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General Assembly schedules Jan. 16 joint session to hear Ute tribal leaders
Summary
The Colorado General Assembly adopted a resolution setting a joint session of the House and Senate at 10 a.m. Jan. 16, 2025, to receive a message from representatives of the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes and named a six-member escort committee.
The Colorado House of Representatives on the floor adopted House Joint Resolution 1003, setting a joint session of both chambers for 10 a.m. on Jan. 16, 2025, to hear a message from representatives of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.
Representative Soukla, one of the sponsors, described the item as “a resolution allowing for the joint session to hear the state of the tribes message” and said the proposal requests that a group of three senators and three representatives escort the tribal leaders into the joint session. "They are my neighbors," Soukla added, describing personal ties to members of the Ute nations and saying she was “proud to honor and present this motion forward.”
The House approved a technical amendment labeled L001 clarifying information about the tribes listed in the resolution. The amendment passed by recorded vote with 59 yes, five excused and one vacancy. After the amendment, the House adopted the resolution as amended by recorded vote with 60 yes, four excused and one vacancy.
The resolution text read on the floor recognizes Colorado’s resident Ute nations and names the two Colorado tribal governments explicitly addressed in the measure: the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. It also references a third Ute nation mentioned in the reading of the resolution and commits the General Assembly to “maintaining strong, respectful relationships between our state government and the sovereign tribal nations with whom we share this state.”
The measure directs the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate to appoint a committee of three members from each chamber to escort the tribal representatives into the joint session. The resolution establishes the place and time of the address as the House Chambers at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.
The action on HJR1003 was procedural and ceremonial in nature: it schedules and recognizes a forthcoming message rather than adopting policy or allocating funds. The House approved the amendment and the resolution on voice or recorded votes as noted; no individual yea or nay votes were recorded in the transcript beyond the tallies reported by the clerk.
