This year’s legislative session ends May 13, and we worked through the weekend to get bills across the finish line. If you’d like to learn more about our work over the past year, come to one of my town halls.
Sen. Cleave Simpson and I will host Legislative Lowdowns with the League of Women Voters in La Plata and Montezuma counties. On May 16, we’ll be at Fort Lewis College in Noble Hall, Room 130 at 10 a.m., and on June 6, we'll be at the Cortez Library at 10:15 a.m. All are welcome. We’re still working on scheduling events for Archuleta, but keep an eye out over the summer in this column and at facebook.com/KatieforColorado.
Most of my bills are on their way to being signed into law. On May 6, Gov. Jared Polis hosted us for a signing ceremony for SB26-040, Simpson’s and my affordable housing bill. Proposition 123 was built as a statewide program, and rural resort communities have struggled to access funding for affordable housing because our needs don’t always fit with the grant frameworks. We built SB26-040 with local county commissioners to add flexibility to Prop. 123 to make it more responsive to local realities and open up opportunities for us to expand affordable housing in Southwest Colorado.
I’d also like to give an update on my bill to prevent abuse of strip searches in county jails, which I brought forward in light of the charges against former La Plata Jail Cmdr. Edward Aber. It has been an enormous privilege to work with La Plata County survivors, whose bravery and advocacy have driven this process. HB26-1123 will tighten standards around strip searches, strengthen sexual assault prevention policies and establish whistleblower protections for county jail employees.
It’s been a long road to get this bill through the House and Senate. I’ve held lengthy negotiations with county sheriffs of Colorado and county attorneys across the state over the past six months. We made a total of 16 amendments throughout the legislative process to move forward to a place where HB26-1123 both creates strong protections for prisoners and will be feasible for small rural counties to implement within the constraints of their budget and technology.
There’s still a lifetime of work to do to ensure that Colorado’s correctional facilities are safe and secure for everyone, but this bill is an important step forward to protect people who are incarcerated from sexual abuse and exploitation and increase accountability and oversight of jail employees. I’m extremely proud to say that HB26-1123 passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support May 7.
This session has been a roller coaster as we’ve navigated a historic budget crisis and federal uncertainty. It’s meant late nights, hard conversations and even more difficult decisions, but as always I am honored to be your representative at the Colorado State House.
As the state Legislature heads into the interim, I’ll be glad to be home in Southwest Colorado for more than 36 hours at a time – please feel free to invite me to your businesses, campuses, farms, ranches and everything in between, and I’ll do my best to be there. I always encourage you to reach out to my office at katie.stewart.house@coleg.gov if you have questions about my work or have thoughts you want to share.
Katie Stewart (D-Durango) represents House District 59 in the Colorado Statehouse, which encompasses Archuleta, La Plata, and San Juan counties and most of Montezuma County.
