May 13, 2026 07:36 PM UTC

ProgressNow Colorado's Winners and Losers of the 2026 Colorado legislative session

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by: ProgressNow Colorado

This year’s legislative session was one of the most challenging in Colorado’s history, as lawmakers confronted a massive budget deficit forced on our state by the passage of the disastrous federal “Big Horrible Bill.” Painful cuts to vital programs and services that Coloradans depend on this year are unfortunately just the beginning unless Colorado voters take action in November to raise the revenue needed to provide the essential functions of government we all expect. Around the margins of the state’s budget crisis, lawmakers made progress on a variety of important issues from affordable housing to abortion rights and expanding easy access to solar power.

THE WINNERS

People who want easy affordable solar power

This year, Colorado passed a bill that will make it easier than ever for homeowners and even renters to save big on their electric bill through simple “balcony solar” plug-in systems. No more waits for approval or cumbersome agreements with power companies, just plug in a solar system and start saving money! The new law could be a gamechanger for making solar power accessible to regular people.

Working people who need houses

Colorado is 100,000 units short on housing. This year, lawmakers passed legislation aimed at providing badly-needed affordable housing by streamlining the development process on land owned by school districts, nonprofit organizations, and churches (working with nonprofits). The goal is to get housing built quickly where it’s needed most.

Homeowners in hailstorms

Like many states across the country, Colorado is being hit with huge increases in homeowners’ insurance premiums. This year, Gov. Jared Polis and lawmakers worked together on a plan to reduce rates by up to $800 annually, promote the installation of hail-resistant roofing, and encourage property owners to mitigate wildfire risk.

Rideshare passengers

Thousands of passengers have sued Uber and Lyft over sexual assaults and misconduct committed by drivers. After a veto last year, Rep. Jenny Willford’s second attempt to pass legislation to keep riders safe was successful and earned the governor’s support.

Families who need child care

Despite the terrible budget crunch faced by lawmakers this year, both parties came together to renew the Child Care Contribution Tax Credit, allowing taxpayers to claim tax credits for millions of dollars in donations to licensed childcare facilities. After the Trump administration’s attempts to freeze federal childcare funding, these donations are more important than ever.

Trains!

Front Range passenger rail got closer to reality in this year’s legislative session with the passage of a bill defining the boundaries of the new Front Range Passenger Rail District, and legislation was also passed to modernize the operations of the Denver-area Regional Transportation District (RTD). The goal is to have the “Colorado Connector” (CoCo) rolling from Fort Collins to Pueblo by 2029.

Sen. Tom Sullivan

Colorado Sen. Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex was murdered in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, responded to this personal tragedy by becoming one of the nation’s foremost advocates for strong gun safety legislation. This year, Sullivan helped pass important new gun bills strengthening the state’s popular “red flag” law, and prohibiting the 3D printing of gun components to create so-called “ghost guns.”

Parents

Responding to a tragic school shooting at Evergreen High School, this year Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation requiring that social media companies respond in a timely manner to search warrant requests. This legislation preserves due process for suspects while ensuring that law enforcement can access life-saving information under a search warrant.

College kids

House Bill 26-1335, Abortion Medication Access on College Campuses, will require all colleges with a student health center to provide on-site medication abortion services to students. Another bill will require that college students be represented on the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.

Voters to the rescue!

After the federal budget bill passed in Washington last summer blew a billion-dollar hole in Colorado’s budget, lawmakers were forced to cut a total of $1.5 billion this year in order to make ends meet. It’s projected to get worse next year. The only hope of changing this is the Protect Colorado’s Future campaign, a graduated income tax that reduces tax rates for 97% of Colorado taxpayers while incrementally asking a little more from those making over $500,000 a year. You’ll have the chance to vote for it this November!

THE LOSERS

The people who can least afford to lose

The budget cuts forced on Colorado by the passage of the “Big Horrible Bill” in Washington, D.C. were some of the hardest choices Colorado progressive lawmakers faced in their careers. Our state is constitutionally required to balance the budget every year, and to do that core priorities like health care, education, affordable housing, and climate policy were cut. Cuts to Medicaid care providers and an effective doubling of the wait for services for adults with developmental disabilities directly hurts families who can least afford to take the hit.

Rideshare drivers

As fuel prices skyrocket across the nation, Uber and Lyft drivers we depend on are struggling harder than ever to make ends meet. House Bill 26-1273 would have put an end to the predatory practice of rideshare companies taking 50-70% of the total fare. The bill died at the end of the session but supporters have vowed to keep fighting for a better deal.

Rep. Scott Bottoms

Far-right Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs is giving up his seat in the Colorado House to run for governor. The polls say Bottoms doesn’t have a chance, so in desperation Bottoms has used every possible opportunity this year to draw attention to himself, baselessly alleging a “pedophile ring” in the legislature, and disrupting legislative debates with offensive diatribes meant to grab headlines at the expense of common decency. Few of Bottoms’ colleagues on either side of the aisle will miss him.

Rep. Ron Weinberg

The embarrassments on the right side of the aisle continued this year after Republican Rep. Ron Weinberg of Larimer County was referred to sexual harassment training and admonished by the House Ethics Committee for inappropriate comments to multiple female lawmakers and allegedly copying a master office key to access other lawmakers’ offices. Weinberg announced in January that he is not running for re-election.

People who live near data centers

Legislation that would have required data center operators to pay for their power infrastructure up front and source electricity from renewable sources failed in the last days of the session. On the other side of the issue, an industry-backed measure to encourage more data center development also failed. Watch for this issue to be back next year, since the problems communities face with unchecked data center development aren’t going away.

Michael Fields

Conservative activist Michael Fields and his advocacy group Advance Colorado have become the conservative go-to mercenaries to lard up Colorado’s statewide ballots with backward measures that would never get through our state’s progressive majority legislature. But this year, lawmakers were ready for Fields’ irresponsible games on behalf of big-pocketed donors, passing legislation to blunt the effects of an Advance Colorado-supported ballot measure that threatens funding for healthcare and education.

Workers organizing for a better future

For the second year in a row, a bill reforming Colorado’s dysfunctional two-election requirement to organize union representation in a workplace passed the Colorado legislature to face a certain veto by Gov. Jared Polis. As the only state with this bizarre anti-union throwback law on the books, workers in our state face a barrier to the proven benefits of collective bargaining that no one else in America does. Like other inevitable reforms Colorado has achieved over the years like equal pay, the Worker Protection Act will be back every year until it becomes law.