As Earth Day Nears and the Calendar Grows, Senate Democrats' Legislative Priorities Blossom

Bills on tenancy protections, student loans, media literacy, ballot access, gender expression, as well as stimulus bills on agricultural efficiency and childcare capacity head to committees this week

DENVER, CO - As the legislative workload increases, Senate Democrats hope their legislative priorities this week will plant seeds to cultivate a brighter future. 

Several of the bills being heard are a part of Colorado’s recovery package including:

SB21-235: Stimulus Funding Department Of Agriculture Efficiency Programs, sponsored by Senator Jaquez Lewis.

• Over the next decade, Colorado’s agricultural sector must comprehensively reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also increasing energy efficiency and cutting costs. ACRE3 is Colorado’s premier state-level program for agricultural energy management, and provides financial aid, technical assistance, and education to help agriculture producers and processors cut energy costs and develop their own energy resources. To further increase the sustainability of the ag industry, producers can invest in healthy soil management, nutrient cycling, and erosion prevention strategies which will increase yields and resilience to extreme weather events. This bill allocates $3 million to ACRE3 to support energy efficiency programs and $2 million to the conservation services division to implement voluntary soil health programs.

This bill will be heard by the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee upon adjournment of morning floor work on Wednesday, April 21st in the Old Supreme Court Chambers.

SB21-236: Increase Capacity Early Childhood Care & Education, sponsored by Senators Story & Sonnenberg.

• Early childhood care and education are not only important for a child’s preparation for K-12 school, they are also crucial for helping formulate critical thinking skills, cognitive abilities, social skills, and the foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing. Accordingly, early childhood caretakers and educators are some of the most valuable and impressionable figures in children’s lives. Over the last year, the pandemic has disrupted both educators’ ability to teach and children’s ability to learn – making the re-ignition of early childhood care and education an integral component of our recovery. This bill establishes three new grant programs to increase capacity and works to improve recruitment, retention, and compensation for educators. Additionally, the bill allocates $8.8 million in state funds and $4.2 million in federal funds to help get these programs up and running.

This bill will be heard by the Senate Education Committee at 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 22nd in Senate Committee Room 357.

SB21-203: Funding For Colorado Proud, sponsored by Senators Bridges & Simpson.

• Colorado’s robust agricultural sector has been the backbone of our economy for decades, and the pandemic has burdened the industry with unique challenges that will require additional resources to overcome. To accelerate the economic recovery of our agricultural and rural communities, this bill gives $2.5 million to the Department of Agriculture for use in the Colorado Proud program, which provides new opportunities for Colorado's food and agricultural producers to increase sales globally and helps support the growth and resiliency of Colorado food systems.

This bill will be heard by the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee at 1:30 PM on Thursday, April 22nd in the Old Supreme Court Chambers.

Other legislative priorities headed to committee this week include:

HB21-1011: Multilingual Ballot Access For Voters, sponsored by Senators Gonzales & Moreno.

• There are over 80,000 eligible voters in Colorado who do not speak English and are effectively denied access to the ballot because they live in counties where election materials are only provided in English. This bill acknowledges the need for improvement and expansion in supporting Colorado citizens who do not speak or read English by requiring the Secretary of State and county clerks and recorders of certain counties to provide multilingual ballot access. Additionally, the bill tasks the Secretary of State with creating a multilingual ballot hotline that provides translators and interpreters, intended to apply to all general elections beginning for the November 2022 election and for every state-wide odd-year election.

This bill will be heard by the Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, April 20th in the Old Supreme Court Chambers.

HB21-1121: Residential Tenancy Procedures, sponsored by Senator Gonzales.

• Almost 25% of Colorado renters have slight or no confidence they can make rent without aid. Even before the pandemic, renters typically faced lease-breaking fees, high late fees, and were considerably disadvantaged in eviction court. This bill seeks to transfer power from landlords back to renters. Specifically, the bill prohibits landlords from increasing rent more than once in a 12-month period, extends eviction notices from 21 to 60 days for tenancies between 1-6 months long, and strengthens legal proceedings to give tenants more support in eviction court.

This bill will be heard by the Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, April 20th in the Old Supreme Court Chambers.

HB21-1108: Gender Identity Expression Anti-discrimination, sponsored by Senator Moreno.

• The language we use matters. Current Colorado law already protects individuals from discrimination based on race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and religion. This bill simply modernizes that law to ensure protections are extended to an individual’s gender expression and gender identity. By making this change, this bill recognizes that an individual's gender identity and gender expression are different than their sexual orientation.

This bill will be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee upon adjournment of morning floor work on Wednesday, April 21st in Senate Committee Room 352.

SB21-057: Private Lenders Of Student Loans Acts And Practices, sponsored by Senators Winter & Gonzales.

• Statewide, Colorado borrowers currently owe $9.1 billion in private student loan debt and that number is growing as the private student loan market climbs. High rates of debt accumulation, especially as the cost of college has risen, widens an already large intergenerational debt and wealth gap between families of color and white families. Black and Latinx borrowers and low-income borrowers use private student loans less, compared to white and higher-income borrowers, but frequently face higher levels of challenges in repayment. This bill seeks to provide protections---similar to the protections granted for federal loans---to students who take out private loans to be used for postsecondary education.

This bill will be heard by the Senate Finance Committee at 1:30PM on Wednesday, April 21st in the Old Supreme Court Chambers.

HB21-1103: Media Literacy Implementation, sponsored by Senators Pettersen & Coram.

• With the accelerated growth of social media and its integration into the media diet of Coloradans, dissemination of misinformation has become all too common. To help reduce the spread of falsities, we must equip young Coloradans with the critical thinking skills necessary to analyze the information, claims, and sources presented to them through the media in an effort to empower them to make more informed decisions and strengthen our democracy. This bill requires the Department of Education to create and maintain a bank of media literacy resources and for the State Board of Education to bring a renewed focus on media literacy by integrating it into K-12 curriculums.

This bill will be heard by the Senate Education Committee at 1:30PM on Thursday, April 22nd in Senate Committee Room 357.

To listen to committee hearings, visit leg.colorado.gov/watch-listen. The full Senate calendar for the week can be found at http://leg.colorado.gov/session-schedule?type=senate