From the co-sponsor of this session bag tax for affordable housing comes another fascinating piece of legislation. Rep. Paul Rosenthal wants to chomp down on homeowners associations that ban certain dogs.

House Bill 1126 has been assigned to the House Local Government Committee but hasn’t yet been scheduled for its first hearing. Rosenthal does not yet have a Senate sponsor for the bill, but it’s co-sponsored in the House by Republican Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs.

Rosenthal said the bill is aimed allowing “Coloradans with large dogs to keep their families together.”

The bill states:

In the law governing common interest communities, the billinvalidates any covenant that prohibits the keeping of certain types ofdogs based solely on a breed, weight, or size classification. Otherregulations, such as the prevention of nuisance barking and requirementsconcerning the number of dogs per household and the disposal of waste,remain valid.

A state law would not override municipal bans on certain breeds, such as Denver’s ban on pit bulls. And HOAs that ban dogs all together could continue to do so. he said.

He tied the legislation to rising housing prices, which limits the number of places many people can live, putting some pet owners in a difficult situation.

“The state has an interest in this issue because HOAs are discriminating against people for insufficient reason,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “HOAs should focus on bad and aggressive behavior, not size or breed of dog.”

Rosenthal said one of his constituents, Christy Wooten of Englewood, brought it to his attention after she was turned away by nearly 15 HOAs because of her two German Shepherds. She gave the dogs to a friend in Utah.

In 2015, the All Property Management website laid out a number of reasons why the bans on certain breeds makes sense, noting that about 985,000 Americans were bitten by dogs the year before.

“A homeowner association may be liable for permitting dangerous dogs to remain on the common areas and private streets owned and controlled by the association,” Kenneth Phillips, a Los Angeles area attorney who specializes in dog bite injury cases, said in the article. “The Board of Directors of these associations have a fiduciary duty to manage and operate the common areas, including making them safe and warning of any known dangerous conditions.”