{"id":48633,"date":"2021-02-13T00:19:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T07:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/republicans-time-to-trim-governors-emergency-powers\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:44:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:44:03","slug":"republicans-time-to-trim-governors-emergency-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/republicans-time-to-trim-governors-emergency-powers\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans: Time to trim governor\u2019s emergency powers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Colorado Sun<br><br>Republicans in the Colorado General Assembly are looking at ways to trim the emergency powers granted the governor\u2019s office.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In theory, Gov. Jared Polis could keep Colorado under emergency-declaration status for as long as he\u2019s leading the state, giving himself broad powers that he wouldn\u2019t otherwise be able to wield during calmer times.<\/p>\n

Big spending? Yes. Suspending regulations? That\u2019s OK. Creating temporary laws? The governor has that power.<\/p>\n

Republicans in the Colorado Legislature want to take that blank check away in the future and give lawmakers more oversight over emergency declarations and the sweeping authority they grant the state\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not looking to interfere with the decision making power of one person in an emergency,\u201d said Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert, R-Douglas County. \u201cThat would seem precarious. But at some point should the lawmakers, should the legislative branch have an opportunity to review the decisions, to modify some of the decisions?\u201d<\/p>\n

Holbert\u2019s idea was presented Thursday night during a Colorado Sun event featuring Polis and four state lawmakers ahead of the 2021 legislative session, which resumes on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Right now, the Legislature \u2013 which is only in session for 120 days a year \u2013 can call itself into a special session and vote to terminate the governor\u2019s emergency declaration. But that\u2019s not likely to happen with a Democratic-controlled Legislature and a Democratic governor.<\/p>\n

Republicans have been pushing a number of measures to give the Legislature more power to operate as a check on the governor\u2019s emergency powers.<\/p>\n

One proposal offered by Republican Reps. Tim Geitner and Rod Bockenfeld last year would have required the governor to get the Legislature\u2019s permission every 30 days in order to extend an emergency declaration. It was swiftly rejected by Democrats.<\/p>\n

A similar proposal from the GOP that would have asked voters to make the change in the Colorado Constitution met a similar fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s consider how we can possibly improve the balance of power and serve the people of Colorado a little bit better,\u201d Sen. Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, testified in favor of the latter legislation, which he championed.<\/p>\n

But Democrats want things left as is and argue the governor has broad emergency powers for a reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have separate branches of government for a reason,\u201d said state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat. \u201cThe executive branch has a nimbleness that we in the legislative branch just don\u2019t have. It\u2019s important for the health and safety of Coloradans that during emergencies the governor has an ability to act quickly to save lives, whatever the governor\u2019s political affiliation. And now that we\u2019re back in session, we can address whatever decisions he\u2019s made that we in the legislative branch don\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis also takes issue with the idea of changing how the power structure works.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you had a full-time, around-the-year Legislature you could have more of a real-time process around emergency response,\u201d he said. \u201cUnless you plan to switch to that, you really have to have an executive who has that ability. There simply isn\u2019t time to call on others and go through a process around an urgent response.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor, also speaking at the Sun\u2019s event, said he doesn\u2019t take the Republican proposals personally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important that people realize this will affect future governors more than it will affect Jared Polis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And Holbert said he doesn\u2019t mean for the idea to be an attack on Polis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis idea isn\u2019t about the current pandemic, the current emergency disaster that we\u2019re confronted with,\u201d Holbert said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about criticizing Gov. Jared Polis. But it is about using the lessons of the last 11 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

pushing measures to give the Legislature more checks on the governor\u2019s emergency powers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,94,13,819,28,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48633","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=48633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87426,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48633\/revisions\/87426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48633"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}