The Colorado General Assembly convened this morning for the second day of a property tax-specific special session called to pass relief as part of a deal with conservative activists to avert deeper-cutting measures on the November ballot. The session will now stretch into at least Thursday.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
Updated at 3:50 p.m.: The House has given initial approval to the full property tax deal. Though several House Democrats expressed frustration with the process that led to the backroom deal and the special session to ratify it, the vote ultimately came with a comfortable margin, with most Democrats voting to advance it and two other measures provisionally approved today.
The measure now needs a final full vote in the House on Wednesday. That vote will be recorded and give a better sense of the measure’s full support — or opposition — in the House. The bill passed today on a voice vote.
Should it clear Wednesday’s hurdle — and bills rarely die on the final vote — it will then move to the Senate. If lawmakers want to finish the special session by Thursday, the Senate will need to move the property tax bill through a committee and then an initial vote (something that took the House two days) before the end of the day Wednesday.
The House is also sending the Senate two other bills: one is a minor measure to make permanent an existing property tax exemption for agricultural equipment. The second is a more controversial ballot referral that would require local voters’ approval of statewide property tax ballot changes for them to apply locally. Republicans have criticized the measure, and if it’s going to pass the Senate, it needs at least one Republican to support it.
Updated at 11:42 a.m.: And just like that, the proposed ballot initiative has passed its first vote in the House. The chamber is now moving on to debate the primary property tax deal, which is the main event of the day and week.
Updated at 11:37 a.m.: The House is debating Rep. Mike Weissman’s proposed ballot initiative that, if passed, would require local voters’ approval of statewide property tax ballot changes. Republicans have already planted a flag firmly against it, and House Republicans have been talking at length against the measure throughout the latter part of this morning.
That’s involved running amendments to eat up time, including one that managed to touch on another political nerve: the reintroduction of wolves. Republican Rep. Ken DeGraaf joked — or not — about being given a sticky note to talk for another hour.
Earlier today, the House passed a bipartisan bill to make permanent a property tax exemption for agricultural equipment. The primary property tax bill, which also has bipartisan sponsorship (and opposition), waits in the wings.
Updated at 11:00 a.m.: The last of progressive lawmakers’ special session bills died Monday night, when a House committee voted to kill a measure that would have targeted some property tax relief only for homeowners’ primary residences — excluding Coloradans’ second or subsequent homes, including rental properties.
“This bill is about making sure that we’re targeting additional tax relief to people who actually need it — people who are trying to stay in their homes,” said Rep. Javier Mabrey, the Democrat who backed the bill with fellow Denver Rep. Steven Woodrow.
The measure, House Bill 1002, would’ve provided assessment rate cuts, which affect tax bill calculations, to all residential properties. But it would have limited value reductions only for primary residences. The bill was a proposed ballot referral, meaning it needed support from two-thirds of legislators — a tall order in the Senate, at least, where Democrats lack a supermajority — before going to the state’s voters this fall.
The bill died 3-7, with three House Democrats joining the House Appropriations Committee’s Republicans in voting against it.
The debate on the bill came shortly after the Appropriations Committee approved the primary property tax deal. It felt like a proxy war for the broader debate of the special session and the circumstances that brought lawmakers back to the Capitol.
When Rep. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat, questioned the rushed nature of the bill, Woodrow cheerfully replied that the entire special session had been rushed.
“It’s true we didn’t have a spreadsheet we could share with people three weeks ago telling them it was a framework — and, voila! It turns into a bill that can’t be negotiated,” he said, referring to the primary property tax bill that he had harshly criticized.
But Mabrey and Woodrow’s proposal isn’t dead yet: The House returned to work Tuesday morning and was set to debate the main property tax bill on the floor, where progressives are preparing amendments to pursue their policy goals. Lawmakers also were set to consider a proposed ballot measure that would require local voter approval of statewide property tax ballot decisions and a technical bill to make permanent an agricultural equipment property tax exemption.
The House first passed the agricultural bill and then moved on to the ballot measure, setting the property tax bill for last.
Mabrey is preparing an amendment to reintroduce his bill by amending it into the primary property tax bill. That likely will reignite the broader debate about the intent of the special session and who’s benefiting from the property tax deal.
The tenor — and length — of Tuesday’s proceedings will likely swing on how much disagreement there is among House Democrats, many of whom support the deal.
House Republicans, some of whom have pushed for deeper property tax cuts, are also not averse to making their opinions known at length. Several have already criticized the proposed ballot measure.
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