{"id":49178,"date":"2021-01-20T22:43:11","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T05:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-democratic-control-in-washington-and-colorado-work-together\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:46:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:46:24","slug":"how-democratic-control-in-washington-and-colorado-work-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-democratic-control-in-washington-and-colorado-work-together\/","title":{"rendered":"How Democratic control in Washington and Colorado work together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Colorado House of Representatives is pictured from the gallery on the first day of Colorado\u2019s 73rd legislative session at the Colorado Capitol in Denver on Wednesday, Jan. 13.<\/span>Andy Colwell\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When Democrats regained control of the Colorado legislature in 2019, they started taking action in response to President Donald Trump and a deadlocked Congress.<\/p>\n

That included passing legislation around environmental, immigration and criminal justice issues. Recently, state lawmakers have also taken on coronavirus economic relief and are gearing up to debate the creation of a public health insurance<\/a> option.<\/p>\n

But with a pair of surprising Democratic victories earlier this month in Georgia\u2019s U.S. Senate runoff elections, combined with President Joe Biden taking office on Wednesday, the priorities may be shifting. New Democratic control in Washington, D.C., likely means policies will be addressed at the federal level that Colorado Democrats were expecting to have to tackle at the state Capitol.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new day. It\u2019s a new administration. It\u2019s a new opportunity,<\/a>\u201d said state Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat. \u201cI think we\u2019re all going to be watching closely to see what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzales is a top immigrant advocate in the legislature, fighting for expanded protections for people living in the U.S. illegally. She ran for office in 2018 seeking to limit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s ability to \u201coverreach into state and local government.\u201d Now, she\u2019s using the time before the legislature reconvenes on Feb. 16 to rethink what\u2019s at the top of her policy to-do list.<\/p>\n

With Biden promising to create a pathway to citizenship for people living in the U.S. illegally and immigration enforcement policies that are expected to be far more lenient than those under Trump, the bills she was planning to introduce this year may no longer be relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of hope and excitement to see what the administration is going to include in their package,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cAnd what are they leaving out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

House Speaker Alec Garnett, a Denver Democrat, said the way Congress acts on the environment and coronavirus economic aid will definitely shape policies at the statehouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven gun safety legislation\u201d in Colorado could be affected, he said.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Dylan Roberts, an Avon Democrat who is planning to champion a measure creating a public health insurance option in Colorado this year, said if Democrats in Congress pass a public option first it may be unnecessary for the state to pursue a similar program.<\/p>\n

But, he said, \u201cCongress moves a lot slower than we do at the state level.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where things get difficult for statehouse Democrats, because it\u2019s not clear how long it will take congressional Democrats to tackle their plans and whether they can pass them at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand we absolutely need to figure out what the feds are going to do,\u201d said state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat. \u201cOn the other hand, we can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Senate will now be split between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker. With such a narrow majority, more controversial Democratic bills still may lack enough votes to pass. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said Republican U.S. Senate leader Mitch McConnell will remain a big hurdle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as Mitch McConnell is in the Senate,\u201d Bennet said, \u201cit\u2019s never easy. It never will be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Colorado&#x2019;s
Colorado&#x2019;s U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper takes the oath of office on Jan. 3 in a swearing-in ceremony officiated by Vice President Mike Pence, right. Hickenlooper&#x2019;s wife, Robin, held the Bible used in the ceremony.<\/span>Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado\u2019s Democratic U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who served eight years as governor, said he thinks the parallel Democratic majorities on the state and federal levels, however, will streamline cooperation. That\u2019s especially true for policies around climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think having the Biden administration, where you\u2019re not going to have to be pushing back against that kind of wrong-headed thinking, that in itself is going to be an advantage,\u201d Hickenlooper said.<\/p>\n

onversely, Bennet said congressional Democrats will likely look to take pages from the playbook run by the Colorado legislature\u2019s Democrats on issues like the public option and police accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado\u2019s the first state to pass modern police accountability legislation and it\u2019s very much along the lines of what Cory Booker and Kamala Harris introduced here,\u201d Bennet said of his Democratic U.S. Senate colleagues.<\/p>\n

Republicans are in the minority in the Colorado legislature, but they will likely look to find ways to push policies against the dual Democratic majorities in Washington and the statehouse. \u201cYou certainly may see some bills go in that direction,\u201d said state Senate Republican leader Chris Holbert.<\/p>\n

The Parker lawmaker said, however, that he often is explaining to his conservative constituents that the legislature has little effect on federal power. But he sees benefits for his party on the state level because he thinks voters will be frustrated by the direction of the nation and state.<\/p>\n

\u201cGosh, if people over the next year, year and a half think Democrats need more control in Colorado, I don\u2019t understand that,\u201d Holbert said.<\/p>\n

Bennet said he hopes Biden and Democrats don\u2019t spend all their political capital at once and put their majorities at risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need to approach it in a way that the American people understand that this isn\u2019t just about creative more government for the sake of more government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With party control of Congress and White House, priorities change at home<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[94,233,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49178","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=49178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87534,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49178\/revisions\/87534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49178"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}