On Saturday, a second Democrat in the Colorado Senate shuffled key committee members to advance measurements that coordinate Colorado’s first law regulating artificial intelligence, which is due to take effect in February.
The decision was intended to end a day-long stand among the Democratic majority at Capitol on how to advance AI policies.
The change in the Senate Budget Committee was an extraordinary move made by Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez (D-Denver), giving him a 5-2 advantage on the panel, but a 4-3 majority. Senator Jeff Bridge, a Democrat from Greenwood Village and chairman of the Congressional Joint Budget Committee, has been removed from the committee.
It is very unusual for committee membership to be changed mid-session, especially to pass a single invoice.
Committee reforms require that Rodriguez’s bill narrow the AI Act down to the Senate floor. The idea behind Senate Bill 4 is to shift some of the regulatory burden to AI developers on behalf of companies and other companies, such as technology-deploying schools, local governments, law enforcement agencies and more.
The bill is stagnant on the Senate Budget Committee. Because it was not clear if there would be enough votes to hand it over to the Senate floor. Bridges, running for state treasurer, was considered one of the “no” votes.
New Democrats added to the committee – progressive Senators Katie Wallace and Mike Weissman, said they will vote to move forward with the action.
The panel is set to consider the bill on Sunday, and changes are expected.
Because negotiations take time to negotiate the bill, special sessions will run at least Tuesday, unless efforts to change the AI Act are abandoned. The special session began on Thursday.
(Saturday was the earliest chance of a special session being finished if lawmakers worked fast enough.)
Rodriguez defended the committee’s changes in an interview with the Coloradosan, saying the pace of special sessions and the number of bills passing his Senate Budget Committee would require changes.
However, it was clear that moving forward with the AI bill was the real motivation.
Bridges said in a statement that the committee’s changes “allow much needed conversations and I am optimistic and we will get good results.”
Rodriguez also said Saturday that he is still negotiating with the governor’s office and the tech industry. However, the change in the committee shows that he does not want to succumb to their demands to ease restrictions completely.
He spoke about his negotiations. “I don’t know what the deal is.”
Rodriguez was one of the authors of the AI bill when it was passed in Congress last year. At the time, he, the governor and the tech industry agreed to cooperate in making changes ahead of that.
But the earlier attempts this year during regular sessions in Congress failed — so did the final ditch effort to postpone when the law comes into effect.
Gov. Jared Police asked lawmakers to take up the AI Act again this week. This asked to take up the AI Act again when Congress gathered for a special session aimed at plugging a $750 million hole into the state budget, caused primarily by the tax policy changes of one big beautiful bill law. It is a Republican federal tax and spending bill that was passed in July and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
However, Senate Bill 4, supported by Colorado’s AFL-CIO and ACLU, is not the only AI bill being discussed in Congress during special sessions.
House Bill 1008, brought by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, was featured as a beloved person in the tech industry. Instead of enacting new regulations around AI, it would be to crack down on technology through Colorado’s existing civil rights and consumer protection laws, which would have mostly come into effect in 2027.
The law is based on Denver-based shopping apps such as Colorado Independent AI Coalition and Ibotta, Inc. It was raised with support from.
The measure was positioned as a foil for the Rodriguez bill. This is sponsored by Rep. Brianna Titone of D-Arvada. However, on Friday, the second day of the special session, the House of Representatives sponsors shot the bill. Instead, they made it so they simply changed the effective date of Colorado’s existing AI laws from February to October 2026 in order to rewrite it to Congress when Congress returns to its regular 120-day session in January.
“It’s extremely difficult to do this in a special session,” said Rep. William Lindstet, a Democrat from Bloomfield and a leading sponsor of the bill. “I’m just asking you to move out the date so that you can do this responsibly during the next session.”
House Bill 1008 awaits preliminary debate in front of a full house. It was scheduled to happen on Saturday, but was eventually postponed until Sunday.
Two bills brought by Republicans seeking to change the AI Act were rejected by the first committee. Democrats control both rooms in Congress.
Lawmakers will return to the Capitol at 10am on Sunday to resume work.
Story type: News
Based on facts, they were either directly observed and verified by reporters or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
