Commentary: What to expect from complete Democratic dominance in the Colorado Legislature
Democrats in Colorado have enjoyed trifecta control of the state Capitol for eight years. It’s the longest period of one-party dominance in state history. On Tuesday, they deepened their control of Colorado politics even further.
Voters installed new Democrats in every statewide office, and, based on unofficial results, state legislative leaders expect to have supermajorities for the first time in both the House of Representatives and Senate. That means they can override a governor’s veto and refer constitutional amendments to the ballot.
Plus, they don’t expect many vetoes. Term-limited Governor Jared Polis, though he is a Democrat, often clashed with Democratic state lawmakers and vetoed or threatened to veto many of their marquee bills. They expect his successor, Phil Weiser, the state attorney general who won election Tuesday, to be more sympathetic to their agenda.
That creates a blue juggernaut never before seen at the state Capitol.
Colorado had been growing averse to Republicans over the last decade, but this year’s nationwide anger toward the Trump administration juiced that trend.
“I think Democrats won huge margins last night nationally and in Colorado because folks don’t like what the federal government with Trump is doing,” Democratic state Representative Kyle Brown of Louisville, who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, said Wednesday. The state Legislature in the last two years has worked to mitigate damage done by national Republican policies, he said, especially related to healthcare access.
“These victories last night will give us the ability to continue that work and hopefully build upon it so that families across Colorado can afford healthcare and that we can continue to make gains on affordable housing and any number of issues that are plaguing working families and making it harder for folks to get ahead,” Brown said.
The Democratic agenda abounds with ideas to bring down costs for housing, healthcare, childcare and other necessities. Senate President James Coleman of Denver said he thinks Democrats will be “laser focused on bringing down costs for Colorado families.”
Supermajority status will help with that mission, but Coleman said it’s not necessarily a tactical windfall.
“Having a supermajority, it gives us more tools to deliver for Colorado families, but it’s not going to change our approach to responsible, effective governance,” he said, adding that he expects relations with a Weiser administration to be productive.
“We’ve been in contact — constant contact — with now Governor-elect Weiser and his team,” Coleman said. “We look forward to finding ways when we can collaborate more and communicate with each other and be on a similar page when it comes to decisions that we believe are going to benefit every Coloradan.”
The commitments Weiser made as he ran for governor suggest there will be strong policy agreements between the executive and legislative branches.
“We aligned with his campaign, otherwise we wouldn’t have voted for him,” Coleman said.
Coleman said he’s broadly focused on K-12 and higher education, and bringing down costs of living.
“For me it is about fully funding our education system,” he said. “We’ve increased education funding for those past two years by $400 per pupil, per kid, in the state of Colorado, and that’s great. But when you’re almost dead last in the country with funding public education, that’s a very low bar.”
He’s looking for ways to bring down rising costs for childcare and housing, too.
“People are trying to figure out where they can afford to live,” he said, adding that potential solutions could involve investments in rental assistance, down payment assistance or other programs to help first-time home owners. The state could even act to limit the rising costs of groceries, Coleman said.
One clue to legislation Democrats might introduce when the next general assembly convenes in January is the list of bills Polis resisted or vetoed, such as those related to accountability for lawless federal immigration agents; robust consumer protections around AI; surveillance pricing and wage regulations; and the Worker Protection Act, which would ease union formation. Polis vetoed that bill twice.
All of these policies are on state Representative Javier Mabrey’s agenda. Passing the Worker Protection Act is the Denver Democrat’s top priority.
“We need to make it easier to form a strong union in Colorado,” he said. “Colorado is the only blue state in the country that is not a free bargaining state. And we have lower union density in Colorado than in Alabama.”
The bill would repeal the state’s 80-year-old Labor Peace Act, which says Colorado workers who are organizing have to hold a second union election to decide whether workers who don’t support the union would have to pay fees. Mabrey said he expects Weiser would sign the measure, which is opposed by business leaders.
Previous attempts by Democrats in the Legislature to regulate AI were largely thwarted by Polis, Mabrey said.
“Governor Polis was really hard to work with if you were trying to regulate Big Tech,” Mabrey said. In the new General Assembly, he’ll have opportunities to enact such legislation. “I think we really need to step up and do something about the rise of AI in the economy.”
Weiser is widely viewed as more progressive than Polis, but some Democrats are wary of his tendency to promote business interests. If that trait leads to vetoes, legislative Democrats for the first time will have the power to override them.