Behind the slew of legislation tackling some of the biggest challenges in Colorado were teams of bipartisan lawmakers who emerged to push the proposals across the finish line. 

Unsurprisingly, the lawmakers are veteran policymakers who have sharpened their skills at finding agreements over the years.  

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Weld County, and Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, D-Arvada

The partnership between these two local government veterans began in earnest in 2023, Zenzinger said, when Kirkmeyer joined the Joint Budget Committee. But their collaborations have also taken place outside of the JBC hearing rooms on issues such as last year’s signature housing bill, Senate Bill 213, which died on the last day. Both were major players in keeping the bill from the governor’s desk and in fighting against state preemption of local government control. 

That collaboration continued this year, most notably on paying off the “debt” to K-12, a major focus for both, as well as on the state budget, housing, higher education and child welfare issues.

It most prominently showed up in their joint passions around education. Both served on the interim school finance committee in its last two years of 2021 and 2022. 

Zenzinger said she was warned about Kirkmeyer before the former Weld County commissioner took her Senate seat in 2021 — that the Republican was sharp, as in “pointy,” and difficult.

But when the two got to know each other, everything jelled, Zenzinger said.

“She’s very smart and I can instantly talk about things with her without having to explain the backstory,” the Democrat said. 

In addition, Kirkmeyer “works really hard with just as much intensity as I do,” Zenzinger said.

Kirkmeyer pointed to when the duo first met in her first days as a state senator, when both escorted the governor to his 2021 State of the State address in the House. 

“We clicked right from pretty much my first day of being a state senator,” Kirkmeyer said. “We just started talking and we just kind of clicked and we realized then that we did have stuff in common,” particularly their local government backgrounds — Kirkmeyer as a Weld County commissioner and Zenzinger as a member on Arvada’s City Council.

The other area that drew them together was their interest in protecting and working for the betterment of children, especially those in vulnerable positions. The two carried major legislation dealing with special education and funding for special education. 

Zenzinger has a wealth of knowledge about education, Kirkmeyer said. During their days on the interim committee, someone brought up a promise on special education funding from 2006 that had never been fulfilled, and the two began talking about how to make that happen.

“Finally! Someone who wants to get involved in this!” the Republican said, adding that helped galvanize the relationship.

“Sometimes you just strike up a friendship with people over shared interests. It’s not that we have everything the same. Obviously, she’s Democrat. I’m Republican, so we don’t agree on everything,” Kirkmeyer said.

But when it comes to the things they agree on, they both feel strongly about them, she added.

The other thing about that relationship is that Kirkmeyer said most people don’t understand Zenzinger that well.

“She’s a very strong woman, but she’s also very sensitive and she cares very deeply and passionately about her bills and about what she’s doing. And she hasn’t lost track. And I actually admire that in her,” the Republican said. 

When Kirkmeyer was running for Congress in 2022, someone asked her who her favorite Democrat was. Kirkmeyer said she didn’t know any Democrats in Congress.

Her answer? Zenzinger.

The duo’s bills in 2024, not including JBC bills, include the following: 

• SB 174, which delves into housing grant assistance for local governments. Zenzinger said it is the only housing bill that does not include state preemption of local government authority. It is awaiting the governor’s signature.

• SB 170, which sets up the America 250-Colorado 150 celebration commission. It is also awaiting the governor’s signature.

• SB51, which deals with adult education. It has been signed into law.

• SB8, which focuses on kinship foster homes. It is awaiting the governor’s signature.

• HB 1160, which deals with the creation of an economic development organization action grant program. It died in committee.

Zenzinger joked that the two are sometimes referred to as “good cop, bad cop” at the state Capitol. That kind of depended on the bill and who they were talking to for them to determine who was playing which role, the Democrat said. 

Speaker Pro tem Chris deGruy Kennedy, D-Lakewood, and Rep. Lisa Frizell, R-Castle Rock

DeGruy Kennedy is in his final term and Frizell is at the end of her first, but the two have been running in the same circles for years. So, it came as no surprise when they teamed up on property tax issues, including the biggest property tax bill of this year, Senate Bill 233. The two both served on the property tax commission that came out of the 2023 special session.

Frizell spoke about that relationship with Colorado Politics in March, noting she’s known deGruy Kennedy for a dozen years from her days as a county assessor.

Back in those days, deGruy Kennedy wanted to run a bill to make the senior property tax exemption means-based.

“I showed up at every one of his stakeholder meetings,” she said. “I would get in his face a little bit — that the state legislature could presume who could best afford to miss out an exemption like that was unfair.” 

“Each one of us comes to this place with a different perspective and for different reasons, but I believe everyone comes here to do good. The intentions are good,” she said.

House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer

Some pairings are obvious. Others, maybe not so much, and until the last 10 days of the session, this one seemed elusive.

But given the speaker’s wish for bipartisanship in the 2024 session and both lawmakers’ desire to solve a very big problem, the collaboration wasn’t that much of a surprise.

The two had competing measures on “dredge and fill,” a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Sackett decision that threw out large parts of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Waters of the US” rule and left up to a million acres of Colorado wetlands without any protection.

Kirkmeyer’s bill, SB 127, survived a close vote in the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee when she backed off her bill’s provisions to put a permit program under the Department of Natural Resources and instead shift it to the Department of Public Health & Environment, which is where McCluskie wanted it. 

But it was the bill’s unanimous vote out of Senate Finance that brought everyone to the table, including McCluskie, who up to that point hadn’t been talking, according to Kirkmeyer.

The end result was a compromise on HB 1379, including more oversight by the Joint Budget Committee to ensure the permit program doesn’t suffer from the same kinds of backlogs that currently exist in the department’s water quality control division.

Kirkmeyer’s name is now on the bill, which is awaiting the governor’s signature.