Bipartisan bill to eliminate some credit card fees for businesses passed by Colorado House
Colorado would become the second state in the country to prohibit credit card companies from charging “swipe fees” on taxes or tips under new legislation that passed the state House on Wednesday.
Every time a customer uses their Visa or Mastercard at a restaurant or store, the credit card companies charge the business a fee that’s typically between 2% and 4% of the total bill. That total includes the cost of sales tax — which businesses say they collect and pass on to the government — and tips, which are given to workers.
House Bill 1282 would prohibit credit card companies from assessing fees on taxes or tips. It would also limit the fees that could be charged for charitable donations.
Though the bill would only limit part of the swipe fees, the charges on taxes and tips still cost businesses thousands of dollars each year, supporters said.
What’s at stake in Colorado’s school-funding fight as teachers descend on Capitol
When teachers rallied at the Colorado State Capitol on Thursday, the message they brought to Gov. Jared Polis and legislators scrambling to fill a $1.2 billion shortfall was this: Stop using money for K-12 schools to balance the state’s budget.
The protest, led by the Colorado Education Association, was striking not only because thousands of educators participated and the gathering forced some schools to close for the day, but because it also marked a turnabout for the state, which only a year ago celebrated the “fully funded era” for public schools.
Polis and legislators promised last year to eliminate a maneuver called the “budget stabilization factor,” which lawmakers have used since the Great Recession to divert money from public schools to other state budget priorities.
Lawmakers also created a new school funding formula that is supposed to allocate $500 million more toward K-12 education during a six-year period starting next fiscal year.
Former regulators — including one fired by Trump — push Colorado lawmakers to step up consumer protection
A federal regulator fired by President Donald Trump this week told Colorado lawmakers that he didn’t know why Trump sought to dismiss him, as he and another former official urged legislators to pursue tighter consumer protections amid fraying federal oversight.
Alvaro Bedoya, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, had been scheduled to address the legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, along with Seth Frotman, the former general counsel for the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The two were set to testify for a special hearing about what states could do to address affordability concerns as Colorado Democrats and Republicans pursue alternate solutions to the state’s high cost of living.
But Bedoya said he received a letter from a Trump aide on Tuesday firing him, a directive that Bedoya said he intends to fight. The Washington Post reported that Trump fired the commission’s only two Democrats.
“I think it’s interesting that the last public statement I made was critical of one of the men standing behind the president’s shoulder at his inauguration: I issued a statement criticizing Mr. (Jeff) Bezos for working his people in (Amazon) warehouses so fast, so hard that they literally have to have vending machines on the warehouse floor dispensing — and capping — the amount of painkillers each of those workers has to get,” Bedoya said.
Colorado labor bill may launch a ballot-box arms race as Gov. Jared Polis’ veto decision looms
A contentious proposal to change a provision of Colorado’s labor law is nearing a final collision point, with Gov. Jared Polis continuing to gesture at a veto and a new ballot measure ratcheting up pressure on negotiations between union and business leaders.
Senate Bill 5 is now one vote away from the House floor, where it’s expected to pass and then face an uncertain fate on Polis’ desk. The bill would remove a unique piece of Colorado law that requires unions to pass two elections — the second requiring a higher threshold — before workers can negotiate a part of their contracts that govern dues and fees. The measure has been near-universally backed by Democrats, including by state legislators, five former U.S. labor secretaries and two of Colorado’s Democratic congresswomen.
But it’s been opposed by the business community and by Polis, who has privately threatened a veto. In a news conference last week, the governor didn’t directly invoke that specter, though he reiterated his desire for a deal and his support for the state’s labor status quo.
“Uncertainty” colors Colorado economic forecast as lawmakers begin to finalize budget
State economists confirmed Colorado’s brutal budgetary situation Monday, kicking off lawmakers’ mad dash to fill a $1.2 billion hole in the budget.
The March economic forecasts from the governor’s office and legislative staff solidify the numbers lawmakers will use to set the final state budget. Lawmakers had been aware — and raising alarms — about the massive hole since last year, and have already set in motion some cuts to fill it.
How close lawmakers are to filling the hole should become clearer Tuesday during a planned hearing on how cuts proposed so far square with the forecasts. They will then need to finalize the budget — including any additional cuts — before the budget is heard by the entire Senate next week.
It needs to be approved by the legislature in the next month and will dictate state spending for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Bill to raise age limit to buy high-potency marijuana products in Colorado dies in committee
A bill that aimed to increase the age limit to purchase certain marijuana products in Colorado died in committee recently amid opposition from the cannabis industry.
Senate Bill 76, introduced in January, proposed myriad new regulations for the state’s industries dealing with intoxicating substances, such as cannabis and psilocybin. Most notably, the bill sought to raise the legal age to purchase marijuana products with more than 10% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) potency to 26 from 21.
The bill was postponed indefinitely in mid-March because “we didn’t have the support we needed,” Sen. Judy Amabile, a Boulder Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said by email.
The bill’s goal, she said, was to prioritize public health and address concerns related to young adults’ use of high-potency cannabis concentrates, some of which can be up to 80% or 90% THC.
Housing bills up for votes, an affordability hearing and final budget forecast in the Colorado legislature this week
We’re past the halfway point in the 2025 state legislative session, folks, which means the days are getting longer and the debates are growing more contentious.
This week promises to be a prominent one for several housing bills. The Colorado House this morning took a final vote on House Bill 1169, the so-called “YIGBY” bill, for “Yes In God’s Backyard,” that would make it easier for houses of worship and educational institutions to build housing on their land. It passed 40-23.
That bill, a land-use reform backed by Gov. Jared Polis, will now advance to the Senate.
Also on the House calendar: House Bill 1004, which seeks to prohibit the use of rent-setting algorithms used by some landlords. Critics argue those algorithms are used to price-fix rents at high levels, and the Biden administration found that many Denver renters pay more than $1,600 in additional rent every year as a result of the software.
One software developer successfully neutered an attempt to ban the algorithms last year, and this year’s version is undergoing changes and faces skepticism from Polis’ office.
Colorado legislators rewrite restaurant bill, backing away from direct cut to servers’ pay in Denver
Colorado lawmakers have backed away from a plan to cut some restaurant workers’ pay, significantly rewriting the measure amid opposition from fellow Democrats and labor advocates.
As it’s now written after being amended Friday night, House Bill 1208 would give local governments that have raised their minimum wages above the state minimum the option to increase their “tip offset.” That is a credit that reduces the base minimum wage to a lower rate that restaurants can pay to tipped workers.
The bill no longer includes a state-enacted increase to the credit, which would have had the effect of a directed pay cut — resulting in a $4-per-hour decrease for tipped workers in Denver — that had been sought by a reeling restaurant industry that’s said it’s struggling to stay afloat amid high costs.
“If the mark of a good compromise is that both sides leave dissatisfied, then (this amendment) is a total banger,” Rep. Steven Woodrow, a Denver Democrat sponsoring the bill, said Friday night.
Hundreds of wild horses roam Colorado. Can more state involvement head off helicopter roundups?
Colorado could take a more proactive and permanent role in managing the wild horse herds that roam the Western Slope under a bill in the state legislature.
Advocates hope House Bill 1283 will make the state a model for cooperative management of the charismatic and controversial species. It would permanently give the Colorado Department of Agriculture more responsibility over the herds — which are formally managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management — and implement recommendations from the Wild Horse Working Group created in 2023.
The department would have more authority to implement fertility control measures used to constrain the wild horse population, which federal authorities say is larger than the landscape can support.
The bill is the culmination of years of work to address the complex challenge posed by the species, said House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Jefferson County Democrat sponsoring the bill.
Colorado bill would remake federal program that subsidizes hospitals in bid to lower patients’ costs
A bill in the Colorado legislature would remake a federal subsidy for hospitals into a tool to lower patients’ health care costs, if it can get past stiff industry opposition.
Senate Bill 124 would require some nonprofit hospitals to spend 95% of the proceeds from a federal drug discount program to reduce health care costs for patients earning no more than four times the federal poverty line, or $62,600 for one person.
The 340B program allows nonprofit hospitals and health centers to buy prescription drugs at a discount, then sell them to patients or their insurance companies at full price and keep the difference, which the Colorado Hospital Association estimated at more than $700 million annually.
Federal law currently doesn’t limit what recipients may do with the money, which effectively subsidizes facilities that care for an above-average share of low-income patients.
New strategy to crack down on wage theft in Colorado has a broader scope — and criticism has softened
Colorado lawmakers are again trying to crack down on employers who don’t pay their workers — and this time, the effort comes with a less-combative footing than last year’s vetoed attempt.
House Bill 1001, the first measure to come out of that chamber in this year’s legislative session, arose from Gov. Jared Polis’ veto of a bill aimed at wage theft in the construction industry. Instead of narrowing its scope — the typical strategy for resurrected bills — House Majority Leader Monica Duran and Rep. Meg Froelich, the sponsors, widened it.
The new measure would increase the threshold for wage-theft claims that the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment could enforce across all industries, diverting cases away from more expensive lawsuits. It would also add employees to the department and set up a system to publish the names of violators. The measure would create specific protections against discrimination based on immigration status and against misclassifying employees as contractors.
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