Advance Colorado Releases

2025 Policy Agenda

Broad-based 'Moving Colorado Forward' Agenda Focuses on Making Communities Safer, Protecting Taxpayers, Improving Education & Enhancing Mental Health Services

Building a better Colorado through common-sense reforms in criminal justice, fiscal and economic policy, education and mental health services is the aim of the 2025 Advance Colorado policy agenda released this morning.

The multi-pronged Moving Colorado Forward agenda includes measures to address crime and illegal drug use, protect TABOR, expand housing opportunity, drive tax funding directly to classroom instruction and reform the delivery of mental health services statewide.

“Colorado can build on the progress made last year to cut and cap property taxes and address high rates of crime and drug use, which were pillars of our 2024 agenda,” said Michael Fields, Advance Colorado President. “We’re offering a positive and innovative plan for 2025 that will make communities safer, protect taxpayers, expand economic opportunity and improve education across Colorado.”

The agenda includes the following priorities:

Fighting Crime and Illegal Drugs – Make communities safer by:

Increasing penalties on drug dealers and for possession of such illegal drugs as cocaine, heroin, meth and the date rape drug.
Eliminating no-cost Personal Recognizance (PR) bonds.
Creating an online accountability database to track the issuance of PR bonds and determine which judges are most inclined to issue the bonds.
Raising the state cap on the number of juvenile offenders to get more of these young people off the streets and help them reform.
Fairly implementing the provisions of Proposition 130 which voters approved in 2024 to invest $350 million in law enforcement – without raising taxes.
Ensuring that the state’s new $1 million death benefit for the survivors of first responders killed in the line of duty is made effective on November 6, 2024 to provide for the family of a Golden police officer who died the day after Election Day.

Fiscal and Economic Policy – Protect taxpayers and expand economic Opportunity by:

Reforming construction liability laws to allow for the construction of more housing units and expand the opportunity for Coloradans to buy a home.
Repealing consumer taxes on deliveries and gasoline masquerading as fees.
Ending the legislative practice of avoiding the TABOR-required vote on tax increases by labeling higher taxes as fees.
Resisting efforts to weaken or abolish TABOR.

Education – Extend the promise of a quality education by:

Increasing the percentage of tax dollars that are invested directly in classroom teachers and instruction to 66 percent, up from the current 55 percent statewide average. The aim is to reduce the rising expenditure on non-instructional administrative positions in public schools.
Resisting efforts to weaken school choice including attacks on charter schools, home schooling, parental accountability and other expected anti-choice proposals.
Increasing the flexibility for rural school districts to hire educators with the goal of easing ongoing staff shortages.

Mental Health – Providing state block grants to help support Community Response Teams to pair mental health professionals with law enforcement to assist individuals, including the homeless, experiencing a mental health crisis.

“Coloradans across the political spectrum have made it clear they support common-sense policies to move Colorado forward,” said Kristi Burton Brown, Advance Colorado Executive Vice President. “We need more policies to expand opportunity for Coloradans and fewer measures driven by liberal ideology that send our state in the wrong direction.”

Fields said several legislators are expected to introduce items from the Advance Colorado agenda in bill form when the legislative session opens. Other items may appear on future ballots as citizen initiatives.

A copy of the detailed Moving Colorado Forward agenda can be found HERE

New Podcast Previews

Legislative Political Year Ahead

The latest Advance Colorado Rundown takes a deep dive into what grassroots conservatives can expect at the State Capitol in the year ahead.

Advance Colorado President Michael Fields and Executive Vice President Kristi Burton Brown provide a unique insiders' view of Colorado politics and the challenges -- and opportunities -- that lie ahead in 2025.

Listen to the entire podcast HERE.

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