping OB wards. so women can't even get to a hospital to have their babies, and you're bringing legislation like this that has already been challenged at the Supreme Court, and it's going to cost our state millions of dollars, the people of Colorado are watching, and November can't come fast enough. Thank you.

Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. There's really not a lot more that can be said that hasn't been said already. This is so loosely written, so broadly written as a cause of action, with no guardrails in terms of the amount of damages that can be collected, no statute of limitations. This is a bill that could be looked at as inviting very expensive litigation. for no good reason, we are setting ourselves up to drive professional services out of this state. This is just yet another attack for one reason or another on legitimate businesses in this state. Counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists provide-

Majority Leader Duran. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the committee rise and report.

Mr. Schiebel, please read the report of the Committee of the Whole. Madam Speaker, your Committee of the Whole begs leave to report as under consideration the following attached bills being the second reading that I've been making the following recommendations thereon House Bill 1322 is amended passed on second reading order engrossed and placed on the calendar for third reading final passage and Senate Bill 18 passed on second reading ordered revised and placed on the calendar for third reading and final passage. Representative Wilford

Please read the Johnson Amendment to the Committee of the Whole Report, the first, to House Bill 1322. Representative Johnson moves to amend the report of the Committee of the Whole to reverse the action taken by the committee in not adopting the following Johnson Amendment, L25 to House Bill 1322, to show that said amendment passed that House Bill 1322 is amended passed. Representative Johnson.

Representative Valdez. Thank you, Madam Speaker. We appreciate the amendment. We're continuing to have discussions about how we can clarify and make the bill better, but we're going to ask for a no vote at this time.

Bacon and Zocay are excused Please close the machine With 20 aye, 36 no, and 9 excused, the amendment is lost. Mr. Schiebel, please read the SOPR amendment to the Committee of the Whole report, House Bill 1322. Representative SOPR moved to amend the part of the Committee of the Whole to a reception taken by the committee not adopting the following SOPR Amendment L19 to House Bill 1322 to show that said amendment passed that House Bill 1322 is amended past. Representative SOPR.

Representative Valdez Thank you, Madam Speaker Members, we've been having a robust discussion that continues on this issue I think that we would ask for a no vote at this time Thank you very much

and members proceed to vote Please close the machine. With 22 I 35 no and 8 excused the amendment is lost. Mr. Schiebel please read the Barone amendment to the Committee of the Whole report. Representative Barone moved to amend the Board of the Committee of the Whole to verse the action taken by the committee and not adopting the following Richardson amendment L11 to Senate Bill 18 to show that Senate amendment passed that Senate Bill 18 is amended passed. Representative Barone. Thank you Madam Speaker. One amendment to the committee of the whole report and ask that it be properly displayed. One moment. It is properly displayed. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'm moving this amendment again just to make sure that we clarify what the intent of the bill is. The intent of the bill is to protect children, minors, to make sure that it's from safety risk to a minor, such as domestic abuse, stalking, human trafficking, or credible threat of harm. That's what the bill's sponsor says. This is the intent. I want to clarify that just so we don't leave the door open for misuse of this program, of this law, of this statute. We've had robust discussion during seconds on the possible misuse of this statute, so I want to make sure we don't do that. and this really just clarifies that we are protecting children, minors, in this way. So I urge an aye vote.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is the adoption of the Verona Amendment to the Committee of the Whole Report.

I move the Bottoms Amendment to the report of the Committee of the Whole. It is properly displayed. Please proceed. This amendment has already been addressed in lawsuit last year already addressed by the Governor Office And without this amendment this bill will definitely be under threat of litigation More than threat, it will happen. And so we're just putting this in here to make sure that Christian camps, organizations, any of these kind of things, that they have the right to know this information. This is a danger to parents and children both, and so we want to make sure that they have this ability to do this and not have to spend a lot of money suing again.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is the adoption of the Bottoms Amendment to the Committee of the Whole Report.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move the second Johnson Amendment to the Committee of the Whole and ask that it be properly displayed. It is properly displayed. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Speaker. when we refer back to the pink packet the fiscal note it had a technical note by the department saying that due to the safety clause there was not an adequate amount of time to be in compliance with what this bill wanted it said that a january 1st 2027 that's where i pulled it from was the fiscal note would be the adequate time to allow them to have enough time to help with personnel training for documentation updates and to make sure through this body that we're not putting department's out of compliance. We're not coming back because they're out of compliance for review or they're asking for money because they not being able to meet the standards placed upon them from this body and legislation Asking that we can move the time frame from July 1st of this year to January 1st of next year to meet the department's request for implementation abilities. I would urge a yes vote to make sure this does not have any issues due to the time frame and putting the department in a strain.

Seeing no further discussion, the motion before us is the adoption of the second Johnson Amendment to the Committee of the Whole Report.

The motion before us is the adoption of the Committee of the Whole Report.

the report of the Committee of the Whole is adopted. Announcements or introductions. I have one announcement. Pursuant to my authority as Speaker under House Rule 46A and at the sponsor's request, I direct the chief clerk to remove Senator Carson's name as joint prime sponsor of House Bill 1302.

Madam Majority Leader. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move to lay over the balance of the calendar until Thursday, April 2, 2026.

Mr Schiebel reports of committees of reference Committee on Health and Human Services after consideration on the merits a committee recommends the following House Bill 1328 be amended as followed not so amended, be referred to the Committee on Appropriations. House Bill 1336 be amended as followed, not so amended, be referred to the Committee of the Whole with favorable recommendation. House Bill 1267 be postponed indefinitely.

Madam Majority Leader. Madam Speaker, I move at the House stand in adjournment until Thursday, April 2nd at 9 a.m.