Colorado lawmakers cut bill-drafting power of teen panel, but opt to keep 20-year-old Capitol program

Colorado lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and decided to keep in place a 20-year-old program that gets teens involved at the Capitol — with a big caveat.

The Colorado Youth Advisory Council will no longer have the power to draft bills for the legislature’s consideration.

The General Assembly planned to axe the Colorado Youth Advisory Council — known as COYAC — to save $50,000 annually as lawmakers try to close a $1.2 billion budget hole. Republicans also complained that the council had become too liberal. 

Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, attempted Wednesday on the Senate floor to keep the council operating as-is, but an amendment she offered to Senate Bill 199, which will end a number of interim committees to save money, failed. 

Winter then huddled with Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, landing on a compromise that the program would continue without bill-drafting power. 

“We’re going to let COYAC continue to meet, but we’re going to change the future of COYAC and how it interacts,” Lundeen said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Instead of acting as a group of sub-legislators having drafting authority, we’ll remove all drafting authority from COYAC in perpetuity.”

Winter said “having COYAC move forward, allowing them to get the benefits of meeting with legislators, talking about policies, proposing ideas” without drafting authority is “completely acceptable.”

The cost of the program will remain the same even as COYAC loses its bill-drafting power.

COYAC never had the power to send bills directly to the legislature for consideration. Instead, their policies — a handful each year — were vetted through the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, a panel of top statehouse Republicans and Democrats. 

Sometimes their measures advanced, sometimes they were rejected.

In recent years, COYAC has drafted legislation to require school staff to address students by their chosen name, boost mental health resources in schools, reduce food waste in public schools and get young people involved in environmental justice.

The Colorado Youth Advisory Council was created in 2008 and is composed of 40 junior high and high school students representing each of the state’s 35 Senate districts, as well as the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes. Teens serve two-year terms on the council. 

COYAC was founded through legislation brought by a Republican, then-state Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango. The panel that reviews COYAC’s work is named after the late House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, another Republican.

The $50,000 appropriated annually to the council pays for an overnight retreat, annual visit to the Capitol, send-off dinner for high school seniors, committee meetings with legislators and for a professional facilitator to run the program. 

Current and former members of COYAC petitioned lawmakers not to cut the program, saying it’s imperative that youth voices be heard at the Capitol. 

Senate Bill 199 passed the Senate on a voice vote Wednesday. It needs a final vote in the chamber before heading to the House for consideration. 

The legislature is expected to debate the full state budget in the coming weeks.