We have one month left of the 2024 Colorado legislative session! It commenced on January 10th and plans to adjourn on May 8th. Over the next month, state lawmakers under the golden dome will continue to debate legislation that will impact the lives of Coloradans across the state.
The Colorado Catholic Conference (CCC), as the united voice of the bishops of Colorado in public policy, is an active presence at the State Capitol, bringing the Church’s voice into the public dialogue on issues that are informed by Catholic Social Teaching. The legislative process is a foundational aspect of our democratic system, and it is the moral obligation of every Catholic to help shape the moral foundation of our society through the political process.
At this point in the session, the Colorado Catholic Conference has taken a stance on 36 bills, with more likely to be introduced as “late bills.” Below is a list of the conference’s top 10 priority bills (in order by number). You can read the entire list of CCC priority legislation at www.cocatholic.org/legislative-work including bill status and CCC analysis.
Exercise your faithful citizenship by signing up for our Action Alerts and engaging your elected officials here: https://cocatholic.org/take-action/colorado-catholic-advocacy-network/
SUPPORT POSITIONS:
HB 1027 provides some tax relief from January 1-14, 2025, and July 24-August 6, 2025, for babies and toddlers (this could include baby crib/play pen, stroller, safety gate, breast pump or other feeding materials, and diapering supplies and back-to-school purchases for toddlers). The Catholic Church supports policy that encourages familial growth and provides for the most disadvantaged in society.
HB 1046 requires reporting of any evidence of known or suspected domestic violence in a child’s home for a case of child abuse and/or neglect, including any evidence of previous cases of known or suspected domestic violence in the child’s home. The Catholic Church supports laws that promote safety of children.
HB 1055 creates a new grant funding stream for families to acquire car seats who may not be able to afford otherwise. This also provides ministries, such as Catholic Charities, the ability to provide more resources and child passenger safety devices for families in need.
HB 1280 creates a grant program ($ 2.5 million) for organizations that serve migrants within one year of their arrival in the United States. Many of the organizations that serve migrants in Colorado, including Catholic Charities and other ministries in all three dioceses, are overwhelmed and are operating with limited resources. This bill would aim to address this issue and fill a real need to provide recent arrivals with basic necessities and integration tools that promote human dignity.
SB 035 adds human trafficking to the list of crimes of violence that are subject to enhanced sentencing. The Catholic Church supports policy that promotes the sanctity of human life and protects children.
OPPOSE POSITIONS:
HB 1028 would create “overdose prevention centers,” aka “safe injection sites,” of controlled substances in Colorado law. In Canada, where safe injection sites have been tested and are now facing public backlash, public health authorities released a report that showed the so-called safe injection sites did not reduce overall overdose deaths or emergency calls, but instead led to an increase in crime, discarded needles and social disorder in surrounding neighborhoods. Overdose prevention centers compound the drug problem, violate human dignity and externalize the social costs onto neighbors and small businesses nearby.
HB 1039 would permit public K-12 students to change their name to conform to their perceived “gender identity” as a form of “gender expression.” HB 1039 claims to ban discrimination; however, it codifies discrimination against students and school employees with a different belief about human sexuality and forces them to conform to a minor’s perceived gender identity under threat of school discipline. The bill also erodes parental rights by permitting students to change their names without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
HB 1124 Discrimination in Places of Accommodation makes all 501(c) non-profit organizations and individual persons subject to a $3,500 fine every violation of the new law discrimination based on Colorado’s civil rights law, which would also carry criminal liability. The Colorado Civil Rights statute was amended in 2021 (HB21-1108) to include “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” as part of the protected classes against discrimination. Adding “nonprofits” to this list of organizations now explicitly puts Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals, Catholic ministries and other faith denominations’ ministries in violation of this new public accommodation law, which is a violation of the First Amendment freedom of conscience and expression outside the four walls of a church building.
HB 1363 imposes burdensome regulations on Colorado charter schools, including financial constraints, public transparency that goes beyond traditional public-school requirements and mandates regarding the governing board and student population. This legislation undermines local control and autonomy, which are hallmark components of charter schools. Parents, as the primary educators of the children, deserve to have choices for their child’s education including charter schools, which are an important part of educational freedom and offer parents an option that differs from the traditional public school.
SB 068 makes expansions to the unjust physician assisted suicide Proposition 106 (2016) law, including decreasing the waiting period and allowing nurse practitioners to deliver life-ending medication. While valuable amendments were made in committee, the Catholic Church continues to oppose Colorado SB 068 for its promotion of a culture of death and making bad law (physician assisted suicide) even worse. Physician assisted suicide targets the most vulnerable in our society, corrupts medical practice and distorts the patient-doctor relationship by violating a doctor’s commitment to the health of his patients. Furthermore, physician assisted suicide distorts obligations to our elderly, disabled or ill members of our community by viewing them as a burden.
AMEND POSITIONS:
The Catholic Conference is in an amend position on this bill because an amendment protecting the conscience rights of foster care providers and families would ensure a diverse supply of homes for the thousands of children in Colorado foster care. HB 1017 imposes barriers on providers and loving homes and violates the First Amendment rights of current and prospective foster care families in Colorado by forcing faith-based foster care agencies and families with sincerely held and religiously informed beliefs on human sexuality to violate their consciences or cease participating in foster care. This means that at least eight faith-based foster care agencies will consider closing their doors and hundreds of loving homes will be inaccessible to the thousands of Colorado children in foster care – statistically a quarter of whom are also seeking adoption. If this bill is enacted, families who continue to foster children may be compelled by the state to send their child to hormone therapy or so-called “gender affirming care,” if the foster care child desires such medical intervention.
The Catholic Conference is in an amend position because this bill could be improved by including a strengthened religious exemption for faith-based employers and insurance providers from being forced to provide in vitro fertilization (IVF) to employees against their conscience.
OTHER SUPPORT POSITIONS:
OTHER OPPOSE POSITIONS:
MONITOR POSITIONS:
Bills the CCC supported that were defeated: