COST OF LIVING
It has become more expensive to afford housing and healthcare and to just get by in Colorado and wages are not keeping up. In the last ten years, Aurora in particular has gone from a relatively affordable city to a place where rents have gone up very sharply.
Below are bills I’ve sponsored to put money back in people’s pockets and take on powerful corporations whose practices are making it more expensive to live in Colorado.
My legislation
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Read the bill →
A recent survey found that one in three Coloradans are "food insecure”- lacking reliable access to nutritious food. More than 60% of food retailers in Colorado that accept SNAP benefits are small, corner, or convenience stores. I sponsored this bill to support small food retailers in covering 75% of the cost, via tax credits, of purchasing equipment needed to offer fresh foods. Expanding their capacity to store and sell nutritious food will improve access, lower prices, and reduce food insecurity, particularly for Colorado families most at risk of it, while keeping more of the proceeds of economic activity in the local community instead of flowing to large out of state corporations.
Status: signed into law.
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Many renters have experienced firsthand how quickly fees can add up when applying to many different apartments in the course of trying to find a place to live. I sponsored this bill to allow renters to reuse a rental application for up to 30 days without paying additional fees. Reusability could save renters hundreds of dollars in the course of an apartment search - money that can go to cover costs of food, rent, healthcare, or other necessary expenses. Status: signed into law.
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Too many Coloradans struggle to pay medical bills and are frustrated with the lack of transparency when paying for medical services. I sponsored this bill to strengthen our consumer protections related to medical debt and out-of-network billing. This bill requires a health-care facility to provide an estimate of the total cost of a self-pay service, requires a debt collection agency collecting on a medical debt to provide to the consumer an itemized statement to dispute the validity of the debt, and caps debt interest at 3% per year.
Status: signed into law.
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Since the voters approved an elimination of predatory payday loans in 2018, some Colorado lenders have replaced the practice with “alternative charge loans”, short-term loans capped at $1,000 that avoid certain consumer protections. I sponsored this bill to protect consumers by limiting fees on alternative charge loans and to increase repayment timelines in order to protect consumers from harmful debt cycles. The bill also protects Colorado borrowers from facing high interest rates “exported” by out of state state banks into Colorado, which increase the cost of borrowing. Status: signed into law.
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For nearly 20 years Colorado has worked to promote clean energy technologies, and recent changes in federal law (such as the Inflation Reduction Act) have also made big investments in new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. I sponsored this bill to make Colorado a national leader in using targeted tax credits for individuals and businesses to save money, save energy, and reduce pollution. The bill provides tax credits for electric vehicles & bikes, installation of heat pumps, geothermal electricity development, pollution reduction in industrial facilities, and construction of sustainable aviation fuel production facilities. Tax incentives in the bill are expected to average around $65 million each year. This historic legislation builds upon federal initiatives, improves Colorado’s air quality, and is critical in helping the state meet its climate goals.
Status: signed into law.
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Mergers and other anti-competitive conduct between large corporations can increase prices and decrease choices for consumers, but our state’s anti-trust enforcement laws haven’t been updated in decades. I sponsored this bill to update the Colorado Antitrust Act so that the Colorado attorney general, the “people’s lawyer,” has the tools necessary to investigate and take action against anti-competitive business practices. This bill also enhances Colorado’s disaster price gouging law so that the attorney general and district attorneys can take action against businesses that unfairly try to profit off consumers following a declared disaster like a fire or flood. Status: signed into law.
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Property taxes fund our schools, counties and sometimes other services like firefighting and libraries. But when property values increase sharply in a short amount of time, as they have in Colorado in recent years, property taxes go up quickly too, and that can be hard for household budgets. I sponsored this bill to reduce the property taxes Colorado residents and businesses will pay for two years, saving the average homeowner hundreds of dollars and keeping taxes from going up at all for some small businesses. Due to existing school finance law, school funding will not be reduced by these property tax reductions, and the state will use its some its revenues to “backfill” other local government budgets.
STATUS: Signed into law.
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Colorado’s “Senior Homestead Exemption” is a property tax break that helps many seniors make ends meet by reducing the property taxes they are required to pay. However, this exemption is not available to seniors who rent their homes or haven’t lived in the same home for at least 10 years. I sponsored this bill to create a 1-year refundable income tax credit of up to $1,000 for lower- and middle-income Colorado seniors (up to $75,000 adjusted gross income) who are not eligible for the property tax reduction. This tax credit will benefit around 150,000 Colorado seniors, saving them a total of $100 million to help meet the challenges of rising costs.
STATUS: Signed into law.
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For over 10 years Colorado has had a program called ASCENT that enables qualifying high school seniors to take an additional or fifth year of high school to pursue concurrent enrollment courses at a local community college (like CCA). This allows students to complete a 2-year degree with no tuition cost, saving thousands of dollars. Historically, ASCENT has been capped at 500 students per year, fewer than the number of students the state’s own data shows would like to pursue ASCENT. I sponsored HB 1002 to eliminate the cap, making ASCENT eligible to any qualifying student. During the legislative process, HB 1002 was incorporated into the annual “School Finance Act,” HB22-1390, and became law that way.
STATUS: Signed into law.
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Almost no new housing in Colorado is built without a “metro district” (short for “metropolitan district”), which is a kind of government that can issue debt and impose taxes. As metro districts have proliferated – they now number more than 2,000 statewide, mostly in the metro Denver area – more and more residents have begun to question the amount of debt they issue and lack of transparency about their operations. I sponsored this bill to try to increase transparency surrounding metro district finances, to give cities and counties more oversight of metro districts on behalf of their taxpaying residents, and to prevent developers from buying debt Read the bil;that they themselves voted to issue (acting as directors of metro districts).
STATUS: Defeated due to lobbying by the metro district industry.
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Car insurance is legally required, and homeowners insurance is required to have a mortgage, which most homeowners do. But Colorado law offers less oversight over insurance rates than some other states have. I sponsored this bill to require certain minimum “loss ratios” for auto and homeowners insurance – so that auto insurance policies would have to pay policyholders 75% of premium dollars in benefits (claims paid after an accident) and homeowners policies would have to pay 80%. Just a 1% improvement in these “loss ratios” would save Coloradans $80 million per year.
STATUS: This bill was defeated due to lobbying by the insurance industry.
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Almost all of us pay some amount of taxes, and taxes are how we fund things like K-12 education, firefighting, parks and open spaces, taking care of the disabled, and much more. But our tax laws have become riddled with special interest loopholes that take funding away from public services for the benefit of a small number of large corporations or wealthy individuals. I sponsored these bills to close over $100 million in tax loopholes and instead support working families and small local businesses with our tax laws, by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, funding the state Child Tax Credit for the first time ever, exempting small businesses from the business personal property tax, and promoting employee owned businesses with targeted tax credits. Together, these were some of the biggest tax reform bills Colorado has passed in over a decade.
STATUS: signed into law.
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At the outset of COVID-19, Colorado was one of only about 15 states with no specific prohibition against price gouging – charging unconscionable or abusive prices to rip off consumers. I sponsored this bill to update the Colorado Consumer Protection Act to empower the attorney general and each district attorney to take action against sellers engaging in price gouging. Because retailers themselves may sometimes be victims of price gouging by another actor in the supply chain, the bill also makes clear that just passing on prices directly attributable to costs imposed by suppliers is not a violation of the new law.
STATUS: Signed into law.
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Until this 2019, Colorado’s consumer protection laws were rated among the weakest in the nation. I sponsored this bill to strengthen protections for consumers harmed by irresponsible corporations by removing barriers to enforcement, updating penalty amounts for the first time in decades, and allowing action against reckless anti-consumer conduct.
STATUS: Signed into law.
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Whether you’re looking for a place to rent or a home to buy, housing is increasingly out of reach. Yet Colorado has been one of only a few states without a dedicated source of funding for affordable housing efforts. I sponsored this bill to create sustainable funding for housing efforts without raising taxes. By closing a loophole in our existing tax code, this bill will invest $45-50 million per year for construction of new housing units for sale and for rent and to support other housing efforts.
STATUS: Signed into law.
I have also supported these bills to reduce the cost of living:
Support working families, especially with children, by increasing the value of the Earned Income Tax Credit for the 2024 tax year and simplifying and expanding the Child Tax Credit. The Earned Income Tax Credit benefits over 300,000 Coloradans annually and the Child Tax Credit benefits nearly 150,000. (HB23-1112 - signed into law);
Exempt small businesses with less than $500,000 in annual sales from the retail delivery fee to reduce costs and administrative issues for both these businesses and their customers (SB23-143 - signed into law);
Expand tax credits to facilitate employee ownership. Employee-owned businesses more equitably share the wealth created by business activity and help keep profits in the local community (HB23-1081 - signed into law);
Limit utility rate hikes by preventing utilities from passing through to customers certain lobbying and legal fees they pay and by requiring utilities to plan for price swings in natural gas (SB23-291 – signed into law);
Continue free public transit during summer ozone season so that Coloradans can choose to get around without having to drive in traffic and pay for gas, while reducing air pollution at the same time (HB23-1101 – signed into law).
