Not quite... Pt. 1

Bills That Went Nowhere

We're now entering our third week of session and already the "bill body count" is beginning to pile up. Here's a quick compilation of what hasn't flown so far, you'll notice they are all Republican bills. With a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate, that doesn't come as a surprise.

SB13-020 "Business Fiscal Impacts" by Sen. Ted Harvey.

This bill would have created a five day window for businesses to comment to the appropriate committee on the fiscal impacts of upcoming legislation. The immediate problem with the bill, as expressed by Democrats during its hearing, was that businesses would need to track legislation themselves and submit feedback on whether it would help or hurt them- but would that data be reliable, and how could it be verified? 

Most businesses however are in associations, and associations hire lobbyists to do just what the bill wanted. The lobby group keeps tabs on legislation to keep their clients safe. What Sen. Harvey proposed is already being done. On top of that, anyone can already testify before a committee to state whether a bill would help or hurt them. 

SB13-022 "County treasurer becoming the public trustee" by Sen. Lambert and Rep. Scott.

Remember my post on this one? I'll go into more depth on what happened to the bill, but it was pronounced "postponed indefinitely!" (dead) Thursday January 24th. For now, public trustees in second class counties will still be appointed by the governor. 

SB13-024 "Prohibit discrimination of labor union participation" by Sen. Hill. 

The bill would have simply made it illegal to require an employee to join specific labor unions. It was a classic Republican anti-union bill, now defeated by historically pro-union Democrats.

SB13-035 "Prohibit red light camera vehicle identification" by Sen. Renfroe and Rep. Humphrey.

It would have repealed the authority for local municipalities to use 'speed cameras' to catch a photo of drivers running red lights. What's important to note is that 'red light photo' tickets make up substantial portions of revenue for localities.

2012 'Red Light Photo Ticket' Revenues

HB13-1028 "Vehicle special license plate limit" by Rep. Scott and Rep. Priola.

Not even with Democrat Rep. Randy Fischer's support did this bill make it through its first committee. The bill would have limited those non-generic license plates we have in Colorado to 96 varieties. Currently there are 85. The reason it's popular is because the plates generate money, almost $100,000 per variety per year in extra registration fees that go to the highway fund. Police don't like the plates because it can be difficult to keep track of them all and spot the ones from Colorado from the ones that aren't. Rep. Fischer has been vocally opposed to the expansion of plate varieties because they must be legislatively created, something he and many other lawmakers from both parties believe is a waste of the General Assembly's time.   

HB13-1069 "Small business fiscal impact statements" by Rep. Navarro-Ratzlaff.

Very similar to SB13-020 by Ted Harvey, this bill would have required the legislative analysts that put together fiscal impact statements (the document recording how much money is at stake with each bill) to analyze how each bill would affect small businesses in Colorado, defined as 50 employees or less.