Bipartisan bill would force Polis administration to disclose its lobbying like everyone else

DENVER — A bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers is racing to put a transparency bill on Gov. Jared Polis’s desk before the 2026 session adjourns on May 13. The measure would require the governor’s office, executive-branch staff, and the judicial branch to register and file the same monthly lobbying disclosures that already bind every private-sector lobbyist working at the state Capitol.

The Colorado General Assembly passed SB26-147 out of the Senate on a 30 to 4 vote on April 22, and the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee referred the reengrossed bill to House Appropriations on a unanimous 11 to 0 vote on April 27. The bill is led by Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Democrat from Lakewood, and Sen. Rod Pelton, a Republican from the Eastern Plains, with Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Republican from Fort Morgan, and Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat from Englewood, carrying it in the House. The reengrossed sponsorship block lists 17 Senate co-sponsors and 27 House co-sponsors in addition to the four prime sponsors.

Johnson, in an interview on The Kim Monson Show, said the bill is meant to close a gap that has frustrated legislators in both parties. “It really is to make the governor’s office, his team and the executive branch have to be transparent when they’re dealing with legislative, when they’re meddling with our bills,” Johnson said. “Essentially, we want them to be transparent and accountable, that people know what’s happening.”

What the bill does

Under existing Colorado law, professional lobbyists must register with the Colorado Department of State before lobbying and file monthly disclosure statements identifying the bills they work on and their position on each. The statute, C.R.S. 24-6-303, exempts state officials and employees acting in their official capacity. SB26-147 narrows that exemption.

The reengrossed bill creates two new categories of regulated lobbyists who must register annually with the Secretary of State and file monthly disclosures. A “governor’s lobbyist” is defined as anyone who lobbies on behalf of the offices of the governor or lieutenant governor as a member of the cabinet or as personal staff. A “judicial lobbyist” is anyone who lobbies on behalf of the judicial department. The existing legislative-liaison category, one per principal department, is brought under the same disclosure regime.

Each of those officials would have to identify the bill number of every measure they lobby on and disclose their position, and they would have to update that position within 72 hours of any change. The bill also imposes a two-year cooling-off period preventing a statewide elected official or member of the General Assembly from working as a legislative liaison or governor’s lobbyist for two years after leaving office.

Why sponsors say the bill exists

Johnson told Kim Monson the legislature has watched the governor’s office repeatedly intervene at the last minute on bills sponsors have spent months building in public. “He will send in his team half an hour, doesn’t matter, you know, Republican Democrat bill, half an hour before committee and say, we don’t like it, can you please kill it?” Johnson said. “No stakeholding, no chance to work with them on amendments. Some of these bills have been open for over a year.”

Johnson described the disclosure mechanism as a straight transfer of the existing private-sector regime onto the executive branch. “Currently lobbyists for organizations have to report to the Secretary of State on their stances,” she said. “So anytime they start to actively engage on a bill, regardless of the position, support, oppose, amend, they have to document that. The governor’s office, the executive branch do not have to do it. So we’re asking that they be held to the same standard. They have been [acting] a lot like lobbyists in every regard of the definition, so they also need to be regulated like lobbyists.”

Froelich, the House prime sponsor, made a similar argument before the House State Affairs committee, telling members the bill would “rebalance the power between branches, because for the past eight years, there has been an imbalance made worse by the fact that legislators are caught unaware when the executive branch operates,” according to Colorado Politics.

Lobbyists, and only one named opponent

The bill has drawn an unusual coalition of supporters, including the trade group that represents the lobbyists who would gain new competition for influence under the disclosure regime. The Colorado Lobbying Association has come out in support of SB26-147. Lacey Hays, who heads the association, told the House State Affairs committee “it is extremely difficult for us to understand why the governor’s office and the judicial branch are not supportive of transparency,” according to Colorado Politics.

No witness testified against the bill at the April 27 hearing. The only listed opposition is Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. A handful of judicial agencies are listed as seeking amendments. The governor’s office, which itself employs a registered lobbyist, has not listed a position on SB26-147 and has never testified on it, Colorado Politics reported.

Polis opposes the bill. According to Colorado Politics, sources have told the publication SB26-147 is the No. 1 bill on the governor’s veto list. The governor’s office has not publicly confirmed that ranking.

A clock and an override math problem

The 2026 Second Regular Session of the Seventy-fifth General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn sine die on May 13. The bill’s sponsors are racing two timelines at once. The first is the regular legislative calendar, with House Appropriations action and a House floor vote still ahead. The second is the timing window for a possible override.

Bills the governor receives through Friday May 1 trigger a 10-day window for him to sign, veto, or allow a bill to become law without his signature. Bills received Monday May 4 or later trigger a 30-day post-session window, which removes the practical possibility of an in-session override before the May 13 adjournment. The Senate vote of 30 to 4 already exceeds the two-thirds margin required for an override in that chamber. The 11 to 0 House State Affairs vote suggests, but does not guarantee, similar margins on the House floor.

Johnson said House leadership has not committed to scheduling second and third readings on Thursday and Friday, and she asked listeners to contact their representatives to push for a vote before the weekend. “We need to get this bill to the House floor for Thursday and Friday because we have the second and third reading,” Johnson said on the show. “But we need pressure on the House members, especially leadership, urging how important this is. This is the governor’s number one item he wants to veto. Imagine that. He doesn’t want transparency on himself. But if we have any chance of overriding his veto, we need to get it through the process and to his desk before this weekend.”

Polis vetoed 11 bills passed by the 2025 legislature, a personal record, according to Colorado Newsline. His previous record was 10 vetoes in 2023. Veto overrides at the Colorado Capitol are rare in any administration; an override of a Polis veto would be the first of his tenure.