Title 12 Recodification Project

Title 12 Recodification Bill Signed by Governor

After conducting more than a dozen stakeholder meetings during the 2018 interim to obtain feedback and input on proposals to structurally reorganize Title 12 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, the Office of Legislative Legal Services compiled the proposals into a single bill to recodify Title 12 - House Bill 19-1172 - which was signed by the governor on April 25, 2019. 

The Office has prepared a comparative table to indicate where existing statutes have been relocated: Title 12 Comparative Table

Title 12 Recodification Project Background

In 2016, the General Assembly enacted S.B. 16-163, which directs the Office of Legislative Legal Services (OLLS) to conduct a study of an organizational recodification of Title 12 of the Colorado Revised Statutes governing the regulation of professions and occupations. Since then, the OLLS staff have worked with stakeholders to draft two dozen bills, all passed by the General Assembly, to relocate 36 articles and parts from Title 12 (and four provisions from Title 24) to their more appropriate titles in the Colorado Revised Statutes, including a newly created Title 44 for those activities under the regulatory authority of the Department of Revenue. For more background, click here.

Title 12 currently contains only laws pertaining to professions or occupations regulated by the Department of Regulatory Agencies through either the Division of Real Estate or the Division of Professions and Occupations.

The next -- and final -- phase of the Title 12 Recodification Project involves identifying redundant and nearly duplicative provisions and combining them into common provisions that could, when appropriate, apply broadly to many of the professions and occupations regulated under Title 12.

As in the past, the OLLS staff will solicit input from any affected and interested representatives from the professions and occupations regulated under Title 12 and interested members of the public, as well as state and local government agencies. The goal is to formulate specific recodification proposals and begin writing draft legislation during the interim for introduction in the 2019 legislative session.

How can you participate in the project?

• Listen to the meetings, including archived recordings
• Subscribe to the Title 12 Recodification Project Mailing List

Legislation Signed Into Law

Relocate Various Articles from Title 12 and Title 24 to Other Titles in the Colorado Revised Statutes

Miscellaneous

Why is recodification needed?

A more rational organization of Title 12 would make the title easier to understand, administer, and amend because:

• Title 12 is Voluminous
  • Contains nearly 1500 pages
  • Addresses not only laws governing professions and occupations regulated by the Department of Regulatory Agencies, but other areas of law not truly a "profession or occupation", impacting 7 principal state departments, the judicial branch, local governments, and medical schools
  • Articles that do not pertain to the regulation of a profession or occupation may be better located within the organic statutes for the department that administers the article
• Title 12 is Disorganized
  • Almost a third of the articles have been repealed, but the numbers for those articles cannot be reused absent a recodification
  • Another third of the articles have been squeezed in between previous articles (like 43.2, 43.3, 43.4, etc.) in an effort to add new regulated professions and occupations in alphabetical order
• Title 12 is Repetitive
  • Many articles contain duplicative language that could be consolidated into a general or common provisions article that could apply broadly to all professions and occupations