by Jery Payne
The budget made this session a bit of a tightrope walk. The year began with a projected budget deficit of over $800 million. Article X, section 16 of the state constitution requires Colorado to balance its budget: “No appropriation shall be made, nor any expenditure authorized by the general assembly, whereby the expenditure of the state, during any fiscal year, shall exceed the total tax then provided for by law….” So the General Assembly had to cut the budget to balance the budget.
Even small changes to current policy can require some expenditures. For example, any changes to driver’s license documents or to the registration of motor vehicles can cost money to reprogram the computer system that supports these programs. A small change to policy may only be $10,000 to $20,000 in a budget of over $46 billion. But when you’re already needing to cut, adding more, even a little bit more, makes the budget problem even harder to solve.
In a more normal legislative session, a bit of money is set aside for these types of policy changes. But not this year. This deficit made policy changes that cost even a small amount of money tricky, like taking each step on a rope, holding your balancing pole, stepping over a deep crevasse, and praying that the wind doesn’t kick up. Bills that might have otherwise passed did not survive in the current budget climate.
By my count, 626 bills were introduced this legislative session: 433 in the House of Representative and 193 in the Senate. That’s down from the three-year average of 660 but not dramatically so. Of those 626 bills, 449 bills passed. This is a 72% pass rate, which is actually a bit higher than the average pass rate, so most bills made it through the budget tightrope walk.
And yet, there is still another chance for a bill to fall off the tightrope. After sine die, the governor has 30 days to sign, veto, or ignore a bill. If the governor signs or ignores a bill, it becomes law. If the governor vetoes a bill, it does not become law and the governor must send it back to the House and the Senate with a letter explaining the reason for vetoing the bill. The General Assembly can override a veto but not if they’ve adjourned sine die. So even if a bill survived the budget tightrope walk, it still could meet its demise by way of the veto pen. As of publication, the governor still has 2 weeks to decide if any pending bills will be pushed off the tightrope.
For those bills that ultimately survive the tightrope walk and become law, they continue to generate work for staff, even though the session has ended. All passed bills must be enrolled into acts and sent to the governor for his consideration. And the Office of Legislative Legal Services staff is also writing digests—or summaries—of all the enacted bills and updating the published statutes to reflect all the changes made to law. While the office staff is focused on this work, and also on getting some much-needed post-session R&R, Colorado LegiSource is going on hiatus for the summer. In the meantime, enjoy your interim and some Pueblo chilies. We’ll see you in the fall!