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Colorado Youth Advisory Council seeks students for 2025-27 term
Source: Greeley Tribune
Students can now apply [through June 5] for openings on the Colorado Youth Advisory Council for the 2025-27 term.
The 2025-27 term looks to fill two at-large seats for rural applicants, one opening for a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and State Senate district seats for 1, 4, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32 and 35. The two-year term starts July 1, 2025, and goes through June 30, 2027.
May 31, 2025
‘Real, lasting change’: Steamboat high school senior helps pass state law expanding naloxone access
Source: Steamboat Pilot & Today
When Steamboat Springs High School senior Makena James learned that the opioid overdose treatment bill she had worked on for three years had been signed into law, she cried.
“I’ve poured my blood, sweat and tears into it,” James said. “It was such a wonderful moment to see that something I did as a teenage girl from Colorado is going to help the lives of everyone in this state.”
Senate Bill 25-164, which was signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis on May 5, increases statewide access to naloxone, a lifesaving medication that can help reverse opioid overdoses.
May 29, 2025
101 bills debated by the Colorado legislature in 2025 that you need to know about
Source: Colorado Public Radio
Senate Bill 199: This measure suspends the operations of most legislative interim committees this year as a cost-cutting measure. It was signed into law by the governor. The affected panels include the Colorado Health Insurance Exchange Oversight Committee; Legislative Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery Committee; Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning Colorado Jail Standards; Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning Tax Policy and Task Force; and the Opioid and Other Substance Use Disorders Study Committee. The law also strips the Colorado Youth Advisory Council’s ability to request that legislation it drafts be introduced.
May 8, 2025
Inside a unique program that lets high school students shape Colorado state law
Source: KUNC Colorado Public Radio
Some of Colorado’s state laws share an unusual origin story. One set aside money to help foster kids attend college. Another provides free menstrual products in schools. A third law funded an awareness program to prevent eating disorders. All of these are laws that were designed and proposed by high school students, who actually drafted the language of each bill before legislators ultimately approved them.
May 1, 2025
Source: The Colorado Sun
Colorado lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and decided to keep in place a 20-year-old program that gets teens involved at the Capitol — with a big caveat. The Colorado Youth Advisory Council will no longer have the power to draft bills for the legislature’s consideration.
COYAC never had the power to send bills directly to the legislature for consideration. Instead, their policies — a handful each year — were vetted through the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, a panel of top statehouse Republicans and Democrats.
March 12, 2025
Colorado May End Program Promoting Teen Participation in Lawmaking
Source: Westword
"Young people have a hard time connecting with state policy; it feels so far away and out of reach. COYAC brings it down to a level you can relate to," [alum Aimee] Resnick says. "Young people already feel really disinvested in politics right now across the political spectrum. If we lose COYAC, it's just further telling young people that politics is not the place that they belong.
"It's also a loss for the state of Colorado," she adds. "It's divesting in young people who are interested in public service and want to work to better our state."
March 10, 2025
Bill would require Colorado schools to provide gun violence prevention material to parents
Source: Denver7
Most school shooters get their guns from the home of a parent or relative. The bill would require Colorado school districts to provide information to parents about safe gun storage at the beginning of every school year.
March 7, 2025
Colorado legislature’s executive committee cancels 10 committees, citing budget concerns (Paywalled)
Source: Colorado Politics
The Colorado Youth Advisory Council Committee: Eliminating the council in 2025 and 2026 will save about $50,000 in general funds annually. The council's members, made up of high school students around the state, will be allowed to make a scheduled presentation to the legislature in July but will not be allowed to meet after that nor offer legislation to the General Assembly for its consideration.
March 5, 2025
Snacks, anyone: This one hit Capitol M in the feels. (Paywalled)
Source: Colorado Politics
Rep. Ron Weinberg of Loveland is on a quest to reduce food waste this year. He's got two bills that have already cleared the House on the issue. This pertains to the bill he and Rep. Lisa Feret of Arvada are carrying on behalf of the Representative Hugh McKean Colorado Youth Advisory Council Review Committee (that's the feels part). Weinberg first got to the House and was appointed by a vacancy committee after the death of the respected House Minority Leader in 2022.
House Bill 1059 is about reducing food waste in public schools, but it’s dubbed the "snack bill" by some of his colleagues.
In honor of its recent passage through the House Education Committee, Weinberg's colleagues decided to turn his desk into a snack station. The photo shows a small sample of the stuff they dumped on it.
The bill won a 60-3 vote from the House on Feb. 19 and is now waiting to be taken to the Senate snack bar. There, it will be up to the Janices—Sens. Rich of Grand Junction and Marchman of Loveland —to get it to the checkout line.
March 4, 2025
Opinion: Dear Colorado legislators: Don’t cut your youth advisory council just for a $50k savings
Source: The Colorado Sun
The money allocated for the teen program that connects youth to state policymakers has led to monumental change and success. I am 16 years old, a junior in high school, and I’ve been a member of the Colorado Youth Advisory Council, or COYAC, for two years. I have become a more confident and driven person because of my time in COYAC, which connects teens with state legislators to give youth a direct voice in creating policy.
March 4, 2025