Defining moments of the 2023 legislative session

Under the golden dome

BY JESSE PAUL AND ELLIOTT WENZLER THE COLORADO SUN

Each legislative session in Colorado is de ned by big moments. is year, a lot of them happened in the House, where a Democratic supermajority often clashed with not only their Republican counterparts but also sometimes itself.

Here are the major events under the gold dome in 2023 that shaped the 120-day lawmaking term, which ended May 8:

Tracey Bernett’s resignation

Rep. Tracey Bernett, D-Boulder County, announced her resignation the night before the lawmaking term began as she faced criminal charges for lying about where she lived to run for reelection last year in a more politically favorable district.

Bernett’s resignation ended the woman-majority in the Capitol, as a vacancy committee replaced her with Kyle Brown, a Louisville city councilman. Bernett’s resignation and Brown’s appointment left 50 men and 50 women in the legislature.

Brown’s appointment also meant that about a quarter of the legis- lature this year had at some point been appointed to a Capitol position by a vacancy committee.

Bernett, meanwhile, eventually pleaded guilty in the case.

Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Scott Bottoms addresses the Colo- rado House Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. Scott Bottoms nominates himself to be speaker

On the rst day of the 2023 session, Jan. 9, rst-year Rep. Scott Bottoms, R-Colorado Springs, was nominated by Rep. Ken DeGraaf, also a Colorado Springs Republican, to be speaker of the House.

“We’re not going to have power this session, we understand that, but we do have principles,” Bottoms said in a speech aimed at securing support for his speaker bid. “God created life … he created male and female, he created them at conception. We also stand for the Second Amendment in all circumstances.”

It was a departure from the norm. Often the chamber unanimously backs a leader from the majority party, in this case Democrats, in a sign of cooperation and a nod to decorum.

Bottoms’ move, while unsuccessful, set the tone for the entire year at the Capitol, as he and DeGraaf frequently delayed work in the chamber by speaking for long stretches in protest of Democrats’ agenda, sometimes making controversial remarks.

Fire alarm interrupts roll out of Democrats’ gun bills

On Feb. 23, a re alarm interrupted a news conference at the Capitol during which Democrats announced they were pursuing four bills regulating guns. e alarm stopped the event and forced lawmakers, sta ers and journalists into the February cold. Rumors and speculation swirled that an alarm had been pulled to throw o the announcement.

e Colorado State Patrol later said there had been a technical malfunc- tion and that the alarm was not intentionally triggered. ose four bills passed and were signed into law. e legislation raised the age limit to buy any guns in Colorado to 21, imposed a threeday waiting period for rearm purchases, expanded the state’s red ag law, and made it easier for people to sue the gun industry.

“I do exist”

On March 3, Rep. Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat and the state’s rst transgender lawmaker, made an impassioned speech on the House oor directed at her Republican colleagues.

“Whether you like it or not, I am your colleague. Whether you believe me or people like me should exist, I do exist. And I am your equal in this chamber. I accomplished the same thing you did to be here,” she said. e speech came a day after GOP members tried to add language Democrats said attacked trans people into a resolution about the still-unrati ed federal Equal Rights Amendment.

“If we want to talk about the Equal Rights Act for women, then let’s be careful how we try to rede ne what a woman is biologically, genetically and chromosomally,” said Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron.

Bottoms, referencing chromosomes, said: “ ere is such a thing as XX and XY and no matter how much you lie to yourself and change it — and frame it in any way whatsoever — there is XX and XY.”

Titone said she felt “disrespected and diminished” by their comments.

“My existence is not up for debate,” she said while her Democratic colleagues stood behind her. “It’s not something you can disagree away and I will not let anyone in this chamber or outside this chamber bully or intimidate me out of my existence.” e situation sparked conversations among Democrats about using the legislature’s rules to limit debate, which happened a few weeks later.

A Colorado House all-nighter e House worked overnight from March 9 into March 10 as Republicans libustered a measure imposing a three-day waiting period on gun purchases in Colorado. While there are typically a few overnight debates in any given legislative session, they traditionally happen at the end of a lawmaking term, not in the rst half, as this one did.

House Democrats limit debate e next day, Bottoms delivered a speech on the House oor in which

On March 25, a Saturday, Democrats in the House used Rule 14 to limit debate in the chamber for the rst time in at least a decade.