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Senate Minority Caucus

Wednesday, February 18, 2026·1h 20m·▶ Watch / Listen

Senate Republicans spent their caucus walking the full supplemental budget package with JBC member Barbara Kirkmeyer, pulling a string of items off the consent calendar as the fight crystallized around the Governor's mid-year Medicaid provider-rate cut and a $9 million higher-education reduction. Kirkmeyer previewed a floor amendment to redirect 'covering all Coloradans' money into restoring the 1.6% provider rate, and flagged a forthcoming bill to drop the statutory reserve from 15% to 13%.

Key Actions

·Department of Agriculture SupplementalNo vote

+ 13 more actions

Notable Quotes

Two days after that When I think, I guess the governor didn't think anybody was watching, came in from the Joint Budget Committee to let us know that he cut Medicaid, not the federal government. He cut it and he reduced the 1.6% increase that I fought for last year in provider rates, which provides reimbursements to hospitals, doctors, clinics, et cetera.

Barbara KirkmeyerKirkmeyer's framing of the caucus's central grievance: that the provider-rate cut was a state executive decision, not a federal mandate.

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TranscriptPreview
AM and we'll go ahead and call the roll. Senator R. Pelton. Here. Senator Liston. Here. Senator Catlin? Here. Senator Frazelle? Here. I'm sorry. Assistant Minority Leader Frazelle. Minority Whip Rich. Here. Senator B. Pelton is here. Minority Leader Simpson. Thank you. JVC member Kirkmeyer and Senator Bright? Here. And Zamora Wilson is excused. Mark Baisley is excused, and John Carson is excused. All right, Senator Kirkmeyer, let's get started. We wanted to do all the ones that were on Consent Agenda first, correct? Okay. Do you want to turn on your mic? Thank you. I guess. So you want to stop bossing me around, Senator Kirkmeyer, because I'm not sitting close enough to you, though. All right. So thank you, Mr. Chair. We had appropriations this morning, went through the supplementals. There were several that were put on consent. I thought I would just go through those quickly because I don't really feel like there's issues in those. And I don't think Senator Pelton and Senator Liston did either. Some of them are just, you know, and I'll go through them really pretty fast, but I'll just go through the. They're pretty quick. They're either decreases, they're not general
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