Republicans sided with a host of witnesses in a Senate committee hearing Monday challenging a Democrat measure placing new conditions on guns stored at home. The State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee's GOP members said Senate Bill 49 would make it much harder for homeowners to protect themselves and their families against home intrusions and burglaries.

SB 49, sponsored in the Senate by Arvada Democrat Sue Windels, holds homeowners criminally liable--subject to a misdemeanor charge--if minors obtain their firearms and commit suicide or a crime against another. Windels says the measure is meant to cut crime and teen suicides, but Republicans on the committee said the bill would backfire.

"Current law already addresses this issue," Sen. Bill Cadman, a Colorado Springs Republican on the committee, said after the hearing.

In another effort to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into Colorado, a Republican bill that would double the number of officers in the Colorado State Patrol Immigration Enforcement Unit won unanimous approval today in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sponsors of SB 87, Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, and Rep. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, say the expansion--from 24 to 48 members--is necessary due to the positive results the unit achieved in less than its first six months of operation. Harvey and King also say the state no longer can afford to wait for federal authorities to do their job.

"The federal government has made it obvious that it won't enact and enforce its own immigration laws," Harvey said.  "Consequently, state governments have been forced to pick up the slack and crack down on those individuals in our country illegally." 

A measure that has been dubbed the “Leave No Trial Lawyer Behind” bill passed the Senate this morning with majority Democrat support--over objections it would stoke litigation at the expense of business.

House Bill 1020, sponsored by Democrats Alice Madden in the House and Jennifer Veiga in the Senate, would make sweeping changes to the litigation system in Colorado to favor plaintiffs in lawsuits. While some legal observers say the bill upends a level playing field, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association lobbied for the bill and testified in

support of it in committee. 

In an attempt to level the playing field once more, Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, offered an amendment to give defendants a chance to provide a more accurate settlement offer by requiring of plaintiffs a full accounting of the costs they incurred.  However, the amendment failed when the majority Democrats voted it down.