Colorado lawmakers concluded their 2025 legislative meeting on Wednesday evening, but a call came to the point of hitting a deadlock for a special session on the first national regulation of artificial intelligence.
Congress passed nearly 500 bills in a 120-day work period, and ended around 7:20pm when the home was postponed shortly after the Senate. They have extended from relatively commonplace to drastic legal protections in the marginalized Coloradan in the face of federal immigration crackdowns. The grey fiscal cloud hanged above lawmakers and their laws as they passed a budget that worked on how to cut $1.2 billion from planned spending and create a policy that doesn’t cost money.
But the most dramatic fireworks were saved by the bill that died Monday.
Senate majority leader Robert Rodriguez, a second Democrat with the Chamber of Commerce, killed a bill that updated AI regulations that last year helped push it to the law. Critics of the rules portray them as existing threats to Colorado businesses. And these fears fueled a desperate 11th hour attempt to delay the implementation of the law by amending another bill late Tuesday.
The House has just finished debating the controversial trans rights bill, and the subsequent attempted AI law delays literally failed at 11:59pm, but with the ripples carried on the last day.
The new regulations passed in 2024 are expected to come into effect on February 1st next year. They will notify Colorado residents when businesses interact with AI and request that the underlying bias be removed from AI tools. Additionally, certain companies that use AI to make “consequential” decisions must disclose their use and purpose of technology to consumers, job seekers, and others who interact with it.
But critics warn that, as the regulations say, they will grow too widely and touch almost every business in the state. Delaying them even further will allow policymakers to tweak the rules and give businesses time to adapt to what could come from negotiations, rather than adapting to rules that could be thrown out in the first month of next year’s legislative meeting.
“We need delays so that we can get these regulations right,” said Rep. William Lindstet, a Democrat from Bloomfield, when he made the delay correction Tuesday night, “Make sure people don’t lose their jobs. People who work hard in our school district don’t last by handing their bills.
He added, “I don’t want to go back here after this discussion later this summer.” He proposed a delay until January 2027.
Colorado House attempts late night moves to slow down AI regulation, but efforts fail
But Rodriguez and Rep. Briana Chitone, a Democrat of Alvada who wrote AI Regulations, won the fight Tuesday night. Democrat leaders have tried to limit debate, a tactic reserved for controversy due to controversial social issues to fight Republican filibusters, in time for the midnight deadline for passing, to ensure there is time for final adoption on Wednesday.
Titone just ran the clock.
“Unprecedented Regulations” Outlook
Critics had a year to work with her and Rodriguez on change, Titone said. And there’s still almost a year before the new rules come into effect. But other lawmakers called for the blanket delays on the new rules after calling “to take action now” by Gov. Jared Police and several other top Colorado Democrats on Monday.
“We provided them with a solution to make it easier,” Titone noted that critics of the state’s AI regulations to slightly delay the effective date of the law until next April. “And that wasn’t enough. So they cut off their noses to stare at the face.”
She added: “They were stuck on a very long runway that would do nothing but give them time to undermine the full intent of the new regulations,” he added.
In Delay’s failed fallout, Bryan Leach, CEO of Denver-based digital promotional network Ibotta, called on Wednesday for a special session to bring lawmakers back to Capitol this year. Leach began Ibotta in a Denver basement in 2012. Last year, we released one of them. The biggest initial release of high-tech companies in state history.
The new rules effectively impose “unprecedented regulations for all entities using software in Colorado,” Leach said.
The new law is surrounded by impacting AI, but the definition is very broad and covers many software algorithms, he said. Additionally, you can take responsibility for businesses that use covered software to ensure compliance, and drag them into a costly, time-consuming battle.
In short, he warned that regulations could cause immense harm to Colorado’s business reputation.
Leach emphasized that he does not want a special session to repeal the 2024 law — only to address the concerns that were recognized in a June 2024 letter signed by Rodriguez, Police and Attorney General Phil Weiser. The next regular session that begins in January won’t work for businesses that need to start working towards compliance right now, he said.
Restrictions change “should be done before it’s too late,” Leach said.
Rodriguez retorted that the 2024 law was written with light and tolerant enforcement intentions, rather than heavy hands to crush companies that make mistakes.
What about a special session?
Rodriguez said that if lawmakers are called back to Capitol this summer or fall, the AI policy update will be on the table, but “I don’t know why I’m investing taxpayer money in that subject.”
Police said he was asked about his chance to call a special session, which would likely depend on looming federal decisions, such as Medicaid funding.
In a written statement, his spokesperson Shelby Weeman said: “It is unfortunate that Congress did not take any meaningful actions in this session to address clear principles.
But she also highlighted the governor’s appeal to lawmakers who “take action at the final time of the session” as special sessions were called, not extraordinary.
Other invoice progress
That plea has been unanswered, but lawmakers on the last day of the session have fully passed the school’s finance bill, which will slow roll the new funding formula, but will lead additional money to the schools next year.
The lawmakers also sent Polis a bill requiring companies like Uber and Lyft to perform more background checks and provide security protocols to drivers.
Police’s office has expressed concern about it, and the bill has decided which signature or veto it will decide, leaving behind several bills that have uncertain future.
A narrow bill to reform public transport in MetroDenver cleared Capitol near the end of the day after more ambitious ancestors became sputters last year. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, in the last day and a half, House members were rushing to pass several regulations regarding the use of Kratom, a herbal substance with opioid and stimulant-like effects.
The long battle in the session over the federal discount drug program set foot on the entire finish line as a solid victory for the hospital. The leader largely assured that profits from the program would not be limited by pharmaceutical companies. The hospital has also pledged to add $40 million to tens of millions more from the state’s accounting fund to strengthen health providers in the state’s safety range. Passing that bill helped kill another proposal that concludes part of the reimbursement rate.
The final day of the session almost began with lawmakers removing the bootstrap AI bill. He then approached the conclusion with the Alvada Democrat, the first transgender lawmaker in Congress, defending a bill that required Colorado insurance companies to provide gender-affirming care.
Republicans who spent most of the previous night opposed other trans rights bills were similarly opposed to healthcare proposals.
“My life is better,” Titone said on the floor. “For the care I get.”
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Original release: May 7, 2025, 7:07pm MDT
