May 08, 2025 11:51 AM UTC

ProgressNow Colorado’s Winners and Losers of the 2025 Colorado General Assembly

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• by: ProgressNow Colorado

With Colorado at a crossroads due to uncertainty looming at the federal level, the 2025 session of the Colorado General Assembly concluded with wins on housing affordability, education, abortion rights, voting rights, and reducing gun violence. Lawmakers responded to new threats to funding and personal freedom from the Trump administration with a strong slate of legislation to protect the most vulnerable Colorado residents. Unfortunately, continued chaos at the federal level including Medicaid cuts backed by former state Rep. Gabe Evans in Congress could force lawmakers back to the Capitol this year to mitigate the damage. Once again, ProgressNow Colorado was proud to be on the front lines of advancing progress at the legislature this year.

THE WINNERS People who need housing This year, progressives in the Colorado legislature cracked the code on a scheme that’s been costing Colorado renters big money for years. House Bill 1004 restricts the use of algorithm-based rent calculators that have driven up rents across the country. Another bill limits “junk fees” charged by landlords, and requires the final total price to be plainly disclosed. Abortion rights Following the overwhelming passage last year of Amendment 79 to put the right to abortion in the state constitution, the General Assembly passed new laws confirming these rights in statute. In addition, Senate Bill 130, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, requires Colorado hospitals to provide emergency care to protect a patient’s health, including abortions. This bill also helps protect Colorado from the Trump Administration’s anti-abortion policies. People who vote Colorado has been a national leader for years in making it easy to securely cast a ballot, leading to one of the highest rates of voter participation in the nation. The Colorado Voting Rights Act (COVRA), Senate Bill 1, will protect voting rights in Colorado no matter what actions the Trump administration may take to compromise our state’s election integrity and undermine our overwhelmingly popular mail ballot system. K-12 students and teachers In a year fraught with uncertainty over declining revenue and budget-busting non-discretionary obligations, House Speaker Julie McCluskie, Sen. Chris Kolker, and the budget committee hammered out a plan to protect K-12 education funding, and end the hated “BS Factor” accounting gimmick that systematically underfunded public schools for years. But unknowns about the future of education funding under the Trump administration could make the celebration over this considerable achievement short-lived. Marriage equality Once again carrying out the wishes of the majority of Colorado voters who passed Amendment J last November, this year Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation codifying marriage equality into state law. This action undid a discriminatory ban on marriage equality that had only temporarily been invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which at least one Supreme Court Justice has said should be “revisited” by the new conservative majority. Gun violence prevention Sen. Tom Sullivan, a national leader on gun violence prevention whose son was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, led the campaign this year to pass one of the strongest and most sensible gun safety laws in America today. Senate Bill 3 will require would-be purchasers of assault weapons to undergo additional background checks by their county sheriff as well as an in-person safety course about these especially dangerous weapons and the state’s “red flag” laws. This bill will regulate access to the most dangerous firearms while protecting Second Amendment rights. Sex assault survivors The Colorado Bureau of Investigation currently has a 550-day backlog of DNA tests from sexual assaults waiting to be evaluated. That amounts to thousands of victims of sexual assault who are waiting for justice. Senate Bill 304, sponsored by Representatives Jenny Willford and Meg Froelich along with Senator Mike Weissman, requires victims be notified regularly about the status of their cases and push labs to quickly analyze and upload results. Another bill responds to a scandal over mishandled DNA testing by tightening penalties against crime lab misconduct. Sens. Tony Exum and Dylan Roberts Two moderate Colorado Senators representing diverse and competitive state senate districts stood out this year for their hard work and results for their constituents. Sen. Tony Exum of Colorado Springs worked with Rep. Rebekah Stewart on legislation to allow for more affordable factory-built housing, and co-sponsored legislation to make it easier for workers to negotiate for better wages and conditions. Meanwhile, Sen. Dylan Roberts of Summit County was one of the busiest sponsors of legislation from reducing the prevalence of diabetes and obesity to expanding wireless access to remote communities. Rep. Scott Bottoms Although far-right Rep. Scott Bottoms isn’t much of a success when it comes to passing legislation, Bottoms with the help of the House Minority communications staff (see: Losers) did an excellent job abusing his office to catapult himself into the race for governor in 2026. Rep. Bottoms used every opportunity this year to promote his longshot run for governor from the floor of the House, while the House communications staff took not-so-subtle shots against Bottoms’ likely primary opponent Sen. “Both Ways Barb” Kirkmeyer (see: Losers). Bottoms’ reliance on divisive wedge issues for attention won’t win statewide in Colorado, but the MAGA base can’t get enough. Kei cars! House Bill 1281 will allow Coloradans to finally import and legally drive older models of the smallest class of Japanese car, known as a “kei” car, which are tiny, efficient and adorable little vehicles that could meet the transportation needs of thousands of Coloradans.

TBD Working Coloradans The progressive majority in the Colorado General Assembly delivered a big win to workers by passing a long-sought improvement to Colorado labor law that would eliminate a required second election for workers organizing unions in their workplace to negotiate for better pay and working conditions. Now it’s up to Gov. Jared Polis to decide which side he’s on: he can stand with working families or with the billionaire class rigging the system. Hopefully he’ll do the right thing by signing the bill, showing he has the backs of nurses, janitors and working people, not the wealthy few. If not, it’s a missed opportunity to undo the bad old days of virulent anti-union politics in Colorado and the bill will be back next year. THE LOSERS Donald Trump Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, but Colorado overwhelmingly rejected Trump for the third straight election. That made the Colorado General Assembly the first line of defense this year against Trump’s chaotic and increasingly unpopular agenda. Ambitious bills to protect abortion rights, LGBT rights, and the basic human rights of immigrants were necessary to blunt the damage being done by Trump across the nation in our state. The Colorado Voting Rights Act was passed to defend our state’s gold-standard election system from Trump’s baseless second-guessing of every election he doesn’t win. Colorado is not Trump country and we proved that once again. Medicaid patients and rural hospitals The legislature managed to close a billion dollar hole in the budget this year while largely sparing two big and costly priorities: public education and Medicaid. But the likelihood of massive cuts from the federal government to Medicaid funding means the peril isn’t over for hundreds of thousands of Coloradans who rely on Medicaid to stay healthy. Depending on how much pain Rep. Gabe Evans and Republicans in Congress inflict, the legislature may be forced to reconvene this summer to plot a course forward to protect seniors, children, and patients with chronic conditions. Local communities In order to balance this year’s budget as required by the Colorado constitution, the budget committee was forced to “claw back” millions of dollars in grants to local governments that were intended to pay for important priorities like transportation, social services, and revitalization of downtown areas. Many other programs and grants intended for local governments took a “haircut” despite increasing need. And again, the looming threat of federal cuts filled this year’s budget-making process with uncertainty. Loser emeritus Rep. Gabe Evans For all the work Gabe Evans did last year to leave the legislature, he sure spent a lot of time this year weighing in on state laws while avoiding questions on the bills actually in front of him in Congress. Rep. Evans is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is tasked with cutting $880 billion expected to come largely from cuts to Medicaid–cuts that could devastate Colorado’s budget. But instead of being honest about the threat to tens of thousands of his own constituents, Rep. Evans blames state lawmakers for “waste” that amounts to a tiny fraction of the proposed cut. Sen. “Both Ways Barb” Kirkmeyer Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer of Weld County is a far-right career politician with a long history of extreme positions, even once supporting a failed plan for Weld County to secede from the state of Colorado. But one thing has been consistent with Kirkmeyer is vocal and aggressive opposition to whatever is in front of her, even if she was vocally opposing the opposite position just a little while ago. After losing a race for Congress in 2022, Kirkmeyer has been working hard to change her image in order to run for higher office. Unfortunately for Kirkmeyer, doing the bare minimum to carry out her responsibilities on the Joint Budget Committee has alienated Kirkmeyer from the Republican base, while her toxic positions on abortion rights and her past record of unserious extremism doom her with mainstream Colorado voters. Colorado House GOP communications office This legislative session, the Colorado House Republican minority press office launched an especially dishonest social media campaign highlighting what they claimed were examples of “Democrats” costing Coloradans money. The problem was, in many cases the legislation they derided passed unanimously or with strong bipartisan support. A number of the bills falsely cited in this campaign happened to have been sponsored by Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, raising questions about coordination with Rep. Scott Bottoms’ campaign for governor. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners As they have in so many previous years, the fringe “no compromise” gun group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners once again completely failed to oppose another historic package of gun violence prevention bills that passed the General Assembly in 2025, in particular the state’s new training requirement for the purchase of assault weapons. By the end of the session, RMGO was bickering with fellow Republicans over their own failure to persuade the majority while hoping the Trump administration comes to their rescue. Rep. Dusty Johnson Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson of Fort Morgan (not to be confused with Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota) is a conservative Republican and cancer survivor who has worked across the aisle this year on such issues as protecting rural hospitals and stopping shady health care billing practices. Unfortunately, Rep. Johnson’s willingness to think for herself put her on the wrong side of one of the legislature’s most cantankerous far-right members, Rep. Brandi Bradley, who arranged for Minority Leader Rose Pugliese to pull Johnson off the House Health and Human Services Committee where Johnson’s experience is most beneficial. Electric school buses One of the many tough choices made by the legislature’s budget committee this year was to cut millions of dollars from the state’s ambitious program to electrify the public school bus fleet. It will be a few more years before smelly noisy internal combustion school buses are a bad memory from childhood.