{"id":22472,"date":"2025-04-29T18:39:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T18:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-legislature-declines-to-override-jared-polis-veto-of-social-media-bill-after-house-caves\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:14:10","slug":"colorado-legislature-declines-to-override-jared-polis-veto-of-social-media-bill-after-house-caves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-legislature-declines-to-override-jared-polis-veto-of-social-media-bill-after-house-caves\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado legislature declines to override Jared Polis\u2019 veto of social media bill after House caves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks to reporters at the governor's office in the Colorado Capitol in Denver on Thursday, March 13, 2025. He is flanked by Canadian Consul General Sylvain Fabi. (Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Colorado legislature Monday declined to override Jared Polis\u2019 veto of a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting children from the harms of social media, sparing the governor the embarrassment of the state\u2019s first veto override in 14 years.<\/p>\n

The override effort failed when the state House caved by laying over the vote to override the veto until May 9, which is after the legislative session ends. That prevented representatives from having to vote against the override after backing the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe votes are not here,\u201d said Rep. Andy Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat and one of the lead sponsors of the bill. \u201cThat\u2019s a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate voted 29-6 on Friday to override the veto. Backers of the Senate Bill 86 needed the support of two-thirds of each the House and Senate to overcome Polis\u2019 rejection of the legislation.<\/p>\n

The bill originally passed the Senate by a 29-6 vote and the House by a 46-18 margin.<\/p>\n

The vote to lay over the veto override in the House passed 51-13.<\/p>\n

All 13 representatives who voted against laying the override motion over were Democrats who voted \u201cyes\u201d on the original bill. That means about 30 representatives who voted for the original bill supported laying the override motion over, including Boesenecker.<\/p>\n

The failure of the override, which threatened to emphasize the broader policy differences between the Democratic majority in the General Assembly and the governor, allowed Polis to save face. The two sides frequently clash on legislation, including measures on labor matters and climate change, but rarely so publicly.<\/p>\n

But the close call serves as a warning sign for Polis in his last year and a half as governor that the legislature, particularly its Democratic majority, is increasingly unwilling to yield to the heavy hand he wields in policy discussions.<\/p>\n

The legislature is also considering whether to override the governor\u2019s veto of a second bill, this one dealing with public records, before it closes shop for the year May 7.<\/p>\n

The last veto overrides in Colorado were in 2011 and 2007 under former Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, and both dealt with budget spending requests. It has been decades since the Colorado legislature overrode a gubernatorial veto of a nonbudget measure.<\/p>\n

\"State
State representatives debate legislation in the Colorado House on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, in Denver, Colorado. (Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

One of the reasons veto overrides are so unusual in Colorado is that the legislature can time when it sends bills to the governor. If the General Assembly isn\u2019t in session when a veto happens, then it can\u2019t override a veto.<\/p>\n

Legislative leadership is responsible for deciding when to send a bill to the governor. Polis generally has 10 days from receiving a bill, when the legislature is in session, to sign it, veto it or let it become law without his signature.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Lindsey Daugherty, an Arvada Democrat, blamed House Democratic leadership for the override failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the votes to pass Senate Bill 86 on Friday, but leadership in the House wouldn\u2019t put it on the calendar,\u201d she told The Colorado Sun.<\/p>\n

Interest groups lobbied state representatives over the weekend to side with the governor.<\/p>\n

But House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat, said she doubts the veto override would have passed even on Friday. \u201cIt didn\u2019t have the votes,\u201d she said, adding that House support for the override was soft at best last week.<\/p>\n

Duran said she stands by the decision to take the vote Monday.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 86 would have required that social media sites operating in Colorado, like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, investigate, suspend users if there is evidence and then take down accounts that are determined to be selling guns or drugs, or if the accounts were engaged in the sex trafficking or sexual exploitation of minors. Sites would also have been required to set up hotlines for communicating with law enforcement and respond to police requests for assistance within 72 hours.<\/p>\n

The 23-page measure would have also forced social media companies to provide Colorado with reports on how many kids use their platforms, including how often and for how long, and how much children interact with user content that violates the companies\u2019 policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake, I share the concerns of parents and law enforcement across our state about minors and adults exposed to illegal activity on social media platforms as well as in neighborhoods,\u201d Polis wrote in a letter explaining his decision to veto the bill. \u201cThis is why my office offered suggestions focused on strengthening tools to help law enforcement successfully apprehend criminals. Sadly, the bill sponsors rejected these ideas and passed legislation that, to my mind, unduly infringes on the speech, privacy, and liberty rights of all users.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor said the legislation \u201cerodes privacy, freedom and innovation; hurts vulnerable people; and potentially subjects all Coloradans to stifling and unwarranted scrutiny of our constitutionally protected speech.\u201d He cited examples of people suffering mental health crises being removed from sites.<\/p>\n

Polis also said he dislikes how the measure mandates that private companies investigate and impose the government\u2019s chosen penalty of permanently removing a user \u2013 known as deplatforming \u2013 \u201ceven if the underlying complaint is malicious and unwarranted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Meta logo is seen at the Vivatech show in Paris, France, on June 14, 2023. A group of 33 states including California and New York are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people\u2019s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. (AP Photo\/Thibault Camus, File)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIn our judicial proceedings, people receive due process when they are suspected of breaking the law,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis bill, however, conscripts social media platforms to be judge and jury when users may have broken the law or even a company\u2019s own content rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, Polis\u2019 office said the governor remains open to conversations about the policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate the House\u2019s efforts,\u201d a spokesperson said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

Groups that asked Polis to veto Senate Bill 86 included Working Families Power, a sister organization of the Working Family Party; ProgressNow Colorado; TikTok; and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.<\/p>\n

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and the Colorado District Attorneys\u2019 Council supported the override.<\/p>\n

Boesenecker vowed to bring the policy back in the future.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

override effort failed when the House of Representatives laid over the motion to override the veto until May 9, which is after the legislative session ends<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[896,818],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-government","tag-jared-polis"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77727,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22472\/revisions\/77727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22472"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}