Democrats in the House of Representatives were quick to clarify the interruption of a committee hearing on Tuesday afternoon by Speaker of the House KC Becker, who summoned a lawmaker out of the room immediately after he finished proposing an amendment to a rental relief bill.

“The optics? If I were sitting on the other side of the aisle, I would have been like, ‘whoa, somebody was going to the principal’s office,'” said Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont.

Shortly after noon, the House Public Health Care and Human Services Committee was discussing Senate Bill 2, which would provide $60 million largely for emergency housing assistance, with some money also going to eviction legal aid and for supporting those who do not qualify for other forms of COVID-19 relief. Rep. Kyle Mullica, D-Northglenn, had introduced an amendment to set aside $500,000 to provide assistance payments for water and wastewater bills.

While Mullica explained his proposal, Becker, D-Boulder, entered the basement hearing room and stood momentarily until he finished. She then directed him into an adjacent conference room, prompting a halt to the proceedings.

Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City, who was presiding over the hearing at the time, said she was not expecting the interruption, but “there was concern [the amendment] would harm the amount of rental assistance.”

After approximately 20 minutes of speaking with Becker, Mullica returned and announced he was rescinding his amendment. That prompted words of encouragement from multiple legislators, in various forms.

“It is displeasing me to see this,” said Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron. He added leadership should “let up on the rein a little bit.” 

Rep. Colin Larson, R-Littleton, said later that “it appears Democratic leadership in the House is not tolerating any amendments to bills that weren’t pre-negotiated before session.”

On Tuesday night, Mullica told Colorado Politics repeatedly that he respects the speaker greatly and looks up to her. 

“I’ve gotten yelled at before. It wasn’t one of those meetings where I got yelled at,” he said. “There was some passionate discussion about both sides agreeing that it was an issue, but how do we get the best possible solution to that issue?”

A spokesperson for the Democratic caucus said that the conversation was only a “policy disagreement,” and the abrupt nature of the discussion was due to the timing of the three-day extraordinary session.

Singer agreed, saying he perceived there was a commitment between the parties to try to achieve Mullica’s objective at the right time. As the chair of the public health care committee, Singer was returning from the Senate when he saw Becker and Mullica leave the room. He sat in on the discussion and said there was no edict from the speaker.

“I thought she was going to read Kyle the riot act, but it was more like, ‘here’s the lay of the land. Learn from what I’ve learned about water law here in Colorado,'” Singer recalled. Becker was previously an environmental lawyer who worked at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Singer explained that water law was a specialty of Becker’s and the balkanization of water delivery in the state was more complicated than he had realized, given Mullica’s goal. He echoed his Republican colleagues’ dissatisfaction with some of the processes during the session, but argued it was a function of the compressed timetable.

“My bill that was introduced in the House and passed on a bipartisan vote was being killed in the Senate at almost the same time this conversation was happening with Rep. Mullica,” Singer said. “I think it’s fair to say ideas that weren’t fully cooked and fully vetted got short shrift.”

Mullica said that he got the idea from local officials in his district and after helping a constituent with a related issue.

Water bills are obligations “people are responsible for even if they don’t have a job. And unpaid bills do pile up and can be a significant burden for somebody who is already in difficult shape,” he explained.

In July, several water providers in Colorado wrote to the state’s congressional delegation asking for $4 billion in immediate water utility assistance for low-income households. Congress has yet to act on comprehensive measures since the last one passed in March.

Michaelson Jenet added that state lawmakers wanted to help with water utility payments, but the rental assistance bill was not the right occasion. Asked whether it required the speaker’s intervention to get that point across, Michaelson Jenet observed, “she definitely made her voice known.”