The Colorado legislature’s special session hit an unexpected delay Friday as planned amendments for a bill altering the state’s artificial intelligence regulations got stuck in an impasse before they could be heard by a key committee.

Senate Bill 4, sponsored by a top Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, would update AI regulations already in state law before they go into effect in February. It is one of two competing AI regulation bills being considered during the special legislative session, which began Thursday with the main purpose of addressing the state’s budget shortfall.

Those regulations, already passed into law as a compromise in 2024, ignited a firestorm at the end of the last legislative session in the spring as Gov. Jared Polis and the tech industry worried they would be too onerous for the growing industry. Rodriguez’s new proposal hasn’t calmed those concerns, although it has the backing of unions and consumer advocacy organizations.

However, Rodriguez’s bill also got tagged with a $7 million-per-year price tag by fiscal analysts — a steep hurdle in any year, but even more so when a primary reason for the special session is to bridge a $783 million budget gap caused by the state impact of the federal tax bill.

The proposal, as drafted, would tightly regulate AI developers and the use of its technology by companies and agencies, require additional disclosures to consumers, and allow people to sue tech companies and businesses that use their products over discrimination claims.

The bill’s next stop was the Senate Appropriations Committee, where its fate is unclear.

Lawmakers and lobbyists on either side of the debate spent much of Friday huddling and darting between meetings, with no apparent breakthrough in negotiations. About 3 p.m., Rodriguez announced he would adjourn the Senate for the day, saying he needed more time for amendments and the chamber’s members didn’t need to wait around all day for them.

Rodriguez initially planned for the Appropriations Committee to hear the bill Friday and for an unrecorded voice vote from the full Senate later that day. Now, he plans for those actions to happen today.

Meanwhile, the more moderate AI bill, House Bill 1008, was gutted by its sponsors Friday to simply delay the February effective date of the regulations until October 2026, allowing more time for debate over changes early next year.

The bill still needs full approval from the House before it goes to the Senate. The question of which bill will win final approval is still unclear.

“We are in a strange place with a bill that’s set to be implemented in February, and what we are now planning to do is just kick out that date to a later implementation,” said Rep. William Lindstedt, a Broomfield Democrat and HB-1008’s sponsor. “So that’s where we are — so that we as a legislature can come back to this issue and have a proper discussion when we have time, during (a regular) session. Doing this during a special session is quite difficult.”

Progress on budget-related bills

Elsewhere, lawmakers advanced several bills that would eliminate tax breaks or otherwise raise money to try to close the budget gap.

And after discussion of a potential censure roiled the House on Thursday — and led to Republican Rep. Ryan Armagost’s immediate resignation — House leadership was still sorting out what’s next.

It was unclear whether Democrats would otherwise seek accountability somehow for Republican legislators’ private ridicule of a Democratic legislator’s appearance in a private group chat that included Armagost’s sharing of a photo he took on the House floor last spring.

In the House Friday, Democratic legislators moved to take initial voice votes on a suite of revenue-raising changes to the tax code, in proposals intended to raise more money from corporations. After delays during the day, those votes continued into the evening — with Democrats placing a one-hour limit on debate after Republicans spoke at length against some.

One was House Bill 1001. Federal tax law allows for a deduction based on business income. But Colorado has limited that deduction temporarily here in recent years, and HB-1001 would make that limit — which blocks people who make more than $500,000 a year from taking the deduction — permanent.

State fiscal analysts project the change would raise $46 million for the state through the rest of this fiscal year, which ends next June, plus about $100 million in each of the next two years.

Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat sponsoring the bill, said it was intended to balance out new benefits given to corporations under the federal tax bill, which is what caused the hole in the state budget. The federal changes were passed by congressional Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump last month.

The Senate gave formal approval Friday morning to a bill diverting $264,000 in general fund money from wolf reintroduction to a state health insurance fund — marking the sole bipartisan agreement in what had to that point been a hyperpartisan special session. The bill earlier was amended so that it would no longer put a pause on wolf releases.

The Senate also gave formal approval to several other bills, albeit on partisan lines.

Those bills would let state Medicaid dollars go to Planned Parenthood after national Republicans banned federal dollars from going to the organization; change a ballot measure on universal school meals to allow extra money to go to a food assistance program, if voters adopt the measure in November; and to require the governor’s office to notify lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee when he needs to cut a certain amount of spending mid-fiscal year because of an unexpected budget crunch.

Those bills still needed to go through the House before they could go to Polis for final approval.