Colorado LegiSource

An informational and educational resource for the Colorado General Assembly by the Office of Legislative Legal Services.

Year: 2011

  • So…You’ve Just Been CORA’d. Now What Do You Do?

    by Chuck Brackney and Bart Miller

    You may first encounter the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA (section 24-72-200.1, et seq., C.R.S.), as an unfamiliar e-mail in your inbox.  The message may come from someone you’ve never met or even heard of, and it may contain a rather startling request for copies of “all e-mails sent or received by Representative Smith, as well as all telephone records, for the period January 1 to May 1, 2012.”  Believe it or not, all of these records of communications are potentially subject to release in response to an open records request. (more…)

  • What is the difference between the session laws and the statutes?

    In short: The session laws reproduce each individual bill, as it passed, during a particular session. The statutes give you the Colorado Revised Statutes — the permanent, statutory law of the state — organized by subject matter title, article, part, and section.

    The session laws are the annual official compilation of legislation that is passed by both houses of the Colorado General Assembly and either signed by the Governor or allowed by the Governor to become law without his or her signature during a regular or special legislative session. Each year, the Office of Legislative Legal Services publishes the session laws for that year’s regular legislative session. If the General Assembly meets in special session, the Office will publish a separate set of session laws for each special session.

    The compilation of each legislative session’s laws includes bills that amend the Colorado Revised Statutes; appropriations bills that provide funding for various state agencies, institutions, and programs; and concurrent resolutions that propose amendments to the state constitution for voter approval. The session laws also include resolutions that express the will of one or both houses on a particular matter and memorials that honor a person who served in some public capacity and has passed away.

    If you want to find the full text of a bill — with the strike type and small caps — as the bill finally passed the legislature, or if you want to find out who sponsored a particular bill, you should look in the session laws for the legislative session in which the bill passed. The session laws are organized by chapter; each chapter is a separate bill. You will find a subject-matter index to each year’s session laws and a table of all the bills that passed during that session, organized by bill number, at the back of the final volume of session laws for the year you’re interested in.

    However, if you’re looking for the statutory law on a particular topic or you’re trying to find a particular section of statute, you should look in the Colorado Revised Statutes (sometimes referred to as the “red books”). This publication will show you the current, effective, statutory law of the state, including annotations of any Colorado or federal case that has interpreted the statutes.

  • What the Sixty-eighth General Assembly Did on its Summer Vacation: Interim Committees Ready to Introduce Bills

    Chuck Brackney, Jason Gelender, Tom Morris, John Kilgour, Richard Sweetman, Brita Darling, and Julie Pelegrin contributed to this article

    After interim committees were suspended during the 2010 interim for budget reasons, the statutory interim committees — transportation, water, police and firefighters’ pension reform, and early childhood and school readiness — and a few newcomers came roaring back for the 2011 interim. Here’s a brief summary of the committee bills that each of the interim committees will introduce during the 2012 regular legislative session. (more…)

  • When Can a Local Government Override State Law? Home Rule Cities in Colorado

    by Richard Sweetman

    Although the General Assembly exercises supreme authority over matters of statewide concern, a home rule municipality’s authority may be superior to that of the General Assembly with respect to local matters.

    (more…)

  • Do I have to have an opposite house prime sponsor when my bill is introduced?

    No, you don’t need an opposite house prime sponsor when your bill is introduced.  You must, however, have an opposite house prime sponsor before your bill can pass on third reading in the house in which you serve.  So, before your bill is heard on third reading, talk with a member of the opposite house about being the second-house prime sponsor on your bill.  Once someone agrees, talk to the Chief Clerk of the House if you’re a representative, or to the Secretary of the Senate if you’re a senator, about the form you need to fill out.  After you turn the form in to the front desk of the house in which you serve, the front-desk staff will make sure that the opposite house prime sponsor’s name appears on the reengrossed version of your bill when it is introduced in the second house.

  • Verifiable Oddities in Colorado’s History — Microphone Scandal Rocks Colorado

    Governor Teller Ammons
    Governor Teller Ammons

    by Ashley Zimmerman

    Somehow, somewhere, in Colorado in 1937, the governor’s office appeared to have a mole problem.  The names of judicial and political appointees were being published in the Denver Post before the appointees had even been notified. Teller Ammons, the colorful and somewhat profane governor of the state, was upset and confused. Who could possibly be leaking his information to the press? (more…)

  • How do I get other members to sign on as sponsors of my bill prior to introduction?

    While your bill is still in the possession of the OLLS, any other member may let the Office know that he or she wants to be a sponsor on your bill.  The member can notify the OLLS in person, by phone, or in writing, including e-mail, and we will add his or her name to your bill.  Also, there are sponsor sheets available in the OLLS front office.  If you have other members initial this sheet and you return it to the OLLS, we will also add these members as sponsors.

    Once your bill is delivered to you by the sergeant-at-arms, you may have other members sign on as sponsors by having them sign their names on the sponsor sheet inside the back cover of your bill.  The names of all members that sign this sheet will be added to the bill before it is printed.  Remember that you can’t add sponsors to a bill this way if the bill is delivered directly to the front desk.

    As you may recall, one of your bills must be introduced on the first day of session.  Since the Office must deliver this bill directly to the front desk before the legislative session starts, you can only have other members sign on as sponsors of your first bill if, before we deliver your bill to the front desk, they drop by, call, or email the OLLS or you turn in an initialed sponsor sheet.

  • Can I ever introduce more than 5 bills?

    As you’re probably aware, Joint Rule 24 (b) (1) (A) allows a member of the General Assembly to introduce only five bills during a regular session of the legislature.  However, there are many circumstances under which you may be able to introduce more than just five bills.

    If you sponsor one or more interim committee bills, they will not count against the limit.  And, you can sponsor an interim committee bill even if you don’t actually serve on the interim committee.  But the bill must be approved by the Legislative Council before it can be introduced.  See Joint Rule 24 (b) (1) (D).

    Bills for appropriations and bills introduced by the audit committee, the joint budget committee, the capital development committee, the legislative council, the executive committee, the committee on legal services, the legislative emergency preparedness, response, and recovery committee, or the commission on uniform state laws also do not count against the bill limit.

    Also, each year certain committees of reference participate in the sunset review process.  Through this process, a committee reviews reports from the department of regulatory agencies concerning the continuation or repeal of state programs and advisory committees and the committee reviews certain statutory reporting requirements.  The committee then introduces bills to either continue or repeal the programs, advisory committees, or reporting requirements, and these bills do not count against the five-bill limit.

    Finally, you may seek permission for extra bills from the Committee on Delayed Bills for the house in which you serve.  In the House of Representatives, the Committee on Delayed Bills consists of the Speaker of the House and the majority and minority leaders.  In the Senate, it’s the President of the Senate and the majority and minority leaders.  To introduce more than five bills, you will need the signature of two of the three members of your delayed-bill committee.

  • From Free Speech to Immigration to Privacy — Supreme Courts Interpret Rights of State Legislatures

    by Michael Dohr

    Are you interested in the U.S. Constitution’s limits on the General Assembly’s authority or how the Colorado Supreme Court interprets our statutes?  For the last ten years, I have presented a program that covers the previous year’s cases from the U.S. and Colorado Supreme Courts focusing mostly on those themes.  Here are some of the highlights from this year; information on the complete program is at the end of this article. (more…)

  • Why is the title of a bill so important?

    The title of a bill provides notice to the public as to the contents of the bill.  Article V, section 21 of the State Constitution requires that a bill contain only one subject and that the subject be “clearly expressed in its title…”.  The title must also state the purpose of the bill.  This means the title must accurately reflect the substance of the bill without being so broad as to violate the Constitution’s single subject requirement.

    The bill title not only tells the public what’s in the bill, but it controls the amendments that may be added to the bill as it goes through the legislative process.  Because the title expresses the single subject and purpose of the bill, an amendment that would add a subject or language that is broader than the title would arguably add a second subject to the bill in violation of the single-subject requirement.  For this reason, the chairperson of the committee in which the amendment is offered may rule the amendment out of order.

    If a bill is introduced with a broad title, a legislator may offer an amendment to narrow the title so that it is more specific as to the provisions in the bill.  A legislator may also try to narrow a bill title in order to control the amendments that can be offered to the bill. Remember, however, that another legislator can offer an amendment at any time to broaden the title back to its introduced form.  So, tightening a title after a bill is introduced, with the goal of limiting the possible amendments, is unlikely to be successful, because another member may amend the title back to the introduced version to allow for his or her substantive amendment.

    A legislator may also try to amend a title to make it broader than the introduced version.  While there’s no actual rule that says a legislator cannot broaden an introduced title, by custom and practice these amendments are generally not allowed.  Logically, if the introduced bill title is a single subject, the effect of broadening it would be to allow for one or more additional subjects — a clear violation of the constitutional single-subject requirement.