Rod Pelton, Jerry Sonnenberg ready to be back in session
State legislators resumed the 2021 session of the General Assembly on Tuesday, Feb. 16, after a five-week break.
While lawmakers weren’t at the Capitol, it didn’t mean they weren’t working. The Joint Budget Committee met throughout the break to work on adjustments to the 2020-21 state budget, known as supplementals, and legislative committees held hearings with state agencies to review those agencies’ budgets and programs.
It also gave lawmakers, their staff and members of the media who cover the legislature time to get vaccinated so that the return to the state Capitol doesn’t become a possible superspreader COVID event. At least a half-dozen lawmakers and aides have tested positive for the virus.
Lawmakers now have 117 days left in the 2021 session, although whether they will meet until mid-June is still to be determined.
Northeastern Colorado’s lawmakers — Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, and Rep. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells — recently spoke about their priorities for the session.
Sonnenberg’s priorities include water, livestock, conservation easements, stimulus resources for agricultural shows including the state fair and what the state division of motor vehicles does with the information provided for your driver’s license.
Pelton, who was elected to a leadership post in the House minority caucus last November, plans to watch out for bills that affect rural Colorado and ag. “There’s still a huge urban-rural divide,” he said recently. “I have a feeling it won’t get any better this session.”
Pelton’s legislative agenda will again focus on behavioral health, an issue that he has been successful on in the past several sessions. One bill would set up a behavioral health administration, to be cosponsored with Rep. Mary Young, D-Greeley.
Pelton said that money has come in for behavioral health in several different agencies and programs, yet no one knows how much or where. Their bill would attempt to get behavioral health programs under one roof, to increase transparency and efficiency, and so that more money goes to those who need the help.
Another Pelton bill will deal with the state’s fence law. Pelton explained that if you buy a piece of property and it has had a fence for 20 years, under the law that’s the new property line. For agricultural land, that could be as much as 20 or 30 acres fenced outside of your property. This bill would revamp the Colorado fence law, requiring that property lines go back to survey markers. “I want to make sure it’s fair,” he said.
Pelton was chosen to be House minority whip for the 2021 and 2022 sessions, the first Eastern Plains lawmaker to hold that position since 2007 to 2010, when Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, was the whip. Pelton explained that the whip monitors the bills headed to committees and the House floor, and works with members who know the subject well and can talk about the issue.
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