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State Current Issues
House Bill 1347 goes before the Health and Human Services committee tomorrow. This bill deals with a proposed immunization database. While it does contain an opt-out feature for parents, the idea of collecting and maintaining sensitive information about our children on a database that can be accessed by numerous agencies and government officials is troublesome. It purports to gather data to ensure that 90% of Colorado's children are immunized by 2010. However, statistics already are available to them, so this creates another layer of government intrusion into the private sector.
Prayers for the rejection of this bill would be appreciated.
Today (Wednesday, February 21, 2007) marks the beginning of week seven for the Colorado State Legislature. During this time it has been hectic, and it is very easy to lose hope in the sea of opposition. Various legislators, such as Rep. Lundberg and Sen. Schultheis, have led the fight against this opposition.
For updates on bills that aren't education related, please visit Treon Goossen's webpage at http://www.ro828.com/ or visit my blog, found at http://legislativeintent.googlepages.com/. Both are updated as time and energy allow.
For more information on the Family-a-Day Campaign, visit http://legislativeintent.googlepages.com/family-a-day or email me at sarah@chec.org. For this campaign, I have had about fifty families contact me at this point in time. Six families are currently scheduled for introduction or have been introduced in the last two weeks. Thank you for contacting us about this, and please do continue to spread the word! The Senate no longer allows introductions of any kind.
For more general information on the legislature (including how to contact your Representative and Senator), visit the General Assembly Home Page at http://www.leg.state.co.us/.
There are four key bills that deal with home education and CHEC.
SB07-016: This bill deals with lowering the compulsory attendance age from 7 to 6. Sen. Tapia said he was careful about not including homeschoolers in the lowering of compulsory attendance age. He brought up how a member in committee was grateful he did so they would not have to deal with thousands of calls! (This was Sen. Windels, the Chairman of Senate Education.) He went on to say that the real reason he included the exemption for homeschoolers is that it is an excellent opportunity for parents who take responsibility for their child's education, and that his confidence level is strong for their success. There is also an exemption being talked about for private schools as well. This bill passed the Senate on February 5, and is now awaiting a House Education Committee hearing.
SB07-080: This bill deals with vaccinations. The language says that before any girl can be admitted to the sixth grade in any school in CO (which would include homeschooling), she must provide proof of vaccination for HPV or the proper paperwork for the opt-out. Information concerning the HPV vaccine will be given to the girls between the ages of 11 and 18 and to their parent/guardian by their healthcare provider. Unfortunately, what this bill's language doesn't say is that the HPV virus, as an STD, is already preventable. Abstinence works. This bill passed out of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and will be heard soon in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Also, SB09-097 would add the HPV vaccine to the list of required vaccines before entering school. This bill passed the Senate on February 20th, and is awaiting a House hearing in both the Health and Human Services and Appropriations Committees.
SB07-025: This bill makes it illegal to discriminate against anyone in the workplace because of their sexual orientation. This bill exempts religious organizations unless they receive any public funding. This bill, however, does not exempt non-profits or educational organizations as far as I can tell, which means CHEC could be affected by this bill. This bill passed unamended out of Senate State, Veteran and Military Affairs Committee and is awaiting a hearing before Senate Appropriations.
Please remember to pray for your representatives, senators and others serving our state and nation. If you can, please send them a note of encouragement. I know it will be sincerely appreciated.
Sarah Anderson, Legislative Reporter
Join Us in Praying for our Legislators and other Elected Officials
by Sarah Anderson, Legislative Reporter
CHEC invites you to join with Treon Goossen and us in praying for our legislators and others elected officials. Here's a quote from Treon's blog.
Many of you have been joining me in prayer and fasting for the legislature and other elected officials the first Monday of every month. Beginning in January, 2007 I am increasing that time to every Monday. Please join me as you can for this special time to uphold our elected officials in the state and federal governments in prayer.
-Treon
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