Legislative ups-and-downs

In a rollercoaster week, one of my bills passed out of the Senate, one bill passed out of Committee, and two of my bills failed in Committee. Let's start with the positives:

My bipartisan effort to establish a seal of biliteracy passed through the Senate and will be heading to the House next week. Briefly, the bill grants a diploma endorsement in biliteracy to Colorado high schoolers who demonstrate proficiency in English and at least one foreign language by graduation. 

Another bipartisan bill that recom mended continuation of the education data advisory committee, sailed through the Senate Education committee on Thursday. The bill will head to the Senate consent calendar next week. 

Presenting SB17-123 with co-sponsor Sen. Priola

Unfortunately, my effort to create more opportunities for attainable housing died in committee on a party line vote. I wish to thank the witnesses who testified in support of the bill, including represent-atives of the Colorado Senior Lobby, Urban Land Conservancy, Housing Colorado, Colorado Municipal League, Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, and constituent Robin Kupernik. Despite the bill's loss, I will continue to look for opportunities to make progress on this issue. 

My bill to protect student data privacy was also rejected in Committee this week. Students taking the PSAT and SAT, our new statewide assessments for 10th and 11th grade, are subject to highly sensitive, nonacademic, identifying questions about their religion and citizenship status, These questions are creating problems for two reasons: T he Constitution prohibits the government from establishing religion (and thereby asking about it); and second, a Supreme Court decision (Plyler v. Doe) mandates that schools may not ask K-12 students about their citizenship status. Because these are state exams, paid for with taxpayer dollars, administered during the school day, in taxpayer funded facilities, I  thought it was imperative we bar these questions on the exam. You can read more HERE. 

Discussing SB17-102 on student data privacy with Shaun Boyd of Channel 4 News. Click HERE for clip.

Despite these setbacks, I look forward to next week where I will present HB17-1016 to the Senate Local Government Committee. The bill addresses the ability of an urban renewal authority to exclude the valuation attributable to the extraction of mineral resources. The bill passed through the House 65-0 and I hope we have a similar path in the Senate.