Criminal justice system bills, tax credit vote, abortion rights and other issues the Colorado legislature is taking on this week

It’s just the second full week of the Colorado General Assembly, but the drama is quickly ramping up.

On Monday morning, House Minority Leader Mike Lynch survived a no-confidence vote prompted by his secretive handling of a drunken driving arrest, but just barely — raising the possibility his Republican colleagues will try again to oust him.

Aside from leadership squabbles, there’s already a bill that’s crossed chambers. Lawmakers have worked quickly to undo, and then redo, a law that they passed two months ago, during the November special session. It doubled the state’s match of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit as part of a package of property tax and housing cost relief bills.

A Republican member of the House then sued, arguing the EITC bill was passed unconstitutionally. The House passed the new version of the bill last week, and the full Senate is set to consider the measure, HB24-1084, on Tuesday.

Otherwise, the legislature is beginning work on a bevy of other bills, though few of them are the sweeping priority bills that were previewed by leadership ahead of the session.

Here’s what to expect at the Capitol for the rest of this week:

Recidivism and criminal justice on the agenda

A trio of bills from the Recidivism Interim Study Committee will get a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday afternoon. The three bills, if passed, will prompt deeper looks at different parts of the criminal justice system.

One would require the Colorado Department of Public Safety to define the term “recidivism” for use by the state; the second would create a working group to develop alternative metrics for measuring outcomes from the criminal justice system, aside from recidivism; and a third would require a study of how individuals move through criminal justice proceedings.

All three bills are sponsored by Sens. Julie Gonzales and Robert Rodriguez, both Denver Democrats who serve on the interim committee.