by Jery Payne

Duuuh-d’duh-duh. Duuuuh-d’duh-duh duuuuuuuuhhhh.

This is bill drafter Jery Payne. The blog you are about to read is true with regard to the rules, requirements, and procedures for interim committees. Only the name has been changed to protect…..we’re not sure what.

January 2017: The General Assembly receives several reports of rampant cheating on eye exams occurring throughout the state. April 2017:  The executive committee approves a request for the Interim Committee on Cheating on Eye Exams.* As it turns out, this area is just too complicated to address without a whole lot of study. Who knew? Now that it’s the interim, it’s time to delve into this tough issue.

Before we go too far, let’s check the files. An interim study committee is created by action of the General Assembly to study a particular issue and, in most cases, recommend legislation to address the issue. Any legislation that an interim committee recommends must be approved by the Legislative Council before it can be introduced in the legislative session. The Legislative Council reviews these bills to ensure that they fit within the interim committee’s study description.

According to Joint Rule 24A, the Speaker of the House of Representatives appoints the committee chair and the President of the Senate appoints the vice chair when the interim study committee request originates in the house and vice versa when the request originates in the senate. Either way, the chair gets appointed. Next question: membership.

The committee needs legislative members who are willing to take the time to figure out the causes of and solutions to eye exam cheating. The interim committee request should have specified who appoints those members. Typically, committee members are appointed by the senate president, the house speaker, and the minority leaders of both chambers. So watch for those appointments.

Sometimes, an interim committee includes a member or two who aren’t legislators. For example, an optometrist may provide some expertise, and a psychologist may help the committee understand why people would cheat on an eye exam. But non-legislative members are not authorized to request a bill or vote on a bill.

With the chairmanship and membership all set, it’s time the committee holds some meetings.

The first thing most chairs do is call on legislative council staff to help schedule the committee meetings. The interim committee request should have said how many meetings to hold. If not, Joint Rule 24A (d) (2) limits interim committees to no more than six meetings.

An interim committee usually holds its first meeting in late July or early August. This may seem early, but it can be hard to find meeting dates that work for everyone. However, new policies recently adopted by the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council pursuant to House Bill 17-1113 may make attendance a little easier. On limited bases beginning August 1, those policies will allow members of certain interim committees to electronically participate by “phoning in” to a meeting via remote testimony technology. This year, the committee has until September 22 to request bill drafts. That means it has to hold all its meetings (except for the last two) by September 22. Assuming the committee meets six times, it will probably want to meet at least four times before September 22. If the committee holds its first meeting on August 1, that’s about one meeting every other week.

Now that the first meeting is set, Joint Rule 24A requires the committee to schedule:

• The meeting at which the committee will vote to prepare draft bills—this meeting must be held at least 42 days before the committee takes its final vote on the bill drafts and no later than September 22, 2017.
• The deadline for bill drafts to be finalized for the committee to vote on—this date must occur at least 21 days before the committee’s final vote meeting on the draft bills. This year, this deadline must be no later than October 13, 2017.
• The meeting at which the committee will take its final vote on draft bills—this year, this meeting must be held no later than November 3, 2017.

Under Joint Rule 24A (d)(7), the committee chair must set the dates for these meetings as soon as possible after the first committee meeting.

In addition to helping schedule meetings, committee staff assists chairs in setting and posting the meeting agendas and may help identify individuals or groups to invite to present information to the committee.

A committee may want to travel for research or a meeting—word on the street is Colorado’s optometric association has a conference in Vail this summer. But the committee has to get permission before it hits the road. All committee travel expenses are subject to the Executive Committee’s approval.

Like the meetings of a standing committee of reference during the legislative session, interim committee meetings are open to the public, and people can find links to committee schedules and agendas and recordings of meetings online.

So, the committee’s met, done a couple of deep dives into optometry, and ferreted out the policy levers to prevent cheating on eye exams. Let’s draft some bills!

Having studied the issues, the committee has ideas for bills, such as randomly generated eye charts or intensive study or tutoring programs. At the committee’s request, the Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS) prepares the bill drafts. A committee member must have drafting information available at the meeting at which the member requests a bill or must submit drafting information to the OLLS drafter within three calendar days after the meeting. According to Joint Rule 24A (2.6), failure to timely submit drafting information may cause the bill request to be deemed withdrawn.

According to Joint Rule 24A (d) (2.7) (A), an interim committee may request bill drafts only at a single meeting. Normally, an interim committee may recommend to the Executive Committee up to five bills for introduction at the next legislative session, unless the interim study request sets a different number.

If a bill sponsor fails to finalize a bill draft by the date specified by the committee chair, the bill draft is deemed finalized and authorized for release to work up a fiscal note. And once a bill draft is finalized, a legislator may not modify the bill draft. At that point, a legislator can make changes to the bill draft only by amendment when the committee considers the draft.

Bill requests must be approved by a majority of the legislative committee members. Once approved, it is time to assign a prime sponsor. The committee must do this before the Legislative Council will consider the bill. Usually interim study committee bills are sponsored by a member of the committee, but legislators who are not committee members can, with the approval of the committee, sponsor interim committee bills.

Joint Rule 24 requires that Legislative Council meet to approve interim committee bills no later than November 15 in odd-numbered years and no later than October 15 in even-numbered years. The interim committee chair will present committee-approved bills to the Legislative Council at that meeting.

A committee bill that the Legislative Council approves for introduction does not count against a bill sponsor’s five-bill limit (see Joint Rule 24 (b) (1) (D)). So committee members can still carry five other bills while helping people get the right prescription eyeglasses.

Tune in to future episodes of LegiSource for an overview of the interim committees that were approved for 2017 and the bills they recommend.

*This is the name that was changed, in case you were wondering.

 

Correction made 7-24-17: This article has been corrected to reflect legislation passed during the 2017 session and rules recently adopted by the Executive Committee allowing legislators to remotely participate in interim committee meetings on a limited basis.

by Kate Meyer

In August, Legisource told you about the Statutory Revision Committee (SRC), a recently rebooted entity that examines the Colorado Revised Statutes to develop legislation that will modify or eliminate antiquated, redundant, or contradictory rules of law and to bring the statutes of this state into harmony with modern conditions. Since that article was published, the SRC has been hard at work, meeting three times and ultimately approving 15 bills for introduction in the 2017 legislative session.

Committee process. Bill ideas can originate from any number of sources: Committee members or other legislators; legislative staff; jurists, attorneys, and other legal professionals; executive agencies; lobbyists; the public; etc. In its first meeting, the SRC adopted the following basic process for considering potential bills:

(Click image to enlarge)

The process starts when the SRC’s staff from the Office of Legislative Legal Services receives or creates a bill proposal and initially decides whether the proposal fits within the committee’s charge. Persons may submit bill proposals identifying possible defects or anachronisms in the law or possible antiquated, redundant, or contradictory laws by contacting a committee member or sending an e-mail to SRC staff at StatutoryRevision.ga@coleg.gov

If staff finds that a bill proposal fits within the committee’s charge, they schedule it for committee discussion. The SRC’s process affords interested persons two opportunities to comment publicly on potential legislation:

• First the public may testify at an initial meeting when the SRC receives a memorandum describing the genesis, scope, and intent of the proposed bill. The SRC then votes whether to have a draft bill prepared.
• Second, for proposals for which the staff writes drafts, the public may testify at a subsequent meeting when the SRC votes whether to recommend bills for introduction. An affirmative vote from at least five members of the SRC is required for a bill to be introduced, ensuring that every bill has bipartisan support.

The staff includes memoranda and bill drafts with the SRC agendas, which are posted on the SRC’s website one week in advance of a meeting date. And of course, the chance to weigh in on bills doesn’t end with the committee. Each introduced bill is debated and vetted through normal how-a-bill-becomes-a-law legislative procedures.

Bills approved in 2016. Every bill recommended for introduction from the 2016 SRC proceedings received unanimous committee approval. The breadth of bill subjects typifies the SRC’s ability to consider a wide range of topics, including:

• Repealing obsolete congressional and state legislative district laws;
• Aligning statutory reporting requirements with section 24-1-136 (11), C.R.S.;
• Updating certain outdated references to standards promulgated by the American National Standards Institute;
• Removing “ghost statutes” inadvertently left on the books in 2016; and
• Implementing recommendations received from the Department of Education and the Office of the State Auditor to modernize and correct various statutes related to those entities.

To read the full text of the approved bills, please see the SRC’s 2016 Annual Report and the upcoming supplement on the SRC’s website.

Looking ahead. Although the SRC expects to conduct the majority of its work during legislative interims, the committee will meet early in the 2017 session (date TBD) to select a new chairperson and vice-chairperson; to continue analyzing bill drafts that reconcile reporting requirements with section 24-1-136 (11), C.R.S.; and to consider a fix to the “Uniform Trust Decanting Act.”

Among the topics the SRC will discuss in the 2017 interim is a comprehensive bill to modernize, without substantively changing, the transfer terminology used in the Colorado Revised Statutes relating to the organization of state governmental agencies under the “Administrative Organization Act of 1968.”

Additional information. To learn more about the SRC, please contact a committee member or send an e-mail to SRC staff at StatutoryRevision.ga@coleg.gov. You may also check out a brief video detailing the SRC posted on the Colorado Channel’s website.

by Kate Meyer

The ’80s are, indeed, making a comeback.  While popular culture sees the resurgence of shoulder pads, My Little Pony, and Ghostbusters, the state legislature is experiencing its own blast from the past. House Bill 16-1077, recently signed into law by Governor Hickenlooper, revives the Statutory Revision Committee (SRC), an entity repealed in 1985.

Creation and composition. The SRC, created in part 9 of article 3 of title 2, Colorado Revised Statutes, consists of 10 members: Eight legislators (two each appointed by the Speaker and the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives and by the President and the Minority Leader of the Senate); and two nonvoting attorneys appointed by the Committee on Legal Services. The legislators currently appointed to the SRC are Representatives Moreno (temporary chair), Arndt, Dore, and Thurlow and Senators Holbert, Kerr, Steadman, and Tate. The Committee on Legal Services is expected to appoint the nonvoting members at its September 29, 2016, meeting.

Duties. A year-round committee, the SRC is staffed by the Office of Legislative Legal Services. The SRC’s statutory duties are to:

• Make an ongoing examination of the statutes of the state and current judicial decisions to discover defects and anachronisms in the statutes and recommend needed reforms;
• Receive, solicit, and consider proposed changes in the statutes recommended by the American Law Institute, any bar association, or other learned bodies;
• Receive, solicit, and consider suggestions from justices, judges, legislators, and other public officials and lawyers and from the public generally as to defects and anachronisms in the statutes;
• Recommend legislation annually to effect such changes in the statutes as it deems necessary to modify or eliminate antiquated, redundant, or contradictory rules of law and to bring the statutes of this state into harmony with modern conditions; and
• Report its findings and recommendations on or before November 15 of each year to the legislature.

Legislation and limitations. The SRC may recommend bills by a majority vote. Although there is no limit on the number of bills that the SRC may propose annually, and such bills do not count against an SRC sponsor’s 5-bill limit, there are a few constraints on the legislation the committee may introduce. First, the SRC may not consider matters that are currently pending or appealable before any court. And the SRC must “propose legislation only to streamline, reduce, or repeal provisions of the Colorado Revised Statutes” and “endeavor to recommend legislation that cumulatively has, in each legislative session, no net increase in the number of laws or pages of laws.” This directive did not exist in the statutes that created the former SRC.

While the SRC must adhere to these mandates, it is not limited to any particular substantive areas of law when considering legislation. The former SRC typically examined a wide array of topics for potential legislation. In 1985, for example, the SRC received 80 bill ideas from various sources and ultimately sponsored 12 bills. The bills’ subjects ranged from curing internal inconsistencies within the “Uniform Commercial Code” to restoring the ability of judicial clerks to collect a certain filing fee (which authority had been inadvertently deleted from the Colorado Revised Statutes) to removing mention of gender in certain correctional facility names to reflect that the facilities were not limited to any particular gender.

First meeting. The SRC is conducting its first public meeting, at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, August 17, 2016, in House Committee Room 0112 at the state Capitol. When available, the agenda and minutes, for this and future meetings, will be posted here and the live and archived broadcast of meetings can be accessed here.

Submissions and suggestions? Finally, to fulfill its statutory charges, the SRC will rely on its ongoing dialogue with the legal community and the public. To notify the SRC of possible defects or anachronisms in the law or possible antiquated, redundant, or contradictory law, please send an email to SRC staff at StatutoryRevision.ga@coleg.gov.

by Patti Dahlberg and Thomas Morris

Editor’s Note: This is the third article in our series on the Uniform Laws Commission. The preceding articles were posted on Sept. 17 and August 6.

They come from every state, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands and they are the “C” in the ULC – the Commissioners! Uniform Law Commission (ULC) commissioners must be attorneys and currently qualified to practice law. They are practicing lawyers, judges, law professors, legislators, and legislative staff. They are appointed by their state or territory to “research, draft, and promote” the enactment of uniform state laws. Commissioners typically serve for specific terms and receive no salaries or fees for their time or work with the ULC, thus donating literally thousands of hours of their time and expertise each year as a public service.

Each ULC state or territorial jurisdiction determines the number of its commissioners and how they are appointed; most jurisdictions specify in statute how its commissioners are appointed. In most states, the governor appoints the state’s commissioners to serve a specified term. In a few states, ULC commissioners serve at the will of the appointing authority and have no specific term.

The Colorado connection
In Colorado, the Colorado Commission on Uniform State Laws (CCUSL) is created in section 2-3-601 of the Colorado Revised Statutes. The statute directs the General Assembly to appoint or reappoint six commissioners by joint resolution in odd-numbered years. Commissioners are appointed for two-year terms and must be currently licensed to practice law in Colorado. At least two of Colorado’s commissioners must be appointed from the General Assembly and at least two of the six must be from the public at large. The director of each state’s legislative legal service office, or the director’s designee, is ex officio a member of that state’s commission. In Colorado, the director of the General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Legal Services, Dan Cartin, appointed Thomas Morris, to serve in his stead. The six commissioners appointed or reappointed every other year serve on the CCUSL and with the ULC along with any Colorado citizen who is elected as a life member of the ULC (after 20 years of service). Currently Colorado has three commissioners who have been elected as life members: Thomas Grimshaw, Donald Mielke, and Charles Pike. You can find a list of past and current members of the CCUSL on its homepage.

Commission work at the national level
State uniform law commissioners come together as the ULC for one purpose—to study and review state laws to determine which areas of law should become more uniform. For more than a century, commissioners have, through various committees, prepared uniform law drafts and redrafts for review and approval at their annual meetings. Since its inception, the ULC has approved more than 300 uniform or model acts, of which more than 100 have been adopted by at least one state. Some have been widely adopted, including the Uniform Commercial Code, which every state has enacted. You can find a list of uniform acts that have been adopted by the Colorado General Assembly on the CCUSL homepage.

The ULC considers its major asset to be its commissioners. As a working organization, the approximately 400 commissioners participate in drafting specific acts; they discuss, consider, and amend drafts of other commissioners; they decide whether to recommend an act as a uniform or a model act; and they work toward enactment of ULC acts in their home jurisdictions. The procedures of the ULC are meant to promote the meticulous consideration of each uniform and model act and generally a minimum of four years is spent during the study, drafting, and adoption phases on each proposed act.

The ULC can only propose uniform laws; no uniform law is effective until a state legislature enacts it. Thus, the approval of a uniform act at the annual meeting constitutes the start of the commissioners’ duties of advocating for the adoption of uniform and model acts in their home jurisdictions. Uniform laws, just like any other legislative proposal, can meet resistance, but this is considered a normal and reasonable means to foster open discussions regarding the proposal on a local level.

Information about uniform acts, drafting projects, committees, meetings, and legislation is available on the ULC’s website.

For information on Colorado’s ULC connection, visit the CCUSL website.

by Patti Dahlberg and Thomas Morris

Editor’s Note: This article is the second in a series on the Uniform Law Commission. The first article was posted on August 6, 2015.

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), formerly known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), was created as an offshoot of the American Bar Association in 1892. Since its inception, ULC commissioners have drafted more than 300 uniform and model acts. The ULC process is intentionally deliberative and open and designed to include many opportunities to question and discuss each proposed law — long before the law is considered ready for proposal to state legislatures across the country.

The ULC’s procedures are meant to ensure the meticulous and transparent consideration of each uniform and model act. Generally, each uniform and model act requires at least four years of development before the ULC adopts it, and it is not unusual for the work to take longer. After a proposal is studied for at least a year and approved for drafting, a Drafting Committee spends at least one year, and often two years, drafting and redrafting. Then the full ULC must consider the draft at a minimum of two annual meetings. The ULC draws on its commissioners’ expertise throughout the drafting process and welcomes input from legal experts, advisors, and observers representing the views of other legal organizations or interests.

The ULC process
The process for developing uniform and model acts starts with the ULC Scope and Program committee, which considers proposals and suggestions for new uniform or model acts from a variety of sources. Past sources have included bar associations, state government entities, private interest groups, uniform law commissioners, and private individuals. The Committee on Scope and Program may assign a suggested topic to a Study Committee, which then researches, reviews, and reports back on the proposal. The Committee on Scope and Program reviews all Study Committee recommendations and then makes final recommendations to the ULC’s Executive Committee regarding which proposals may be desirable and feasible to become uniform or model acts.

If the Executive Committee approves a recommendation to create or amend a uniform or model act, a Drafting Committee is formed from the roughly 400 ULC commissioners from around the country and a reporter-drafter – an expert in the field – is hired to assist the committee. In addition, advisors from the American Bar Association and other participating observers are solicited to assist every Drafting Committee.

Each draft act receives a minimum of two years of consideration. Drafting Committees meet throughout that period to use the expertise of the state-appointed commissioners, stakeholders, and other legal experts and observers. The Drafting Committee rewrites and reconsiders the draft as often as needed before the committee decides to bring the draft to the annual meeting of commissioners. Tentative drafts are not submitted to the entire ULC until they have received extensive committee consideration.

How does an act receive final ULC approval?
Draft acts are submitted for initial debate by the entire ULC at one of its annual conferences, usually held in July. Each act must be considered section by section, at no fewer than two annual meetings, by all commissioners sitting as a Committee of the Whole. With hundreds of trained eyes probing every concept and word, few drafts leave an annual meeting in the same form as initially presented.

Once the Committee of the Whole approves an act, it still must pass a “vote by the states” to be officially approved as a uniform or model act. Each of the 53 state and territorial delegations polls its members and then casts one vote per delegation. To pass this vote, the proposed act must be approved by either 20 delegations or a majority of the states and territories present at the conference, whichever is greater.

Once the act passes the final vote of the states, the act is considered finalized and ready for consideration by the states and territories. The ULC urges legislatures to adopt a uniform act exactly as written to promote uniformity in the law among the jurisdictions choosing to adopt the act. Model acts, however, are designed to serve as guidelines for legislation that states and territories can borrow from or adapt to suit their individual needs and conditions.

In addition to legislatures, the ULC usually presents ULC-approved acts to the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association for its endorsement.

ULC information about uniform acts, drafting projects, committees, and meetings and legislation information is available on the ULC website.

For information on Colorado’s ULC connection, visit the Colorado Commission on Uniform State Laws (CCUSL) website.

The CCUSL is scheduled to meet on October 20, 2015, to continue discussing potential legislation for the 2016 session. CCUSL meeting schedules and agendas are available on the CCUSL website.

by OLLS Staff

The 2013 legislative interim has kept several interim committees busy considering myriad issues ranging from wildfires to the legal representation of juveniles to the treatment of mentally ill offenders to transportation to water to early childhood education. Colorado LegiSource will be summarizing the activities and bills of each committee that is recommending bills. The Legislative Council will meet November 14, 2013, to approve the interim committee bills that will be introduced during the 2014 legislative session.

This week’s article discusses four of the eight committees that are recommending bills. In two weeks, Colorado LegiSource will summarize the bill output of the other four committees. (more…)

by Kate Meyer

At this point in the summer, the 2013 legislative interim committees are well underway. So far, the committees have spent much of their time getting organized and gathering information through meetings and tours that they have conducted both in the Capitol and around the state. (more…)

By Jennifer Berman and Thomas Morris

During the 2012 interim, the Water Resources Review Committee (WRRC) heard presentations from a variety of stakeholders interested in maintaining the quality and quantity of Colorado’s water supply, including water users, providers, administrators, and experts. The committee also approved six bills and two resolutions to recommend for introduction in the 2013 regular session. (more…)

by Nicole Myers

The Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Pension Reform Commission met once during the 2012 interim for an annual briefing from the Fire and Police Pension Association (FPPA) and to consider one bill recommended by the FPPA Board of Directors for introduction during the 2013 legislative session. (more…)