Denver7 takes a 360 look at the hurdles Democrats could face during the 2023 legislative session even with their historic majority. via Meghan_Lopez
DENVER — When voters headed to the ballot box in November, the message was clear. Instead of a projected red wave, Democrats made historic gains in both the Colorado House of Representatives and Senate.
However, with this new legislative makeup, there are new challenges and what might seem like a sure session for Democrats could be anything but. In the previous two legislative sessions, lawmakers have taken steps to address climate change, transportation challenges, natural resources and more. However, the steps came with a cost to consumers.
In his State of the State address, Gov. Jared Polis called for more tax breaks to help families, from making the senior homestead exemption portable to addressing property taxes and cutting income taxes. He called himself a filibuster champion and said he will bring those tools, promising, “Democrats will grow weary and tired of what I bring to town. But that's OK. Let them be tired and let the bad bills die on the calendar.”
“Our legislature has been notoriously bad, whether it's Republicans or Democrats that are in control of controlling that calendar,” he said. “The Democrats ought to — if they’re strategic — really try to line up those big bills, get them on final calendar for final vote, you know, well before the last week or two.
“We don't like shootings any more than anybody else, and we want to do whatever we can to address those issues. But I would say that some of that is a mental health crisis,” Lynch said. “We are under pressure to deliver on what it is that we promised to do. So, it's not lost on anyone to say that if we're the biggest caucus that we've ever had, we better get the job done,” Bacon said.
“I think that'll be the biggest challenge that the speaker deals with this year, is some of the dissenters in our own party that want to go a different direction,” Lynch predicted. In his opening day speech, Fenberg made a similar promise, encouraging colleagues to cover up the names of the cosponsors on the top of a bill they come across and to read it for what it is rather than who it was written by.Of all of the hurdles, the single biggest challenge Democrats could face this legislative session is whether they will have enough money to get all of their priorities passed and funded.
During his budget proposal presentation, Polis acknowledged the fiscal realities and called for the legislature to be deliberate in its spending.
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