Of interest today as the state Senate heats up with floor debate over two GOP gun bills: Complete Colorado reports that billionaire investor and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control advocacy organization has hired Colorado lobbyists to oppose one of the pending proposals. Here’s Complete’s Sherrie Peif:

From August through December, the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund – former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s organization – has paid the Denver-based lobbying firm of Headwaters Strategies $37,500 to oppose at least one bill that has already cleared the State Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.

That bill is Senate Bill 5, scheduled for discussion – probably lengthy and heated – and a vote this morning in the Senate. SB 5, sponsored in the upper chamber by Republican Senate Majority Leader Chris Holbert, R-Parker, would let school employees carry a concealed handgun on school premises if, among other conditions, they have a valid concealed-carry permit and have completed a school-employee handgun-safety course that is provided by their county sheriff and approved by the school board.

While the bill is likely to pass the Republican-run Senate, it is just as likely to be shot down in the Democratic-controlled House.

The other gun bill up for debate this morning is Senate Bill 7, which would repeal a 2013 ban on ammunition magazines carrying more than 15 rounds.

Bloomberg, the world’s eighth-richest person, with an estimated net worth of over $40 billion, has bellied up to the bar in Colorado politics before. As the Complete report reminds us, “in 2013, his organizations donated $350,000 to two southern Colorado senators who were eventually recalled.” Then-Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo, both Democrats, were recalled after they voted to pass several gun control bills.