DENVER — It's deemed "critical" and exempt from having to close as part of the state's stay-at-home public health order, but the Colorado legislature is still closed.
State lawmakers were supposed to come back to work on Monday after taking a two-week adjournment. They came back just to adjourn again, at least until Thursday. And coming back at all wasn't supposed to happen.
Over the weekend, an agreement fell apart for lawmakers to sign a letter saying they would adjourn until April 13.
"There was some legal uncertainty about whether or not the letter was the best way of moving forward," said House Majority Leader Rep. Alec Garnett, D-Denver.
There was concern among House Democrats that the letter wouldn't hold up in court if someone challenged that the legislature didn’t follow the state Constitution.
Showing up in person and adjourning without a quorum present is allowed. And that's what happened on Monday.
"With 9% and 56 excused, the House does not have a quorum," said Garnett. He adjourned for another three days. At 10 a.m. on Thursday, lawmakers will have to decide what happens next.
"My daughters are doing their cello lessons on Zoom, video conferencing," said Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs.
Hill showed up in the Senate on Monday because he thinks the legislature should gavel back in, adjust its rules and be ready to work on legislation surrounding the federal stimulus package.
"We should at least have the opportunity to address issues that come up, and we can't do that if we're in adjournment. I don't think it should have to be in person, but we need to update our rules to make sure that that's possible," said Hill.
"To be very clear, I don't think we should be running legislation as usual. I think now is not a time to be making massive changes to legislation," said Hill.
"If this were a snowstorm and it were unsafe to be here, we would wait to be here," said Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo.
It's a flip-flop for both Garcia and Hill.
In March 2019, Garcia defended keeping the Senate open during the bomb cyclone, while Hill chided the Senate President for making the public risk coming out to testify on bills.
"I definitely learned from my past. In the Marine Corps you are constantly adapting to every situation. This is unlike any other situation," said Garcia. "People need to adhere to the advice being given by health officials, physicians, others who are experts in this arena."
Lawmakers are still waiting to hear the opinion of the Colorado Supreme Court on if the legislative session needs to end after 120 consecutive days (May 6) or if it can press pause and pick up where it left off when they decide to return.
When they do come back to work, they may pivot from bills they intended to introduce or pass and, instead, work on legislation from lessons learned through the executive orders.
"That's kind of how our business works, you don't know the weaknesses there until the focusing event happens," said Garnett.
"We've got to go through and comb through the executive orders that the governor has done, and if there are things that the legislature needs to do to codify those executive orders, so that they continue to operate outside the emergency declaration," said Garnett.
Rules that have changed by executive order could be laws changed by lawmakers, such as alcohol to go from restaurants and bars.
"Maybe this is the perfect time to clarify that a bunch of these regulations, that I've said my entire career up here, are onerous. Let's take them away and remove them and make it easier for people to conduct their business in tough times," said Hill.
"I'm hearing directly from the hospitals saying that had something like the public option been in place, they probably wouldn't be nearly as flexible in doing as nearly the things they're doing to actually get us through this situation," said House Minority Leader Rep. Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock.
Neville wants to address the power that comes with public health orders.
"I had no idea that a contracted health department could do such a wide-ranging order. I would want to look at changing that to have input from elected officials as well," said Neville. "I don't think anyone out there would support the fact that an unelected person has to ability to put someone in jail for 18 months and give them a $5,000 fine. That is the job for a legislative body."
He's referencing the punishment that comes with violating a stay-at-home order that can be established by a local health department. However, the punishment aspect of those orders are dictated by state laws that were put in place by lawmakers.
He, and other Republicans, have also voiced concerns about the power the governor has to limit what freedom people have even under a stay-at-home order.
"If someone does get tested and they do test positive, there is absolutely the right to restrict them and quarantine that individual to prevent that public health, but a healthy individual? I don't know that we have that right constitutionally, I don't believe we do," said Neville.
"We've learned from other countries who have been faced with the same types of challenges and how they've been able to weather it, and the advice was to follow the advice of medical experts, not political people," said Garcia.
When lawmakers come back to work, they can also address gaps in laws that they've learned about through the coronavirus pandemic.
"We're hearing from the attorney general that there's price gouging that's happening across the state of Colorado," said Garnett. "Unemployment insurance. Making sure that if there's anything we need to do to the unemployment insurance fund, that we can make sure that that thing is solvent."
Republicans want to be a watchful eye on the governor's power and the new money coming from the federal government.
"One of the concerns out there is the federal stimulus money. If we, as a legislature, isn't open for business, the governor would have huge authority to spend that money however he wants," said Neville.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS | Full Episodes of Next with Kyle Clark