The Colorado General Assembly has a do-over rules. And one was used in the House Friday morning.

House Democrats on Friday voted just before what should have been a final vote to send House Bill 1164, sponsored by Speaker Pro Tempore Dan Pabon, D-Denver, back for more debate Monday and to make “substantial amendments” to the bill. Those substantive amendments will aim to address a Democratic caucus flub during second reading of the bill, in which Republicans added an amendment that effectively turned the bill on its head.

It happened Thursday during a lengthy floor debate on the hot-button topic of immunization in Colorado. The bill got House lawmakers out of their seats. Literally. Again and again.

Pabon’s bill would require parents or students to submit immunization documentation to the state Department of Public Health and Environment instead of to the schools students attend. By the time the debate over the second reading wrapped, lawmakers called four times for standing floor votes.

So much for the Legislature being a desk job.

Arguments offered by Republicans opposed to the bill included everything from the risk of putting student information into electronic files stored at one centralized site to the ability of parents to use the aggregate data about the number of students immunized in a school to launch a door-to-door campaign, finding out who isn’t immunized and shaming them publicly.

They offered a handful of amendments, including one by Rep. Lois Landgraf, R-Fountain, which would have required the state to purchase a LifeLock subscription, which is a company that protects personal information online. Pabon countered that much of the information being taken now from students and parents sits in a file cabinet where it can easily be stolen.

When the final vote was taken, again by a standing floor vote, the bill passed on party lines — except for Rep. Steve Lebsock, D-Thornton, who sided with Republicans. When asked by an Associated Press reporter about his switch, Lebsock compared the right of parents to make health decisions to that of a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

But Republicans weren’t done with the bill, and a late amendment presented by Rep. Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock, changed the collection of data for vaccinations to an opt-in system instead of the current opt-out one. Under the amendment, only parents who specifically ask will have their student’s information sent to the department of health.

Neville’s amendment had already been voted down during the amendment phase but, in a procedural move, he brought it back again after the vote on the bill was taken Thursday.

That late amendment snuck its way on when Lebsock was joined by Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver, who voted in favor of the bill accidentally.

“It was a mistake. The buttons are close together,” she told The Statesman with an apologetic shrug. She said none of her colleagues gave her grief about the bumbled vote but that she did apologize to the sponsor. “I owed him that out of respect.”

When Pabon asked on Friday for his bill to be pushed back to second reading, Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, ribbed Pabon from the dais. What specific section of the bill would the sponsor like to be discussed, he asked.

“Good debate on these bills can only make the process better, and an amendment may come out of that conversation and debate,” Pabon said, notably uttering no mention of the Neville amendment. “It’s a worthwhile cause to continue this conversation.”

The vote to move the bill back to second reading passed on a party-line vote 33 to 30.

After the vote, DelGrosso passed on the chance to gloat: “The bill passed with the amendment,” he deadpanned, the faintest grin on his lips. “Now they want to go back and reconsider that vote.”

— ramsey@coloradostatesman.com