Welcome to 2019! Sherman & Howard wishes you a happy and healthy new year. Here are your public-law highlights:

• New legislative sessions begin. The 116th Congress came to order on January 3 in Washington, DC; here in Colorado, the state’s General Assembly convenes on January 4.

• Tax questions likely to take center stage. This session the General Assembly will have to make some important decisions on education and transportation funding in Colorado. To do that, they’ll have to wrestle with TABOR and the Gallagher Amendment, two provisions of the state constitution that have an outsized impact on fiscal policy. Attorney Chris Jackson sat down with Next’s Kyle Clark to discuss the significance of those two provisions.

• Elected leaders hire senior staff. Governor-Elect Jared Polis has hired several staff members, including former opponent Cary Kennedy, who will serve as senior adviser for fiscal policy, and Jacki Cooper Melmed, who will stay on as chief legal counsel. Attorney General-Elect Phil Weiser also announced several of his own appointments, as did Secretary of State-Elect Jena Griswold.

• Colorado judge blocks birth-control mandate. Colorado federal judge Philip Brimmer issued an order permanently enjoining the federal government from enforcing a law requiring the employer-plaintiffs to cover birth control in their healthcare plans. The defendants in the case, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services, did not oppose the injunction.

• • Campaign-finance fines. Ace reporter Sandra Fish has this great write-up on the $2.3 million in outstanding campaign-finance fines here in Colorado.