Advocacy

2026 Legislative Session Wrap-Up

Prepared by Joan Andrew Green Turner

Executive Summary

The Chamber’s 65-bill support-and-oppose list closed with a strong overall result for Colorado Springs employers and the regional economy. Of the 65 bills where the Chamber took a support or oppose position, the Chamber’s preferred outcome prevailed on 48 bills and did not prevail on 17. No support-or-oppose bills remain pending final legislative action, though several passed bills remain important post-session advocacy priorities.

Key Wins

• The Chamber achieved its preferred outcome on 48 of 65 support-or-oppose bills, including 19 supported bills that passed and 29 opposed bills that were stopped.
• Supported bills advanced childcare tax credits, early-childhood local systems, provider licensing quality, cradle-to-career investments, out-of-state teacher licensure, higher-education flexibility, and occupational licensure portability.
• Workforce housing, affordable home ownership, job-growth incentives, business filing improvements, and economic development fund transfers moved forward, while several cost-increasing housing or land-use bills were defeated.
• The Chamber helped secure wins on administrative burden reduction, municipal utility clean-energy planning for Colorado Springs Utilities, and a more workable artificial intelligence framework.

Key Losses

• 12 opposed bills still passed, including measures affecting workforce data disclosure, worker protections, construction retainage, property tax policy, electric generating units, transportation network companies, homelessness strategy, development funding, and tax-expenditure policy.
• Five supported bills did not pass, including Medicaid primary care access, nuclear workforce development, critical infrastructure right-to-repair exemptions, emissions-goal review, and state or local noise-abatement authority.
• The Chamber continues to monitor implementation and seek relief where passed bills may increase litigation exposure, compliance costs, labor mandates, utility costs, or transportation costs for members.

Pending bills and follow-up

• No bills from the 65-bill support-and-oppose list remain pending final legislative passage based on the current tracker, and 0 bills are pending in that group.
• The Governor vetoed HB26-1005, HB26-1210, and HB26-1236 after the Chamber opposed those bills. The Chamber’s follow-up work now shifts toward implementation guidance and post-session relief for adverse signed bills, including rideshare legislation and other employer-facing measures.
• The next priority is translating the final outcomes into practical guidance for employers, local governments, Colorado Springs Utilities, housing partners, workforce partners, and childcare providers.

Major business fights involving the Chamber & EDC

The largest fights centered on labor mandates, arbitration, algorithmic pricing and wage-setting, tax policy, housing mandates, energy and emissions policy, workers’ compensation, rideshare regulation, and regulatory burden. The Chamber won many defensive fights when opposed bills were postponed indefinitely, failed, or were vetoed by the Governor. Several adverse bills still became law and remain important for implementation or future-session strategy.

Energy outcome for Colorado Springs Utilities

SB26-182 was a positive outcome for Colorado Springs Utilities and the Pikes Peak region because it updated the clean-energy planning framework for municipally owned utilities. The bill helps preserve a practical utility-planning pathway while still recognizing clean-energy goals, grid reliability, local governance, customer affordability, and the operational realities of municipal utilities.

AI bill importance and benefits

SB26-189 is important because it moved Colorado toward a more workable artificial-intelligence policy framework. The Chamber’s amend position recognized that AI rules should protect consumers and workers without freezing useful technology, creating unworkable liability, or discouraging innovation. The final outcome is more balanced than the earlier AI framework and gives businesses a clearer path for compliance and implementation.

Economic development and workforce development wins

The Chamber saw meaningful wins on economic development and workforce development. HB26-1014 extended the Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit, HB26-1416 transferred funds to the Colorado Economic Development Fund, HB26-1317 strengthened the postsecondary talent-development system, HB26-1431 advanced occupational licensure portability, SB26-126 supported experienced out-of-state teachers, and SB26-080 strengthened cradle-to-career pathways.

Housing affordability and accessibility wins

Housing remained one of the clearest examples of the Chamber’s position prevailing. SB26-001 and SB26-040 passed with Chamber support, while several opposed housing bills failed, including HB26-1036, HB26-1047, HB26-1106, HB26-1114, HB26-1308, HB26-1415, and SB26-129. HB26-1045 also passed under an amend position, supporting disability housing protections while reflecting the need for workable implementation.

Governor veto outcomes and remaining implementation risks

The Governor’s vetoes of HB26-1005, HB26-1210, and HB26-1236 materially improved the Chamber’s final outcome count because all three bills were opposed by the Chamber. The veto of HB26-1236 resolved the arbitration reform fight for this session after legal and business groups raised concerns about federal preemption, arbitrator-disqualification standards, punitive damages, and uncertainty for existing consumer and employment contracts. Source: State Street Colorado arbitration pushback analysis.

The veto of HB26-1210 also avoided a major business-climate risk. State Street Colorado had characterized the surveillance price and wage-setting bill as a veto battle and highlighted concerns about broad definitions, liability risk, loyalty programs, credit and lending impacts, compensation tools, and possible price increases. Source: State Street Colorado HB26-1210 veto analysis.

The veto of HB26-1005 removed a major collective-bargaining concern from the final enacted package. However, other opposed bills were signed or became final, including HB26-1207, HB26-1272, HB26-1424, SB26-093, and SB26-116, so the Chamber should continue helping members understand compliance timelines and practical implementation steps.

For rideshare, HB26-1424 was signed and remains an adverse outcome. The Governor’s 2025 veto context remains useful for future work because his office cited concerns about privacy, conflicts with federal and existing state law, implementation, compliance, and keeping TNC companies operating in Colorado while supporting nearly 50,000 jobs. Sources: Colorado Sun rideshare veto reporting and State Street Colorado rideshare analysis.

Bill outcome charts

The chart below summarizes final bill outcomes before the detailed bill tracker. Bright green denotes that the Chamber’s goal was achieved; bright red denotes that the Chamber’s goal was not achieved. For supported bills, passage is the goal. For opposed bills, stopping the bill through defeat or veto is the goal. The overall bar also includes bills where the Chamber took an amend position.

Narrative overview

The latest tracker includes 69 visible bills. Across the positioned bills, the Chamber prevailed on 51 outcomes: 19 supported bills passed, 29 opposed bills were stopped through defeat or veto, and 3 amend-position bills passed. The result reflects a session in which business concerns were heard, several harmful proposals were defeated, vetoed, or narrowed, and multiple proactive economic-development, workforce, child are, regulatory, housing, and energy priorities moved forward.

For Colorado Springs employers, the strongest positive outcomes were concentrated in workforce stability, housing supply and affordability, a predictable regulatory and tax environment, and childcare and early learning infrastructure. Workforce and talent wins included HB26-1317, SB26-126, SB26-080, and HB26-1431, which support career pathways, teacher licensure, cradle-to-career investments, postsecondary talent development, and occupational licensure portability.

Housing and affordability outcomes also tracked closely with Chamber priorities. SB26-001 and SB26-040 advanced workforce housing and affordable home ownership, while several opposed housing-cost, land-use, and development-related bills failed. On regulatory and tax policy, SB26-137, HB26-1088, HB26-1014, HB26-1416, and SB26-189 supported administrative burden reduction, business filings, job-growth incentives, economic development funding, and a more workable artificial intelligence framework.

Childcare and early learning remained central to the Chamber’s workforce agenda. HB26-1004, SB26-019, SB26-020, and SB26-080 support the childcare tax credit, early-childhood local systems, provider licensing quality, and cradle-to-career investments. Together, those outcomes reinforce the Chamber’s position that childcare capacity, housing availability, talent mobility, and predictable regulation are economic-development issues.

Budget overview

Colorado’s constitution requires a balanced state budget every fiscal year. Heading into the 2026 session, the Joint Budget Committee faced a budget gap of roughly $750 million, which grew to almost $1.5 billion as lawmakers worked through the 2026-27 budget. The final budget package totaled approximately $46.8 billion, including about $17.3 billion to $17.4 billion in discretionary General Fund spending, an increase of about $212 million over the prior year.

The 2026-27 Long Appropriations Bill, HB26-1410, passed both chambers. To balance the package, lawmakers used several tools: program reductions, cash-fund transfers, Medicaid provider-rate reductions, changes to reserve policy, and companion budget bills. The General Fund reserve was temporarily reduced from 15% to 13% for FY 2025-26 and FY 2026-27, then scheduled to return to 15% in later years.

For Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC members, the budget matters because it shapes the state’s ability to fund workforce pipelines, higher education, childcare, transportation, health care, and economic development. A tighter state budget also increases the likelihood that future sessions will revisit tax expenditures, fees, enterprise funding, and cost-shifting proposals that affect employers and local governments.