By Marianne Goodland
Legislative Reporter 

Sonnenberg questions amendments to third gun control bill

 


The third of three gun control bills has started through the Colorado Senate in the past week, with the third focused on allowing local governments to enact ordinances on gun control stricter than current State law.

Senate Bill 256 allows those local governments to ban concealed weapons and it includes counties and municipalities as well as special districts. That drew questions from State Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, a Sterling Republican, on just what that would mean during a May 11 hearing in the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.

An amendment to the bill from Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat and the bill’s co-sponsor, makes those prohibitions applicable to the special district’s facilities and buildings. A water district, for example, could prohibit firearms on its property, which led Sonnenberg to suggest that could apply to something as simple as a headgate on an irrigation ditch.

Part of the motivation for SB 256 is a decision in early March by a Boulder district judge to overturn a local city ordinance that banned assault weapons within city limits. 

Fenberg said the bill won’t solve the gun violence problem and that it is just one part of a series of gun violence prevention policies. Two other bills — one to set up a state office of Gun Violence Prevention within the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment; and another to ban the sale of firearms to someone convicted of certain violence misdemeanors — both won approval in the Democratic-controlled House on Monday.

Sonnenberg is the co-sponsor, along with Sen. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat, of a bill to pump millions of dollars into boosting the capacity for early childhood education.

Senate Bill 236 won unanimous approval in the State Senate on May 13. The bill takes $8.8 million in one-time leftover State dollars from 2019 and creates four new early childhood care and education grant programs in the Colorado Department of Human Services. It also boosts pay for early childhood teachers paid through CDHS childcare programs. 

Federal dollars are slated to pick up the expenses in the 2021-22 budget and in succeeding years.

Story told the Senate on May 12 that the bill addresses childcare “deserts,” places where there are no childcare programs or not enough slots for those who need it. The pandemic has made it difficult for working mothers to get back to work because of the lack of childcare, she added.

Grants under the program can go to a wide variety of early childhood care providers, including private and public programs, before- and after-school, nursery school, church day care, summer camps and facilities that provide care to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Grants range from $3,000 to $200,000, although priority will be given to smaller grant applications.

Grants can be used to construct or remodel an on-site childcare center or one adjacent to a private employer that provides childcare to employees.

The bill now moves to the House.

Representative Rod Pelton of Cheyenne Wells was among a group of House Republican lawmakers who scored a victory for farmers on a bill setting up a natural disaster mitigation enterprise, a type of State-run business.

House Bill 1208 as introduced would have levied a fee on insurance equal to $1.25 for each $1,000 of total premiums for policies covering specified property or risks in the State. That included crop insurance. The enterprise would pay for grants to local governments to set up resilience and natural disaster mitigation measures.

No one argues the importance of natural disaster mitigation, said Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron. But the fee will just be passed along to the consumer, he argued.

“If you’re in the ag business, there’s some expensive insurance policies and this will add to it,” said Rep. Marc Catlin, R-Delta. Most farms have a million dollars’ worth of crops and crop insurance is one of the things that protect the farmer’s crops, he explained. That kind of fee could stop someone from buying crop insurance, which farmers buy to stay in business.

Rep. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, said the bill as amended would amount to $2 per policy per year, calling it negligible. 

“There’s an attack on agriculture, on the producers on the land,” over the past two years, Pelton said. “The overall push from this building is to harm agriculture. Everytime you raise their costs, they have to pass it on, especially farms that run on slim margins.”

Democrats agree to exempt multiple peril crop insurance from the bill. House Bill 1208 passed the House on a party-line vote on May 12.

The Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on May 13 approved a Sonnenberg-sponsored bill that sets up an agriculture and drought resiliency fund, part of the state’s $800 million stimulus package. Senate Bill 234 sends $3 million to the Department of Natural Resources. Ninety percent of Colorado’s counties are in drought, said co-sponsor Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat. 

SB 234 sets up a hay bank for farmers and ranchers in times of drought, financial assistance to transport hay or livestock feeds from out-of-state, recovery of grazing lands following devastation from wildfires and technical assistance to producers so they can prepare for drought conditions in the future.

The funds must be spent Sept. 1, 2022. The bill is now awaiting action from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

A companion measure, House Bill 1242, also approved on May 13, sets up the ag and drought resiliency office at the ag department. 

Another $5 million could head to the Department of Agriculture in another stimulus bill, Senate Bill 235, also approved by the ag committee on May 13. 

The first $3 million would go to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs already in existence. The last $2 million would go for voluntary soil health programs, also in the ag department. 

The voluntary soil health program money would fund grants for soil health activities, systems for monitoring the environmental or economic benefits of soil health practices, a State soil health inventory and platform and soil health testing programs.

SB 235 also is now awaiting action from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Finally, the School Finance Act, Senate Bill 268, won approval from the Senate on Monday. The bill allots an average of $7,225.28 per student, a 2 percent increase over the base amount in the 2020-21 school year. The bill also restores funding cut in 2020-21 for the ninth-grade success program, accelerated college opportunity grants and grants for automatic enrollment in advanced placement courses.

 

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