Month: January 2018

  • What’s with All the Extra Changes in My Bill?

    by Bethanie Pack

    Sometimes a seemingly quick fix in a bill, such as changing just a few words or extending a repeal date, results in a draft that was longer than anticipated with more changes than originally asked for.

    Why?

    Under the Revisor of Statutes’ authority granted in sections 2-2-802 and 2-5-103 C.R.S., the Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS) makes several on-going, non-substantive changes to modernize, maintain consistency, and improve the readability of the statutes. Drafters add these changes to bills prospectively, as the opportunity arises, rather than making a global revision change in the database, because making all these changes at once would 1) introduce a lot of opportunity for error; 2) potentially and unintentionally change the law substantively in some scenarios; and 3) take a ton of additional time to proofread the accuracy of all of the changes.

    Some examples of these additional non-substantive changes a legislator may see in a bill include:

    Short Titles and Standardized Language

    This article shall be known and may be cited as The short title of this article 30 is the “Limited Gaming Act of 1991”.

    Prior to Before its repeal, the department of regulatory agencies shall review the licensing functions of the secretary of state are scheduled for review in accordance with…

    Formatting of Internal References

    …the provisions of this article article 30.

    …described in paragraph (a) of this subsection (1) subsection (1)(a) of this section as the…

    Removing “C.R.S.” from a Section Number

    …the provisions of section 24-5-101; C.R.S.;

    “Which” to “That”

    …the administration of similar laws which that may be in effect in other states or countries;

    “Such” to “The”

    …upon such the sheriff’s or peace officer’s request…

    Gender Neutralization

    …in the performance of his or her duties…

    “Moneys” to “Money”

    …shall invest the moneys money in the…

    People First Language

    Mental retardation Intellectual and developmental disabilities theory and rehabilitation…

    …being a common drunkard person with an alcohol use disorder

    One might think that some of these changes are simple enough to just “find and replace” them all in the statutes. Two clicks and done. Right?

    Unfortunately, it’s not that simple or easy.

    A change may seem straightforward at first, such as gender neutralizing, where the drafter or the Revisor could just add “or she” to every place in the statutes where it says “he”. But, since the intent of these changes is to modernize and improve readability, it may be better to clarify the actor rather than just add “or she” to the statute. “He shall authorize…” becomes “The commissioner shall authorize…” rather than “He or she shall authorize…”. This obviously requires interpretation that a computer simply cannot do.

    Because of this and the statutory directive to write in “plain, nontechnical language and in a clear and coherent manner using words with common and everyday meaning which are understandable to the average reader,” section 2-2-801 C.R.S., the OLLS continuously updates and modernizes the laws as they are amended for substantive purposes, which results in unanticipated additional changes in a bill.

    Under most circumstances, the OLLS makes these changes in a bill as the opportunity arises. However, these changes cannot be made in uniform laws or compacts or when it would conflict with federal law.

    So, with each extra, unanticipated change in a bill, the general assembly is doing its part in the slow but steady process of bringing the 20,000+ pages of statutes into the 21st century.

  • Title 12 Recodification Project Moves Forward

    by Thomas Morris

    Progress Through 2017

    In 2016, the General Assembly enacted S.B. 16-163, which directs the Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS) to study an organizational recodification of Title 12 of the Colorado Revised Statutes (C.R.S.) governing the regulation of professions and occupations and to bring recommendations, including any legislative proposals to recodify the title, to the Committee on Legal Services (COLS). During the 2017 legislative session, in furtherance of the study recommendations, the General Assembly enacted 14 bills proposed by the COLS to relocate 21 articles to more appropriate titles in the C.R.S. (See the Title 12 Recodification Project’s website for links to these bills). The General Assembly also enacted a bill, H.B. 17-1006, to allow agencies that need to correct statutory citations in the code of Colorado regulations because of these relocations to do so without the notice, comment, and hearing that usually accompany rule making by submitting to the secretary of state a specific, written determination by the attorney general.

    During the 2017 interim, the OLLS staff solicited feedback from stakeholders, drafted and distributed numerous relocation bills, and provided the COLS with updates regarding the project’s progress. During the COLS’s December meeting, the OLLS recommended, and the COLS approved, introducing for the 2018 legislative session 10 additional relocation bills. Nine of the relocation bills create a new Title 44 in the C.R.S. to which the bills will move current articles and parts in Titles 12 and 24 that are administered by the Department of Revenue. The tenth relocation bill relocates three articles and one part from Title 12 to other appropriate titles in the C.R.S.

    Because of the complexity of the remainder of the project, which entails reorganizing and restructuring the articles administered by the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DoRA) that remain in Title 12 and the need for more stakeholder meetings and in-depth discussions with the department and the regulated community, the OLLS recommended, and the COLS approved, introducing a bill to extend the Title 12 Recodification Project for one additional year.

    2018 Regular Session Legislation

    Members of the COLS are sponsoring the Title 12 Recodification Project bills in the 2018 legislative session. With the exception of the bill to extend the project, the bills simply relocate a particular set of statutes from one location in the C.R.S. to another location with minor technical updates and do not make any substantive changes to the law. Half of the relocation bills and the project extension bill were introduced in the Senate and the other half of the relocation bills were introduced in the House of Representatives. Here’s a list of the 11 bills introduced so far this session.

    Bill  No Prime Sponsors Status as of 1/18/18 Subject Law Being Relocated
    SB18-030 Sens. Holbert & Kagan

    Reps. Foote & Willett

    Senate second reading Motor vehicle dealers Article 6 of title 12
    SB-18-031 Sen. Gardner;

    Rep. Foote

    Senate Appropriations committee Extends Title 12 Project
    SB18-032 Sens. Gardner & Cooke;

    Reps. Foote & Herod

    Senate second reading Parental notification

    Firearms dealers

    Gun show background checks

    Unsworn declarations

    Article 37.5 of title 12

    Article 26 of title 12

    Article 26.1 of title 12

    Part 3 of article 55 of title 12

    SB18-034 Sens. Cooke & Guzman

    Reps. Wist & Lee

    Senate second reading Limited gaming

    Tribal-state gaming compact

    Article 47.1 of title 12

    Article 47.2 of title 12

    SB18-035 Sens. Gardner & Cooke

    Rep. Wist

    Senate second reading Gambling payment intercepts Part 6 of article 35 of title 24
    SB18-036 Sen. Kagan

    Rep. Wist

    Senate second reading Tobacco sales to minors Part 5 of article 35 of title 24
    HB18-1023 Rep. Herod

    Sen. Gardner

    House Judiciary Committee hearing, 1/23/18 at 1:30 pm Medical marijuana

    Retail marijuana

    Article 43.3 of title 12

    Article 43.4 of title 12

    HB18-1024 Rep. Lee

    Sen. Kagan

    House Judiciary Committee hearing, 1/23/18 at 1:30 pm Racing Article 60 of title 12
    HB18-1025 Rep. Herod

    Sens. Gardner & Cooke

    House Judiciary Committee hearing, 1/23/18 at 1:30 pm Colorado Beer Code

    Colorado Liquor Code

    Special event permits

    Article 46 of title 12

    Article 47 of title 12

    Article 48 of title 12

    HB18-1026 Rep. Herod

    Sens. Gardner & Cooke

    House Judiciary Committee hearing, 1/23/18 at 1:30 pm Liquor enforcement division cash fund Part 4 of article 35 of title 24
    HB18-1027 Rep. Wist

    Sen. Kagan

    House Judiciary Committee hearing, 1/23/18 at 1:30 pm Lottery Part 2 of article 35 of title 24

     

    During the stakeholder process that the OLLS conducted during the 2017 interim, some interest was expressed in not only relocating but also reorganizing both the marijuana laws and the laws governing automobile dealers and power sports dealers. Staff have distributed draft bills to accomplish these reorganizations to stakeholders, but there was insufficient time to develop consensus on them before the beginning of the 2018 regular session. The OLLS therefore did not recommend the introduction of these bills to the COLS; if consensus is reached later there is still a possibility that one or both of these bills could be introduced in the 2018 regular session.

    So, what’s left?

    Actually, the whole point of the project – to reorganize Title 12. If all of the 2018 legislation is enacted, the only laws left in Title 12 will be those administered by DoRA. But they will still be in their preexisting form – with lots of duplicative or nearly duplicative requirements scattered throughout Title 12 and without the benefit of one or more common provisions articles that would apply broadly throughout Title 12. Additionally, there are several laws administered by DoRA relating to professions and occupations that are codified outside of Title 12 (primarily in Title 24) that would benefit from being codified along with the rest of DoRA’s Title 12 authorities.

    The plan is for the OLLS to conduct more stakeholder outreach during the 2018 interim, distribute draft reorganization bills, and try to reach consensus on those bills by November. The OLLS would then present its recommendations to the COLS for the introduction of the consensus Title 12 reorganization legislation for the 2019 regular session. Stay tuned!

  • Looking Back: What Were the Political Issues in 1918…er…1917?

    by Julie Pelegrin and Nate Carr

    The Second Regular Session of the Seventy-first General Assembly is underway. Based on recent media coverage and the opening day remarks by legislative leadership, we know that some of the anticipated hot topics are funding for roads and bridges, teacher shortages, addressing opioid addiction, affordable housing, health care, rural broadband access, and shoring up the Public Employees’ Retirement Association. And people are hoping to address all of these issues in a spirit of bipartisanship in order to find workable solutions.

    We thought it would be interesting before we get too caught up in the 2018 session to look back and see what was happening in the 1918 session. What issues were our legislative forebears tackling one hundred years ago?

    Turns out, in 1918, they weren’t tackling anything legislatively. Before voters amended the constitution in 1950, the General Assembly met regularly every other year in odd-numbered years. They met in even-numbered years only if the Governor called them in to special session, which Governor Julius C. Gunter did not do in 1918. Not that there wasn’t a lot going on in Colorado in 1918: the federal government broke ground on “World War I Army Hospital 21,” later renamed Fitzsimons Army Hospital; the Broadmoor resort opened in Colorado Springs; the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 started in Colorado in September, ultimately killing nearly 8,000 Coloradans; and World War I ended on November 11.

    Not to be deterred, we decided to see what the General Assembly was considering 101 years ago, when they convened in 1917 for the Regular Session of the Twenty-first General Assembly.

    In 1917, the Democrats controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. They held the Senate with 18 Democrats to 17 Republicans and the House with 40 Democrats to 25 Republicans.

    The Twenty-first General Assembly convened at “12 o’clock, noon” on Wednesday, January 3, 1917, as required in the constitution at the time. Lieutenant Governor Moses E. Lewis, whose term ended on January 9, 1917, gaveled the Senate to order. He was replaced by James A. Pulliam, who presided as Senate President for the remainder of the legislative session. We should explain that, under the constitution until 1974, the state’s Lieutenant Governor served as President of the Senate, voting only to break a tie.

    Mr. Erlo E. Kennedy, Chief Clerk of the House, called the House of Representatives to order and, after the committee on credentials reported that the persons elected the previous November, as certified by the Secretary of State, were entitled to their seats as provided by statute, Representative Boon Best of Arlington, CO, was elected to preside as Speaker of the House of Representatives.[1] And yes, Speaker Best was a descendant of Daniel Boone. (See Presidents and Speakers of the Colorado General Assembly, Denver, Colorado, 2016 Edition.)

    So, what were the hot topics of 1917?

    Alcohol and marijuana were both on the list. On January 1, 1916, Colorado became a dry state (Colorado was leading the nation even then). Not surprisingly, in 1917, the General Assembly considered and passed a law to limit the purchase and sale of alcohol to licensed wholesalers and licensed manufacturers. The intent was to ensure that alcohol was used only as a “component part of some manufactured article, and that no article ordinarily used as a beverage will be manufactured therefrom.” The General Assembly also passed H.B. No. 263, carried by Rep. Andres Lucero from Saguache, to “declare unlawful the planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying, curing, or preparation for sale or gift of cannabis sativa,” also known as “mariguana”. The penalty was a fine of $10-$100, or up to 30 days in jail, or both.

    In his state of the state address, Governor Gunter praised Colorado for its impressive growth in the 40 years since statehood. Population had grown from 60,000 to 1,000,000; assessed valuation had increased from less than $45,000,000 to more than $1,211,000,000; and the total production of the state—$20,000,000 in 1876—had increased several times over due to steel production, sugar output, livestock, minerals, and agriculture.

    But there were issues to address. He cited an investigation of the public education system, which showed that the system

    provides for no efficient control or supervision of the schools by any state or county agency; does not provide for equality of opportunity; does not place the burden of support of schools equally on all property; [and] favors the city and town at the expense of the country. 1917 Senate Journal, Tuesday, January 9, 1917, 7th Legislative Day, pg 86.

    He asked for collaboration in making the school system more efficient and “to properly recognize by salary and otherwise, those giving their lives to this respected and useful calling,” i.e., teaching.

    The Governor raised myriad other issues, including state highways (“investment now more than $22,000,000”), encouraging the legislators to work with the director of the department to further develop “this great asset of the state.” He encouraged the legislators to raise funding for buildings and equipment at the state institutions of higher education and to appropriate state money to enforce the minimum wage law for women and minors. He called for legislation to “rearrange” the judicial districts and to adopt for the state a “Budget System for the expenditure of all moneys required for maintaining the government and the institutions of the state.”

    In all, the members of the General Assembly introduced 434 Senate bills and 587 House bills; passed 155 bills; and adjourned sine die on March 24, 1917, at noon. In his state of the state address in 1919, Colorado Governor Oliver H. Shoup recognized the 1917 session as “the shortest regular sitting in the history of the commonwealth, the most fruitful in a time of greatest peril in the life of the state.”

    Less than a month after the 1917 session adjourned, on April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I. So maybe it’s not so surprising that there were no special legislative sessions called during 1918.

     


    [1] Actually, we have been unable to locate a copy of the House Journal for 1917. The order of business presented here is based on the procedures followed on the first day of the 1919 session as presented in the House Journal for 1919.

  • CCUSL Recommends Two Uniform Acts for Introduction in 2018

    by Patti Dahlberg and Thomas Morris

    The Colorado Commission on Uniform State Laws (CCUSL) meets each year during the Uniform Law Commission’s (ULC) annual conference in July to discuss a preliminary agenda of approved uniform acts for consideration in Colorado. In addition, the CCUSL typically hosts one or more public meetings at the State Capitol to discuss the proposed legislation and to finalize its legislative agenda. The CCUSL sends advance notice of any meetings held in the Capitol to interested parties, posts meeting information on the General Assembly and the CCUSL websites, opens the meetings to public testimony, and broadcasts the meetings over the internet.

    The CCUSL held meetings to discuss its legislative agenda on September 22, 2017, and November 3, 2017, and approved two ULC acts for introduction as commission bills for the 2018 regular session. These acts were not newly approved acts from this past ULC annual meeting in July, but were ULC-approved acts previously discussed and approved. They are:

    • Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act. Approved by the ULC in 2016, this update to the 1954, 1981, and 1995 versions of the act addresses recent technological developments and updates provisions on numerous issues, including gift cards and other stored-value cards, life insurance benefits, securities, dormancy periods, and use of contract auditors. Colorado first adopted the Uniform Unclaimed Property Act in 1987, and this new version of the act repeals and reenacts our current law governing how unclaimed property is determined, accounted for, and distributed.
    • The Uniform Trust Code (UTC) was first approved by the ULC in 2000, last amended by the ULC in 2010, and has been adopted in more than half the states. The UTC is more than 150 pages long and replaces much of current Colorado trust law, so it is no surprise that it has taken a couple of years for review and consideration. The Colorado Bar Association (CBA) undertook the huge task of adapting the UTC to Colorado law, included numerous interested parties in discussions, and still maintained the act’s uniformity. The CBA will continue to work on the draft of the CCUSL bill and will work with the bill’s sponsor for introduction and passage of the act. Because the uniform act adopted in Colorado will include numerous amendments to fit within current law, the Colorado version will be called the Colorado Uniform Trust Code.

    (For links to a preliminary draft of the Colorado Uniform Trust Code and some of the other ULC acts discussed in CCUSL meetings this year go to the CCUSL Meeting Documents Archive page and open the agenda for November 3, 2017.)

    The ULC also approved six new acts for states to consider for legislation at the annual July meeting, but none of these acts will be drafted for introduction in Colorado this year. The CCUSL may consider introducing the following 2017 ULC acts in 2019:

    • The Uniform Regulation of Virtual Currency Businesses Act: creates a statutory framework for regulating virtual currency business activity and covers a variety of businesses engaged in the exchange of virtual currencies.
    • The Uniform Directed Trust Act: addresses the division of a trustee’s traditional responsibilities regarding estate planning and asset management among several specialists.
    • The Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements Act: an updated version of the Uniform Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Act, originally promulgated in 1969. The commission is asking the CBA to form a special study group to look at how the act will work within current Colorado law and work with stakeholders most affected by the act’s changes.

    The CCUSL, as a standing legislative committee, may recommend bills for introduction that are exempt from the five-bill limit imposed on legislators. Serving as CCUSL commissioners for 2017-18 are Senator Robert Gardner, former Senators Brandon Shaffer and Pat Steadman, Representative Cole Wist, and former Representatives Claire Levy and Anne McGihon. The CCUSL is Colorado’s delegation to the national ULC, which is comprised of more than 300 commissioners appointed by all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The ULC has worked for the uniformity of state laws since 1892.

    Other articles regarding the ULC and CCUSL: