Read it at length.

It’s the four words that more than a few people at the state Capitol are probably a little tired of hearing. It’s been invoked countless times in the past, but no more than in the 2023 legislation session, and most often, in the House.

It’s also the last of the tools House Republicans have to slow down the agenda of majority Democrats.

An agreement forged in mid-April between the two caucuses put that tool on ice, in part to allow members to attend Good Friday and Easter services, and with a further agreement that Republicans would not invoke that law in exchange for having Sundays off throughout most of the rest of the session. 

On Saturday, the GOP caucus invoked the potential of having every bill left in the 2023 session – likely more than 200 – read at length, as a way to force Democrats to bring back the 2023-24 state budget measure, Senate Bill 214, because of an error. 

SB 214 was sent to the governor on April 21, and under state law he had 10 days to sign it. That 10 days expires Monday.

In a statement Saturday, the governor’s office said, “Governor Polis is confident that the JBC and the non-partisan staff will resolve this issue, and appreciates the work of the committee and staff. He looks forward to signing the Long Bill next week.”

The error, first reported by Colorado Politics Saturday morning, has to do with the conference committee report tied to the Long Appropriations Bill. The report had a $10,000 error, described as a “typo,” in the budget for the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which means HCPF would get $10,000 more than was initially approved for its children’s basic health plan (CHiP+) program.

Initially, JBC members raised concerns that typo would mean bringing Senate Bill 214 back to the General Assembly with an elaborate unwinding of several actions in order fix the error, including reversing the final votes. That also initially raised concerns that House Republicans might seek to have the bill – about 350 pages in its final version – read at length. 

State law allows for a bill to be read at length twice; traditionally, that’s at second reading and before the final vote, although were the bill to come back to the General Assembly, it could not be read at length for purposes of correcting the typo.

In an April 19 meeting, Carolyn Kampman, the JBC director, told the JBC they had two options to fix it. The option they chose, called a correction schedule and related to clear typographical errors, would allow the Reviser of Statutes, a representative from legal services and the Secretary of the Senate to verify a clerical error had taken place, although without actually changing the typo, and send the bill on to the governor.

The error will have to be addressed, but that doesn’t have to take place now and can be done through a budget supplemental in 2024, Kampman said during the April 19 meeting.

The error was also discussed with the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, the six leaders of the General Assembly, on April 18.

On April 24, the House GOP caucus learned about the error from JBC member Rep. Rod Bockenfeld, R-Watkins, and discussions began about strategies to force the majority to correct it.

It all came to a head on Saturday, when the 19 members of the GOP caucus submitted a formal letter to the majority, “reserving the right” to have every bill read at length until the budget bill came back to the General Assembly, although they also pledged not to have the budget bill read at length.

The letter invoked House Rule 24, an official protest “regarding a matter of urgency,” along with a request that the letter be printed in the House journal, which required approval from the body. House Speaker Julie McCluskie asked members to vote in favor of the motion “as a demonstration of good faith” and to recognize “that all voices in this chamber matter and are valued.”

The motion was approved on a 61-1 vote, with Rep. Elisabeth Epps, D-Denver, the lone “no” vote. 

The GOP letter stated the state budget is now “knowingly unbalanced.” The state constitution requires the General Assembly to pass a balanced budget, the letter continued.

“Failure to do so would be a breach of our duties and oath of office. Yet we have an additional concern; namely, that by failing to pass a budget that is balanced and therefore constitutional, we will set the precedent of an unbalanced budget that might be exploited in the future by other leaders, standing then upon what we are doing here. We refuse to be complicit in establishing such an unconstitutional precedent,” the letter said. 

The letter also stated the minority reserved the right to have “any and all other bills read at length in protest of this issue until such as it is rightly resolved.”

In response, the JBC’s two Democratic members, Reps. Shannon Bird of Westminster and Emily Sirota of Denver, explained that they believed the problem was resolved. 

Bird told the House the JBC found a typographical error in what’s known as “a letter note,” one line contained in the conference committee report, and not in a budget appropriation. After learning of the error, the JBC was presented with the two options listed above, including a rule that is routinely used to correct “obvious typographical non-substantive errors” in bills and reports, Bird said.

“We all had an open and robust discussion” about the problem, and after an initial committee member, all six “informed Eubanks they agreed to use the correction schedule” to address the problem, Bird said. But the committee did not vote on the matter; none was required, Bird said. 

Fellow JBC member Rep. Rod Bockenfeld, R-Watkins, told Colorado Politics there was no consensus among the committee on a solution. 

The Democrats’ reaction to the letter was to call for Rule 14, which has been invoked numerous times in the past month to limit debate, on several pending bills. The motion requires only a simple majority vote, and it passed on a 36 to 26 vote, with seven Democrats siding with the Republicans. 

The Republicans called for the first bill that followed the motion, a 39-page measure on pollution control, to be read at length. 

At this hour, several other measures, including the School Finance Act, have moved through debate in the House without Republicans calling for those measures to be read at length. McCluskie has been unavailable for comment.

House GOP letter to Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie on SB 23-214MarianneGoodland, Colorado Politics
marianne.goodland@coloradopolitics.com
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JBC memo on error in SB 214MarianneGoodland, Colorado Politics
marianne.goodland@coloradopolitics.com
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