Gun legistlation tops democratic priorities

The first week of the General Assembly saw Republican House members trying to upset the apple cart on the vote for Speaker of the House.

House and Senate leaders gave opening day speeches on Jan. 9 that outlined their priorities for the next 120 days.

In his opening day remarks, Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, spoke about gun violence. He noted a measure coming from Senator Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, that will expand Colorado’s extreme risk protection order law, aka the red flag law. “If local law enforcement can’t — or won’t — be the ones to bring the issue to a judge, others like district attorneys and counselors can and will,” Fenberg said.

That isn’t the only gun control bill anticipated in the 2023 session. Another measure, expected to be sponsored by Democratic Representative Andrew Boesenecker of Fort Collins and Elisabeth Epps of Denver, would ban possession, purchase or selling of an assault weapon, with a long list of definitions of what would constitute an assault weapon.

The law would not ban prior ownership of an assault weapon.

Fenberg followed those comments with a call for relationship-building and for lawmakers to get to know one another. 

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen of Monument, leading a Republican caucus with a historic low of 12 members, said his members will be full participants in the legislative process and pledged they would offer their best, constructive suggestions for making the future laws of this State better.

He pleaded with majority Democrats to avoid using “the resources and mechanisms of state government in a way that encumbers our grandchildren with a burden that cripples their future economy or saddles those precious souls with a debt they can never repay.” 

“We cannot, nor should we ever, expect the people of Colorado to unwillingly surrender anything that is theirs, including their hard-earned money, their closely-held beliefs, their livelihoods or small businesses, or their basic rights as enshrined in the United States Constitution,” Lundeen said.

In the House, the day began with an aborted attempt by far-right Republicans to put one of their own into the Speaker’s chair, despite a pledge by most of the Republican caucus to back the choice by Democrats: Rep. Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, the first Western Slope and rural Democrat to hold the seat. 

McCluskie’s nomination was seconded by House Minority Leader Mike Lynch of Wellington and that led Rep. Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, who had been sworn in only moments earlier to his first term, to nominate Rep. Scott Bottoms, another first-time legislator and Colorado Springs Republican. Bottoms seconded his own nomination and got eight votes. McCluskie won the post with 55 votes.

Lynch, in his opening day remarks, told his colleagues that the people of Colorado are in charge of the legislature, not the lawmakers themselves.

Lynch was elected minority leader by his caucus after the previous minority leader, Rep. Hugh McKean of Loveland, died of a sudden heart attack on Oct. 30. His likely successor, Rep. Colin Larson of Littleton, lost his bid for re-election in November. 

Republicans are also at an historic low, with 19 members out of 65. 

“Our job is to constrain the government from being overbearing in our lives and taking away our freedoms,” Lynch said. He pleaded with Democrats to not put party over people. 

McCluskie noted her family farming background in her opening remarks. Her grandparents owned a dairy farm in North Dakota and were both teachers and farmers, a common occupation for rural parts, she said.

She noted the struggles of rural families to afford child care, housing and health care, particularly for mental health.

McCluskie also spoke about water, the only one of the four leaders to address that issue. “This is the year that we make water the centerpiece of our conservation efforts,” McCluskie said. And while the legislature has invested millions in the state water plan, drought mitigation, watershed protection and water conservation, the state’s water supplies unprecedented threats, she said.

McCluskie pledged the legislature would work on modernizing Colorado’s water management system, by seeking new federal funding to restore rivers, advance conservation programs and address drought in the Colorado River Basin.

Among the first bills in the 2023 session:

The House Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on Feb. 6 on a bill that would grant a “right to repair” for agricultural equipment. House Bill 1011 is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Brianna Titone of Arvada and Republican Rep. Ron Weinberg of Loveland. 

The bill requires a manufacturer to provide parts, embedded software, firmware, tools or documentation, such as diagnostic, maintenance or repair manuals, diagrams, or similar information to either an independent repair provider and/or the owner of the ag equipment that would allow them to do the repairs.

Right to repair on ag equipment has been looked at in Congress but has not won Congressional approval. President Joe Biden has reportedly said he would back such legislation.

The concept is also backed by the National Grange, National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation, which recently signed an agreement in Illinois with John Deere. However, Titone noted that while John Deere acknowledged that farmers should be able to repair their own equipment, they’re not the only manufacturer and the agreement could be rescinded at any time.

Titone, who carried right to repair legislation in 2022 for wheelchairs, said the biggest companies are the hardest ones to compete with. “We need to give our farmers the right to repair their own equipment,” she said. 

Most of the equipment involved is the more modern equipment with electronic components, she said. Every device that drops in a seed or spins the combine talks to a computer, and the computer records data from those parts. When you replace a part and hook it back up, the computer doesn’t want to restart the tractor, for example, until the repair is authorized by the manufacturer’s technician.

The other issue is lack of technicians; like many industries, there’s a worker shortage, which aggravates the problem, she indicated.

Finally, the first gun rights bill of the 2023 session states that federal laws and regulations on guns are an infringement on the Second Amendment, and prohibits anyone, particularly law enforcement, from enforcing those laws.

It includes laws or regulations on taxes, registration on firearms or ownership or firearms, any prohibition on ownership of firearms and any order to confiscate firearms. 

Rep. Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, is the sponsor of House Bill 1044. It has been assigned to the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, aka the “kill” committee where Democratic leaders send bills to be defeated.