With 48 fewer bills introduced in the 2025 session than last year and a $44 billion budget that closed a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, the 120-day session of the Colorado General Assembly officially wrapped up just before 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Among the last actions in the Senate was a final vote on a proposal to establish more stringent regulations for transportation network companies, such as Uber and Lyft.

Lawmakers significantly amended House Bill 1291 on Tuesday with changes sought mostly by the rideshare companies — notably, making audio-visual recordings optional rather than mandatory.

HB 1291 won a 22-13 vote, with Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, D-Denver, voting “no,” along with Senate Republicans.

The Senate also tackled gubernatorial nominations to the state’s judicial discipline commission: Mary Mindy Sooter’s nomination failed on a 16-19 vote, with eight Democrats voting “no,” while Jim Carpenter, a longtime Democratic political operative, was approved.

Senate rejects Colorado judicial discipline appointee while approving another

The governor, by law, cannot reappoint a nominee once rejected by the Senate.

The chamber also killed Senate Bill 124, one of the two bills tied to the federal 340B prescription drug program.  

As introduced, SB 124 would have required nonprofit hospitals to use their 340B profits to decrease direct out-of-pocket costs for low-income patients. It also would have required covered hospitals to report information related to their 340B participation, such as how profits are being used, payments to third parties and any use of contract pharmacies, to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

As amended, the bill listed the ways that a nonprofit hospital in the 340B program cannot use those funds, such as for compensation, tax penalties or fines, expenses for advertising or public relations, lobbying costs, travel expenses for the hospital’s board and gifts or entertainment expenses.

On Saturday, the House Health & Human Services Committee added a requirement to SB 124 that 80% of 340B net revenue be spent on patients or capital improvements. But it stripped out all the enforcement and “teeth” from the bill, according to Rep. Eliza Hamrick, D-Centennial, who tried but failed to add that language back in when the bill came up for second reading on Monday in the House.

Those changes didn’t sit well with the bill’s Senate sponsors, who rejected the House amendments and asked the Senate to stick to its version. The chamber did, dooming the legislation.

Two 'complementary' bills to reform Colorado's 340B program win preliminary House votes

Over in the House, Senate Bill 72, the legislation dealing with the drug kratom, won a 48-17 approval and returned to the Senate, which approved the amendments.

The bill will be known as the Daniel Bregger Act, named for the Coloradan who died in 2021 after consuming a combination of kratom, a legal substance with opioid-type effects, and the active ingredient in Benadryl. Bregger had taken the substance, which came in a 5-ounce bottle, for anxiety.

Watered down kratom regulation bill wins approval from Colorado state House

The final bill debated in the House dealt with Senate amendments to House Bill 1309, which codifies gender transition treatments in the statutes and prohibits health plans from denying or limiting “medically necessary” services. 

Republicans mounted an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to persuade lawmakers to kill the bill.

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