Legislative Information - League of Women Voters Larimer County

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Legislative Information Group
Contact Legislative Information

Legislative Information monitors current legislation and organizes LWVLC members to take action via letters, telephone calls, e-mails, and faxes to elected officials.

Currently all LWVLC Teams take on the role of "Legislative Action", monitoring, studying, and becoming involved in issues at the local, state and national levels that are the focus of their teams.

Teams also may coordinate with each other with testimony on local, state, and national issues on which the League has stated positions.
They communicate Action Alerts to League members via email and encourage their participation;
Encourage participation in the State League Legislative Day and visits to the state capitol, and organize a program where our League lobbyist gives a summation of League action and Legislative action after the State Legislature adjourns.

Legislative Updates

Colorado General Assembly Website
This link will take you to the General Assembly's website that is chock full of information. You can find bills that have become laws; track bills during the legislative session; find your legislator - how to contact them, what bills they have introduced and which bills have become law and to which committees they are assigned; what's happening between legislative sessions; how to listen live to meetings or listen to recordings; and much more - a demonstration of transparency in our state government.
Colorado General Assembly

2024 Ballot Measures
The Colorado Ballot Initiatives process is in full swing for the 2024 election season! In addition to the ballot measures introduced and approved for the ballot by the Colorado General Assembly during the 2024 legislative session, Colorado citizens can introduce ballot initiatives for the 2024 ballot as well. You can see where each citizen initiative is in the process at the Colorado Secretary of State's website.
2024 Citizen Ballot Initiatives Filings

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The Colorado Legislative Session began on January 10, 2024. Here are some tools that will help you determine which bills in the current session are being followed by the Colorado League.

Handy Legislative Action Tools PowerPoint

Glossary of Legislative Terms

Be in the know about what is happening in the Colorado Legislature using these links!

Master Bill Tracker and Issue Area Bills

This link takes you to the LWVCO Legislative Action Report page. Find the blue box on the left side of the page. Click on the top entry in the box to access the Master Bill Tracker. It will continue to be populated throughout the 2024 Colorado General Assembly Session as the LWVCO Legislative Action Committee (LAC) votes on the Colorado League's stances on bills. Scroll down the column in the blue box to find bills in the issues area(s) of interest to you and click on the issue area name. Then, click on the individual Bill Number to find: who sponsored the bill, what the current status of the bill is, the latest text of the bill, who voted for or against the bill in committee or in the whole legislated body, who is lobbying, and more.

The Colorado League's Legislative Action Committee studied, discussed, and came to a stance consensus on each of the bills listed. Again, these lists will grow during the legislative session, so check often to see which bills have been added to the League's bills of interest. The League stances are registered with the Secretary of State's office and include SUPPORT, OPPOSE, AMEND, OR MONITOR. Stances are based on LWVCO and LWVUS Principles and Positions.

Legislative Action Report

Access the current edition of the LWVCO Legislative Report. The Legislative Report highlights news from the Colorado House and Senate as well as featured bills the LWVCO Legislative Action Committee is watching as the bills progress through the legislative process.

Colorado General Assembly Display Board

Interested in the bills that will be debated in Committees or on the floor of the Colorado House or Senate today? Use the General Assembly Display Board link to listen live to the testimony and debates, access the schedules, read the agenda and handouts, and learn the outcome of a bill hearing.

House and Senate Members

Using this tool, you can track which bills each legislator sponsors, how he or she votes, and determine how those votes align with LWVCO's positions. You will also find contact information for each member of the General Assembly.

2024 Colorado Legislators

Steps for Giving Testimony in the Colorado House or Senate as a private citizen

Go to: leg.colorado.gov

Click on Committees

Click on Public Testimony (Ignore top box which is for accessible testimony/handicapped, unless that applies to you.)

Click on Your Choice of 1) In Person, 2) By Zoom, 3) Written testimony

Find your bill hearing by looking it up by Committee 1) House Finance, 2) Date of hearing, 3) Bill number. Fill in all of the detail it asks for.

1. For written testimony: Prepare a 1-page written testimony, save it to a file, and when you get to the written choice it is ready to either cut and paste into the box. There is a signup with required name, email.

2. AFTER submitting written testimony, go back into the process and Click on Testify by Zoom. They have the same required name, email. After submitting this, an email comes to you telling you what the link is for the meeting, and a bunch of stuff if you don't know how to use Zoom, the protocol for being in front of a committee, etc.

3. In Person: Assume it is like #2 above. (not sure!)

If you testify by Zoom, you are not required to open your video and show yourself. If you wanted to just have the photo up, it would be o.k. They say NOT TO open your face or unmute yourself until they call your name. They pull you from the audience/attendee room to the "panelists" room on the screen and your name/photo is up there along with others signed up to testify online.

2024 Legislative Session Laws

This link opens to the bills that become Colorado laws during the 2024 Legislative Session. (Please note the results of the 2023 session are currently listed. It is too early in the 2024 session for a bill to go through the whole process to become a law.)

New 2024 Colorado Laws

Research, Positions, and Advocacy

Over its 100-year history, the national League of Women Voters has developed position statements on a wide array of political issues. These positions are the result of in-depth study and analysis by members and member consensus to adopt the position statements. The position statements listed below represent the outcomes of this process at a national, state, and local level.

How is lobbying legitimate for a charitable nonpartisan nonprofit?
Beth Hendrix, Executive Director, League of Women Voters of Colorado (2024)

1. Are charitable nonprofits able to lobby and advocate? Charitable nonprofits are legally able to lobby, within limits. LWVUS gives definitions and limits here. The Colorado Nonprofit Association addresses the topic well in Principles and Practices for Nonprofit Excellence in Colorado on page 5.)

2. If the League is nonpartisan, why do we lobby? The League of Women Voters was founded almost 104 years ago as a political nonpartisan organization. Political = associated with politics, which LWV certainly is. Partisan = associated with a political party, which LWV is not. Issues are nonpartisan by their nature, though people and parties regularly associate a particular issue with a party platform. But parties shift platforms and values -- heck! Democrats were fighting to keep slavery back in 1860. I'm sure everyone here knows that LWV positions (stances on an issue) come about only after extensive study and debate, allowing League membership to come to consensus and therefore speak with one voice about an issue.

Sharing LWV's Nonpartisan and DEI Commitments with Leaders and Members

LWVUS Webinar: Operating as a Nonpartisan Organization

Nonpartisanship in Partnerships

Nonpartisanship on Social Media

LWVUS Positions

The current Impact on Issues reflects the 2022-2024 program adopted by the 2022 convention of the LWVUS; the “positions in brief” listed there summarize the official statements of positions included in this guide. The new positions adopted in the 2022 Convention are integrated in their general issue areas: Social Policies (Health Care and Criminal Justice) and Government (Digital Equity). The magnifying glass icon will highlight where a DEI lens can be applied to League work. The page numbers in the Table of Contents are live links to take you directly to your issue area of interest. This document is updated following each biennial convention.

2022-2024 LWVUS Impact on Issues

LWVCO Positions

The 2023-2024 LWVCO Issues for Action is a summary of the positions that Colorado League Members have adopted and the advocacy work based on them. It is designed to help League leaders use LWVCO public policy positions effectively at the state and local levels. The League of Women Voters takes action only after members have studied an issue and agreed on a position.

LWVCO Issues for Action 2023-2024

Be in the Know: Read the LWVCO Legislative Action Report
Every week during the session, the Legislative Action Report is published and available to legislators, the media, the Governor’s office, and local Leagues. You can read about each bill that is being followed by League, learn the provisions and the effects, and stay updated on their progress with the Bill Tracker.

Legislative Action Report

LWV Larimer County Positions

Local Planning

Support for maintaining and strengthening a sense of place and community identity in Larimer County communities by encouraging the use of downtown areas as the primary cultural and governmental centers and by using a variety of measures to insure the economic vitality of downtown areas. Encourage the inclusion of a mix of goods and services and of housing types to attract a diverse group of people, including families.

Support adequate funding for comprehensive planning and its implementation, including periodic review and monitoring, by Larimer County and its cities and towns. This should include intergovernmental and regional planning.

Support for the principle that the costs of capital improvements resulting from growth should be borne by those who benefit from them but that special allowances should be made for affordable housing and for natural areas.

Continued support for acquisition of open space.

Number of Larimer County Commissioners

Support increasing the number of Larimer County Commissioners from three to five and exclusively support the following two election options for the ballot:

Five commissioners, each elected by voters in their representative districts.

Three commissioners elected by voters in their representative districts and two countywide commissioners elected at-large.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

The League of Women Voters of Larimer County supports an alternative to plurality voting that would accomplish the following objectives:

• Every person’s vote should count.

• A winner should have majority support.

Furthermore, we also support alternatives that can be expected to:

maximize voter participation; be open to a variety of candidates and ideas;

and encourage positive, issue-based campaigning.

We believe that in single-seat elections, IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) has the best chance of meeting these objectives.

Library Funding

The LWV-LC supports funding of public libraries in Larimer County either through voter-approved property tax or a combination of dedicated property tax and public general fund revenue. Dedicated property tax provides a more stable and predictable source of funding for public libraries than one that depends solely on general fund revenues.

An Example of Local Advocacy: Land Use Code Deliberations

Lessening Barriers to Housing Development - Lessons Learned from the Fort Collins Experience
by Julie Stackhouse
March 2023
Lessening the Barriers to Housing Development