VACCINATION BILL DRAWS A CROWD
Jeanette Alford of Peyton has her young children with her as she waits Wednesday for a chance to speak against a vaccination bill at a Senate finance committee hearing at the state Capitol in Denver. The bill, which would require parents to apply for personal or religious vaccine exemptions in person at a state office, passed the House during the weekend, but it is running out of time to make it through the Senate. The General Assembly must finish its work by midnight Friday.
A bill to make it harder for parents to get vaccine exemptions for their children — one of the most hotly contested bills of the Colorado General Assembly this year — got a surprise Senate committee hearing Wednesday, signaling its chances of passing.
More than 400 parents filled the hallways of the Capitol for the second time this session in the hopes of stopping it. But unlike the earlier House committee hearing, which stretched into the wee hours of the next morning, the Senate finance committee limited public testimony Wednesday to a total of four hours.
To accommodate what is expected to be a contentious hearing, the full Senate adjourned for the day, despite having only two more days to finish all of its work before it’s required to adjourn. Given the constitutional time crunch, it’s common for hearings on bills to be limited.
Opponents of the bill who packed the Capitol through the day were upset that not everyone would get a chance to share their opinions on the bill.
“Four hours is a sham,” Christine Sullivan, who opposes the bill, said before the committee meeting began. “Both sides deserve to be heard. We’re the constituents. Lawmakers have a responsibility to listen to our voice. That’s literally their job.”
House Bill 1312, which would require parents to apply for personal or religious vaccine exemptions in person at a state office, passed the House during the weekend.
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Steve Fenberg said earlier in the week it wasn’t must-pass legislation before Friday’s required adjournment, but Democrats added it to the committee’s agenda late Wednesday morning.
“It’s obviously a national issue at the moment,” Fenberg told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “It’s not like this is just some pet project of one legislator that cares about this one issue. This is a conversation happening around the country, obviously.”
The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted more than 700 cases of measles this year — a record high since the disease was declared eradicated from the United States in 2000. Lawmakers in California, Washington and New York are pushing more aggressive legislation to combat outbreaks in their states, including eliminating personal and religious vaccination exemptions altogether.
Colorado parents who oppose the bill started streaming into the Capitol almost as soon as it appeared on the committee agenda.
“People are going to show up when they’re passionate,” Callie DelGrosso said.
Some are concerned that vaccines aren’t safe and that the requirement to request an exemption in person would place an unfair burden on those living in rural areas.
Currently parents can request exemptions at their child’s school.
Nearly all Senate Republicans oppose the vaccine bill and have said they intend to make the debate as long as possible.
Democrats technically have the power to limit debate on the floor, too, but it’s a rarely invoked rule. So far the Senate has used this rule only Monday night, when debate went almost until sunrise Tuesday.
The other hurdle facing the vaccine bill as the session winds down is the governor himself. Gov. Jared Polis said last week that he, too, opposes the requirement for parents to go to a state office. It’s not clear, though, if Polis would veto it.
“The conversation around a governor’s veto or not is obviously something everyone considers and discusses,” Fenberg said. “Everyone wants to know if you should put the time into a bill if it’s going to get vetoed. But at the same time, we have a job to do.”
The Colorado Hospital Association, physicians and health officials have urged passage of the bill, pointing to Colorado’s vaccination rate, among the lowest in the country.
“It’s a great step in the right direction to increase immunization rates in Colorado,” Dr. Anne Frank, a pediatrician at Denver Health, said Wednesday, adding that there is urgency to pass the bill because of measles outbreaks in other states.