First-introduced bills by tradition represent the most important priorities of legislators. This year’s initial batch fit into categories identified below.

“Ever-hopeful” bills relate to money. HB24-1065 will reduce the state income tax rate from 4.4% to 4%. Not surprisingly, it has three GOP sponsors and no Dems. If the legislature changed its rules, however, perhaps Gov. Jared Polis could be a co-sponsor.

HB24-1059 creates a commission to review and set pay for state elected officers, including legislators. Some legislators say it’s too tough to represent their districts and carry on with another job as their salary at the Capitol is $42,000 per year. This pay structure hurts younger legislators. In the past, many legislators were retired individuals. That’s changed during the last few general assemblies.

SB24-013 will raise district attorney minimum salaries to the compensation for a district court judge.

“Hail Marys” cover a variety of concerns. Denver General needs a Hail Mary to cover its uncovered expenses providing medical care for individuals without health insurance. DGH gets patients from across the state, and so far counties outside of Denver have said “too bad” to requests for reimbursement. The state has shortages of social workers, physician assistants and special education teachers.

HB24-1002 and SB24-018 will accelerate and promote licensure of social workers and physician assistants who have out-of-state licenses. HB24-1087 will allow a non-traditional pathway for teachers to receive certifications for special education.

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A General Assembly wouldn’t be a General Assembly without some crackdowns. Towing carriers and property owners get a smack with HB24-1051. Towers can’t patrol parking lots to remove cars and certain property owners cannot non-consensually have a vehicle towed and expect the vehicle owner to pay if the vehicle owner hasn’t been properly notified of parking regulations. HB24-1078 gets after community association managers by requiring licensing.

HB24-1008 nails construction employers for wage theft. HB24-1072 prevents attorneys from using a sexual crime victim’s appearance such as hair or dress as a mitigating factor in such crimes. SB24-003 takes on illegal firearms sales and distribution with more than $1 million to the Colorado Bureau of Investigations to identify and stop these activities.

SB24-049 is a reverse crackdown. It puts up rules around when items can be removed from libraries as a counter to the numerous recent attempts by individuals and some elected officials to strip various books from library circulation.

Repeat bills show the persistence of some lawmakers. HB24-1028 will allow municipalities to set up overdose prevention centers. Last year, a similar bill went down when two Senate Democrats voted in opposition in Senate committee. HB24-1075 will provide funds to the Colorado School of Public Health to study whether a single-payer health care payment system with privately-delivered health care would save Coloradans money. The study will also investigate how to implement such a system. A similar bill almost made it to the finish line in 2023 but was not voted on by the Senate in the final day of the session.

Kids’ bills often fix breaks in child welfare. HB24-1076 will provide money for child welfare tools to improve screening of required calls by mandatory reporters to the state’s hotline. In particular, screening must include questions about domestic violence and will improve processes around collecting demographic information. SB24-041 takes on child data privacy issues to further protect children from the misuse of their online data. This is a long-term problem Senate sponsor and minority leader Paul Lundeen has worked on over the years.

“Who says?” bills are a response to lawmakers who claim some issue or another isn’t being properly addressed. GOP lawmakers complained Democrats don’t care about rural Colorado’s issues. But the very first bill in the House of Representatives, HB24-1001, supports rural employment by extending a grant program that jump starts employers in counties with fewer than 100,000 residents by taking their income tax bill down to zero. SB24-026 requires various commissioners for state parks and recreation and wildlife to hold at least two public engagement meetings in person in their districts.

Finally, in response to new grammar usage rules, bill writers and legislators are working to get their gender identifiers and pronouns straight. HB24-1079 changes “himself/herself” to the “person’s self.” Look to see this change added to E.B. White’s “The Elements of Style.”

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.