by Ed DeCecco

For the seventy-fifth time, the Colorado House of Representatives and Senate will convene for two regular sessions and, if recent history is any indication, a special session or two. (Being the seventy-fifth makes it seem like the General Assembly has reached a milestone age or is celebrating its diamond jubilee, doesn’t it?)

Like your predecessors, you, the members of the Seventy-fifth General Assembly, will converge on our magnificent State Capitol from all parts of this amazing state. You will elect your leadership, adopt and follow rules of legislative procedure, and debate and decide the important issues of your time. You will have late nights in committee and lengthy debates on the House or Senate floor. Many of you will feel like you have achieved great success, but, alas, some of you will also feel the sting of failure. But whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, over the course of the 120 days of session, you will all do your very best to represent the Coloradans who elected you.

And through it all, the Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS) will do our very best to help you! Created by statute and with the oversight of the Committee on Legal Services, the OLLS is your nonpartisan legal staff agency. Our primary function aligns with your primary purpose for being here—we draft bills, resolutions, and amendments. But we can also provide you with ancillary materials related to those bills, resolutions, and amendments, such as:

• Unbiased talking points explaining bills or amendments;
• Summaries of changes made to a bill in committee or in either chamber;
• Legislative histories;
• Comparisons of Colorado law with the law of other states on particular issues; and
• Written legal memoranda and opinions on issues relating to pending legislation. (We can provide these resources on other topics related to your legislative work, too.)

The attorney who drafts legislation stays with it throughout the entire legislative process. So if you have any questions about a bill or resolution, ask the attorney whose name and number are listed on the first page of each bill or resolution. Whether during a private conversation on the side of the House or Senate chamber or at the witness table during a committee hearing, OLLS attorneys are happy to answer your questions.

Beyond all of these listed services, if you need anything, please ask us. If it is something that we can provide, we will do it. Of course, we cannot do anything that compromises our nonpartisan status, such as soliciting legislators as sponsors, disclosing confidential information related to a bill, helping you count votes, or advocating for the passage or defeat of legislation. Nonpartisanship is so deeply engrained in our office’s culture that we would probably be terrible at doing these tasks anyway!

But where our office excels is providing the nonpartisan legal services and support that you need to have a productive and successful legislative session in 2025. So whether by phone, text, Zoom, or an in-person visit to our current location in Room 091 on the ground floor of the Capitol,[1] we encourage you to reach out to the staff of the OLLS whenever you need legal assistance. We look forward to helping you, which in turn will help the Seventy-fifth General Assembly make its mark on our great state.

[1] The OLLS is moving to the State Annex Building in the Fall of 2025.

Would becoming only the third Revisor of Statutes in the history of the Office of Legislative Legal Services be better than, for instance, spotting the “striking and unmistakable” Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and hearing its Morse-code-like drumming? You’d have to ask Yelana Love, who, on October 14, 2024, succeeded Jennifer Gilroy in the position.

In her decade as an attorney with the office, Yelana has developed extensive expertise in areas of the law that include labor and employment, health care, professions and occupations, and alcohol beverage regulation. As members of the General Assembly and her coworkers will tell you, she is known for her competence, grace, confidence, and kindness. Very little ruffles her: she is detail-oriented, methodical, and organized—traits that have served her well as she’s watched for White-tailed Ptarmigans and will continue to serve her well as the Revisor of Statutes.

As an ambassador of the office, Yelana has also served on the Colorado Commission on Uniform State Laws, and she is currently a member of the Uniform Law Commission’s Drafting Committee on Occupational Licenses of Servicemembers and Military Spouses.

Beyond her important drafting work, Yelana has helped members, leadership staff, and office attorneys navigate the sunset process and has worked with members and their aides to respond to Colorado Open Records Act requests. She always has her binoculars on and her “Field Guide to Legislative Drafting Offices of North America” open as she plans for the office’s future, contributes to the professional development programming that benefits attorneys and other staff, and listens to and supports her coworkers.

Whether she’s working with leadership on the floor of the Senate, scoping orchestras of Avocets or exaltations of Larks on her travels, or offering to help a coworker recodify an article of the Colorado Revised Statutes, Yelana’s dedication and intelligence sing (whether like a Hermit Thrush or Winter Wren, she would know best).

The work of the Revisor of Statutes greatly aids the office’s prime directive: to serve the General Assembly and the citizens of this state and to forward the cause of effective self-government. And the feather in the Revisor’s cap is the Colorado Revised Statutes. Under the guidance of the Committee on Legal Services and with the help of the office’s capable staff, the Revisor prepares for publication:

• The Colorado Revised Statutes and the history of those laws so that the public can understand how they’ve been changed;
• Annotations, or helpful explanations, of state and federal court decisions relating to the law;
• The rules of civil and criminal procedure; and
• Many more important documents, as outlined in article 5 of title 2 of the Colorado Revised Statutes.

Life is a balance of holding on to the branch and letting it go. As Yelana Love does both this fall, please join us in congratulating her on her appointment as Revisor of Statutes. We have no doubt she will take to the role like a Northern Shoveler does to water.

by Jessica Wigent

When legislators and former and current coworkers throughout Gotham the capitol building speak of Jennifer Gilroy, they tell of her marvel-ous superpowers as a fierce defender (of the integrity of the Colorado Revised Statutes), a protector and guardian (of legislative history), and a superintelligent expert (in legislative rules and ethics).

Yet, after 32 years with the Office of Legislative Legal Services, on October 15, 2024, Jennifer Gilroy hung up her cape retired her title of Revisor of Statutes.

While her origin story as an attorney begins in private practice, Jennifer eventually joined the rogues’ esquires’ gallery of the office in 1992, where she has been a major contributor to its success and, in turn, the accomplishments of the General Assembly.

She first started with the Judiciary, Health, and Welfare Team, drafting in the areas of family law, criminal law, and human services. While there, her reputation for dependability and attention to detail and her sharp weapons legal skills and commitment to serving and supporting her colleagues and the members of the General Assembly solidified her role as the archetype of a superhero drafter. With her ability to telepathically agilely communicate, she capably translated the members’ ideas into well-crafted legislation.

As her tenure increased, so did the breadth and complexity of her pursuits and the duties assigned to her. After just two legislative sessions (and with a lasso) under her belt, she was selected as one of the drafters to substantively recodify the Colorado Children’s Code. This mighty and bold task was so extensive and complicated, the herculean effort involved a statutorily created six-member Legislative Oversight Committee, a 24-member recodification task force, four office attorneys, one legislative editor, three Legislative Council staffers, two legislative interims, two legislative sessions, and a number of bills.

Not surprisingly, Jennifer not only survived but thrived in completing this and many other dangerous formidable assignments while continuing to excel in her everyday work for the office. In 1999, she and Julie Pelegrin were named co-titans co-team leaders of the Civil and Criminal Law, Education, and Human Services Team (codename: the LAW Team).

Only five years later, on March 26, 2004, Charlie Pike, then-director of the office, appointed Jennifer to serve as the Revisor of Statutes—a role that she also held under the next three directors. With great power comes great responsibility, and for 20 years she has admirably met the challenges of overseeing the many publications of the office, the enactment of the laws of Colorado each session, the execution of important contracts, and waves of other special responsibilities.

Among her many superabilities, for two decades she has ensured that the Colorado Revised Statutes and Session Laws were published with fidelity and were of the highest quality. Each year, under the supervision and direction of the Committee on Legal Services, and with vital assistance from her trusted sidekicks and associates on the Publications Team and throughout the office, she tackled villainous inconsistencies and rid the statutes of destructively defective structures.

In 2016, Jennifer played a leading role in increasing public access to the online versions of the statutes. She also worked for years alongside her assistant, Nate Carr, to help protect and preserve the legislative historic book collection, rescuing this important history from the damp, dusty bowels of the capitol basement. Aly Jabrocki, who would become the state archivist, also played a part in safeguarding these important materials, the proof of our progress as a state, from theft and destruction.

Regardless of the challenge, Jennifer has always performed to the highest standards of excellence.

If you needed to figure out a complicated conflict between two bills that amended the same statute or the wording for a tricky effective date clause, she’d have your answer in a flash.

Didn’t understand that legislative rule? A quick phone call and she’d be flying from her office to the chamber floor to wade into the murky language and save the day. As Minority Leader Paul Lundeen said on the floor of the Senate earlier this year, Jennifer toiled to ensure that lawmakers “could find that straight and narrow path, apply the rules to get to the best rule of law and governance.”

After the passage of Amendment 41 in 2006, legislators needed someone to help them navigate the new constitutional gift ban and the complicated rules of serving as an elected official subject to public scrutiny. Jennifer rose to the occasion, working tirelessly to provide ethics advice for countless legislators regarding compliance with constitutional, statutory, and rule-based ethics requirements.

Recognized as a “most trusted ethics advisor” by the members of the General Assembly, leaders of both parties sang her praises in August of 2024. As Assistant Minority Leader Bob Gardner noted on the Senate floor, when he came upon a potential ethical issue, he would often send out his version of the bat signal and say “Find Jennifer Gilroy” because he needed a “trusted advisor.” Senator Gardner sang her praises, telling Jennifer: “I’m a better lawyer because of you.” In the House of Representatives, Speaker Julie McCluskie described Jennifer as “the most at-the-ready, eager-to-help, kind, and gentle part of our team when it comes to a question around ethics,” and Majority Leader Monica Duran called her “calm, steadfast, professional in the most stressful of situations.”

Even now, as Jennifer prepares to pass the torch to Yelana Love, she continues working on a vital project, an in-house, innovative creation of new technology to publish the Colorado Revised Statutes called XDOME,^[1] which will ensure that the office is prepared to meet the ever-modernizing field of publications.

As one endgame approaches and new multiverses adventures beckon, thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your superpowers of generosity and selflessness. Your door was always open, and from behind it, you and your stylish sunshine saved many a day, a bill, and more. You have given your time, energy, and talents to your colleagues, to the General Assembly and all who work for it and in it, and to the state of Colorado for more than three decades, and we, to paraphrase Senator Gardner, are better for it.

^[1] The Colorado Revised Statutes XML Data Operations and Management Enhancement Project

We are pleased to announce that the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council appointed Ed DeCecco[1] to be the next Director of the Office of Legislative Legal Services, effective October 1, 2023.

Ed started his career with the office on November 19, 2001, as a staff attorney on the Government Team, which specializes in issues concerning state and local government, government finance, taxation, infrastructure, transportation, PERA, and elections. Since then, he has earned respect and recognition as a top expert in the subjects of government finance, taxation, and the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

In addition to drafting bills and providing legal counsel to the General Assembly, Ed has successfully performed various roles on behalf of the office over the years, including:

• Assisting with matters affecting the General Assembly, including issues related to legislative rules, open government, social media, litigation, and training new legislators.
• Serving as the office’s liaison to the Joint Budget Committee, to assist the committee and its staff with legal issues related to the budget process and to oversee the drafting of committee bills.
• Serving as one of the office’s Director’s designees on the State Title Board, along with the Attorney General’s and Secretary of State’s designees, to set titles for citizen initiatives.
• Advising the General Assembly and its staff on ethical issues.  
• Mentoring, advising, and supporting colleagues regarding bills, legal issues, appropriation clauses, and initiative procedures.

In addition to his wealth of qualifications, Ed is loyal to the office’s primary responsibility: To provide excellent and highly competent non-partisan legal services to the General Assembly.

Above all else, Ed is a proud husband and father, a true gentleman, and a genuinely good guy.

Please join us in congratulating Ed on his well-deserved appointment as OLLS Director!

[1] Pronounced “deh-check-o”.

Besides the usual ghosts and goblins, Halloween 2023 holds an additional specter for the Colorado General Assembly and the Office of Legislative Legal Services. On October 31, 2023, 37 years of knowledge, experience, and dedication will depart the Colorado State Capitol when Sharon Eubanks, Director of the OLLS, retires from a career of exemplary service to the state of Colorado.

It’s hard to imagine the Office without Sharon, who began as a staff attorney in 1986—two years before the Office of Legislative Legal Services was even established by HB88-1329. Sharon brought three years of legislative experience with her to Colorado, having previously worked as a legislative attorney for the Oklahoma House of Representatives. And when she started with the OLLS, she had the good fortune to learn under the tutelage of the original pillars of the Office: Douglas (Doug) Brown, Rebecca (Becky) Lennehan, Charles (Charley) Pike, and Alice Ackerman.

Sharon quickly proved her worth as an excellent drafter and trusted advisor to legislators. Because of her sharp legal analysis and understanding of statutory construction, she was entrusted with drafting significant—and, in some cases, ground-breaking—legislation, including the act that established the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District and the act that created the Denver Metropolitan Major League Baseball Stadium District, which resulted in Denver receiving a Major League Baseball franchise. Other notable legislation that Sharon drafted includes the act that authorized public school open enrollment within and across school districts in Colorado and the act that provided economic incentives to United Airlines to build its maintenance facility at Stapleton International Airport.

But the work that probably most defines Sharon’s career with the Office—and for which she is best known—involved assisting the General Assembly, its members, committees, and staff with interpreting and complying with Article X, Section 20 of the state constitution, commonly known as the “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights” or “TABOR”, approved by the voters in 1992. Within days after the election, the Director of the OLLS at the time, Doug Brown, appointed Sharon the lead attorney in the effort to understand TABOR and assist the General Assembly in implementing its provisions. This was a significant undertaking that included providing legal analysis and advice regarding TABOR’s meaning and impact, drafting legislation to implement and address issues resulting from the passage of TABOR, and assisting with litigation stemming from subsequent TABOR-related legislation. With her work, Sharon established herself as one of the state’s premiere experts on TABOR and, as a result, she was—and likely still is—the person who legislators, legislative staff, and even members of other branches of government and the public called regarding its legislative, judicial, and administrative interpretations.

Recognizing her extraordinary capacity and sharp legal mind, Director Brown promoted Sharon to Senior Attorney within four years after she started with the OLLS and later to Team Leader of the Finance Team, in which role she led, trained, and mentored a team of drafters and legislative assistants. Sharon’s revising skills are equally revered and feared; there isn’t an attorney in the Office who hasn’t felt a twinge of anxiety upon receiving the abundant comments, questions, and edits resulting from her thorough review of the attorney’s work. But each attorney will also readily admit to having benefited from her revising and mentoring skills and acknowledge that her keen abilities have made us all better drafters and attorneys.

Sharon’s career continued to soar, and by 2004 she was promoted to Deputy Director of the Office. In this role, she took on a wide assortment of special projects for the Director, including representing the Office on the state title board, setting ballot titles for citizen initiatives, often a contentious endeavor. She drafted myriad legal memoranda and opinions and assisted in multiple lawsuits involving the General Assembly and its members. Her excellent writing skills and legal analysis served well the General Assembly and the legal counsel representing the General Assembly as she worked on pleadings, briefs, and oral arguments.

In 2017, the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council appointed Sharon director of the Office, and almost immediately Sharon found herself guiding the General Assembly and the Office through an astonishing number of first-time issues. During her very first legislative session as director, Sharon faced the unprecedented expulsion of a member of the House of Representatives based on charges of workplace harassment and the accompanying unique procedural, ethical, and legal issues. In the aftermath, Sharon helped guide the General Assembly through an overhaul of its policies and procedures related to workplace harassment complaints.

Then, while still relatively new to the director position, Sharon suddenly found herself challenged with another unprecedented situation when a worldwide pandemic shut down the General Assembly mid-session. Undaunted, she led her staff and guided the leadership of the General Assembly through the development, adoption, and implementation of new legislative rules, protocols, and procedures allowing for remote work and participation in the legislative process by both legislators and staff.

These are just two examples of the constantly changing, challenging, and unique circumstances that Sharon has faced – and overcome – during her tenure as director. Added to these are the continuing challenges of increasingly partisan legislative sessions and the resulting unprecedented increases in stress and workload for nonpartisan staff. In all of these situations, Sharon has continued to exemplify the best in nonpartisan service for legislators and effective leadership for her staff, continually working to provide the people of the OLLS with the support they need and the appreciation they deserve.

The Office of Legislative Legal Services, the General Assembly and the many legislators who have served during the last 37 years, and the citizens of the state of Colorado have been the fortunate beneficiaries of Sharon’s lengthy and distinguished career. Thank you, Sharon, for your innumerable contributions, dedication, and remarkable service to the Colorado General Assembly and to the state of Colorado.