UPDATE: Just before 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, the legislature passed a resolution to take a recess of two weeks.
The Colorado legislature will temporarily shut down for at least two weeks effective Saturday after leadership at the Capitol decided it is unsafe to continue lawmaking with the new coronavirus spreading rapidly across the state.
“I think all 100 members of this General Assembly want to do their job, we don’t want to go home,” said Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat who sits on the executive committee. “But we also want to make sure people are safe and we are modeling the appropriate behavior that should be happening and take this situation very seriously — because it is very serious.”
The decision was formalized Friday in a resolution by the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, a group of six top Democrats — including Fenberg — and Republicans in the statehouse. It still has to pass both chambers of the legislature, but is expected to be adopted with ease.
“This is the most appropriate decision for the legislature,” said House Majority Leader Alec Garnett, a Denver Democrat who also sits on the Executive Committee.
The pause in lawmaking had been expected, but it wasn’t clear until Friday afternoon when the Capitol would close and for how long. The decision was made about an hour after Colorado’s first death from the coronavirus was announced, an El Paso County woman in her 80s.
To continue reading this story, please click (HERE):
Lawmakers meet in the Colorado House of Representatives on May 1, 2019. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)
Leave a Reply