Here are the 10 COVID-19 relief bills Colorado lawmakers just passed
Overall spending relatively minor compared to what Washington can afford, but lawmakers felt they couldn’t wait

Helen H. Richardson / The Denver Post
Colorado lawmakers gave final passage to 10 bills and more than $300 million in spending on Wednesday, the third and final day of the special legislative session for COVID-19 relief.
Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and the Democrats who control both chambers of the legislature had planned for a limited session focused on seven priority areas, all with bipartisan sponsorship. They passed legislation providing direct aid to small businesses, child care providers, nonprofit organizations, and struggling landlords and families.
Polis is expected to sign the bills promptly. Because he has COVID-19 — he said Wednesday that he’s feeling well — he will do this in insolation, he said, by receiving the bills in an envelope, signing them and returning them to the envelope, spraying the envelope with Lysol and then handing it to a state trooper.
State legislators also have been clear that this session will hardly plug the state’s economic leak. The legislature can’t deficit-spend, unlike the federal government, and so the result of the special session is a small fraction of the money the state received from Washington in the spring.
Republicans introduced their own legislation, including four separate bills proposing tax credits to families because of COVID-19 closures, all of which were defeated.
GOP lawmakers had called for a special session earlier this year, focused on education in the pandemic, but they were unsuccessful in winning over Democrats, who dismissed the call as a stunt. Republicans this week tried to once again put limits on the governor’s authority during a state of emergency through time limits and requiring additional procedures, but those efforts failed.
To read the rest of the Denver Post article, click here.

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