First off, I would like to thank all of you who responded to our Call to Action to contact members of the House Finance Committee to ask that they report House Bill 19-1212 (“HB 1212”) out of Committee without any amendments. Your commitment to help us get HB 1212 out of the Finance Committee worked. On April 17th, the Finance Committee reported HB 1212 out of Committee without amendments on an 8 to 3 vote, which exceeded our expectations! This morning, HB 1212 was also passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on an 8 to 3 vote and sent to the full House for a vote on second reading. The bipartisan support of this bill in the House Finance and House Appropriations Committees was really great to see.
HB 1212 will now be voted on by the full House on second and third readings. Given the make up of the Colorado House of Representatives, we expect the bill to be voted out of the House and sent over to the Senate for action. The bill will be on a tight schedule, since the Colorado General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn on May 3rd. To that end, it’s essential that HB 1212 clears the House and makes it through the Senate without any further amendments. This will prevent the need for HB 1212 to go to a conference committee, which would eat up time.
Please keep your eye on this blog for updates on HB 1212 as it continues to move through the legislative process and for Calls to Action that may be necessary to keep the bill moving without amendments.