Legislative Council staff and proponents held a review and comment hearing on four proposed constitutional amendments — Initiatives 318, 319, 320, and 321 — each designed to prohibit the General Assembly from interfering with initiated statutory measures for four years after their effective date. No votes were taken; the hearing consisted solely of staff questions and proponent responses, with proponents indicating intent to clarify ambiguous language in the measures.
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Jacob Bennington noted that the four-year limitation on the prohibition from interfering with an initiated statutory measure is not included in the first prohibition sentence of Initiatives 320 and 321, and asked what effect this omission has. Proponents responded that because the final provision of the measure does not include the four-year limitation, the proponents do not intend that there is any effect to this omission. Staff further asked whether this omission meant proponents intended an initiated statutory measure to always prevail over any bill passed by the General Assembly before the initiative's effective date; proponents responded that this is spelled out in the measure, which requires that the bill conflicts with or frustrates the measure's purpose or implementation, but did not directly address the 'always prevail' characterization.
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“The purpose of this statutory requirement of the directors of the Legislative Council and the Office of Legislative Legal Services is to provide comments intended to aid proponents in determining the language of their proposal and to avail the public of knowledge of the contents of the proposal.”
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Sign in to subscribeOkay, so we're going to call this review and comment hearing to order. This is the hearing for proposed initiative measures 2025-2026, numbers 318, 319, 320 and 321 concerning a four year protection for statutory initiatives. We will now go around and introduce ourselves. For the purposes of the record, my name is Nina Forbes and I'm with Legislative Council staff. I'm Jacob Bennington. I'm with Legislative Legal Services. I'm Riley Meyer with Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber Shrek. On behalf of proponents, I am Dr. Amy Spicer, proponent. I am Kyle Bollier, proponent. Section 140105 subsection 1 of Colorado Revised Statutes requires the directors of the Colorado Legislative Council and the Office of Legislative Legal Services to review and comment on initiative petitions for proposed laws and amendments to the Colorado Constitution. The purpose of this statutory requirement of the directors of the Legislative Council and the Office of Legislative Legal Services is to provide comments intended to aid proponents in determining the language of their proposal and to avail the public of knowledge of the contents of the proposal. While this is a public meeting and members of the public are free to be here and listen in, the purpose…
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