All Roll Calls
Yes: 238 • No: 22
ColoradoHB25-12042025 Regular SessionHouse
Colorado Indian Child Welfare Act
Sponsored By: Jessie Danielson (Democratic), Junie Joseph (Democratic), Monica Duran (Democratic)
Signed by Governor
Human ServicesChildren & Domestic Matters
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
14 provisions identified: 13 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Indian families can challenge unlawful custody
Indian children, qualifying parents or custodians, and tribes can challenge specified custody orders that violate the law. Courts must cancel unlawful orders; canceling a termination order restores parental rights. If a violation caused removal, courts must arrange prompt return with a transition plan unless they set a hearing within 28 days. Improper retention after a visit or temporary custody requires immediate return and dismissal, unless immediate danger requires a hearing within 28 days. Parents can also challenge final adoptions based on fraud or duress, but after two years, other state law must allow it.
Stronger safeguards before Indian parents lose rights
Before ending parental rights, courts must offer mediation and rule out less drastic choices, including guardianship and tribal customary adoption. Active reunification efforts must have failed to eliminate the need for termination. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, including qualified-expert testimony, must link specific home conditions to likely serious emotional or physical harm. Poverty or other listed social conditions alone are not enough; filing parties and their employees cannot serve as qualified experts. Filing parties must seek tribal experts and document customary-adoption efforts, and termination orders must protect tribal ties when the tribe requests it.
Clearer notices give Indian families time
Required notices must clearly explain the case, family information, rights, and possible legal results. Courts must provide language help when a parent or Indian custodian may not understand the notice. A hearing requiring notice must wait at least 10 days after the last required recipient receives it. Parents, Indian custodians, and tribes can request up to 21 additional days to prepare; emergency safety reviews can continue. For listed filings, postal receipts must accompany the papers or be filed within 14 days, replacing a 10-day deadline for some filings.
Earlier checks protect Indian children's rights
Courts must ask about Indian-child status at the start of every covered case, and filing parties must document family inquiries. Credible information, including tribal, reservation, health, or school records, can trigger protections; incomplete heritage information requires further investigation. New status information must be shared within seven days or before the next hearing, whichever comes first. Courts must record their findings, and children receive protections while their status is being resolved. Filing parties must make at least two tribal contacts or good-faith attempts within 70 days after the finding, unless written tribal status information arrives; failed contact requires seeking Bureau of Indian Affairs help.
Emergency removals of Indian children limited
At emergency removal, the person or agency must check possible Indian-child status and immediately contact potentially involved tribes. Tribes must receive removal reasons, first-hearing details, and notice of their right to participate. Emergency removal must end as soon as it is no longer needed to prevent imminent physical harm or danger. Removal beyond 30 days requires a continuing danger finding plus an unfinished approved tribal transfer or a required hearing that diligent efforts could not secure. In the latter case, the court must schedule the hearing within seven days after that finding.
Enrollment help connects children with tribes
The filing party or tribe must help an eligible Indian child enroll in a tribe unless a parent objects. Filing parties must identify relevant tribes and tell the child and parent about that objection right. An existing membership generally determines the tribe used for the case. If multiple tribes qualify, they can agree on the designation; otherwise, the court holds a hearing. The court considers family ties, residence, tribal interests, parental preference, and the child's meaningful self-identification.
Indian children's placements protect cultural ties
Courts must consult the tribe on children's best interests and follow tribal placement preferences in the least restrictive suitable setting. Without tribal preferences, substitute care favors, in order: a noncustodial parent, extended family, tribal foster homes, other tribal members, connected Indian families, culturally similar Indian families, state-licensed Indian foster homes, then tribally approved institutions. Adoption and guardianship use a separate preference order, and adoption confidentiality does not excuse compliance. Departures require notice, a hearing, and clear and convincing proof of good cause; poverty, distance, or negative views of tribal systems alone are insufficient. Adoption or guardianship households without a parent from the child's tribe must have an enforceable, child-specific cultural compact or plan.
More legal help for Indian families
When there is reason to know a child is Indian, the court must appoint a lawyer for the child. Respondent parents and Indian custodians also receive counsel in dependency-and-neglect cases; outside those cases, indigence is required in removal, placement, or termination proceedings. Tribes and Indian custodians can join covered cases at any stage, and tribes can use authorized nonlawyer representatives. Qualifying lawyers for parents, custodians, or tribes can appear without local counsel or an out-of-state appearance fee, with tribal confirmation of membership or eligibility. Tribes can access case reports even without joining the case and receive copies free on request.
State protections for Indian child custody
Colorado law incorporates federal Indian Child Welfare Act protections for covered foster care, adoption, guardianship, and other custody cases. Stronger federal protections control when state protections fall short; stronger state protections remain in place. Cases solely between parents and most delinquency cases are excluded, while emergency cases have separate safeguards. Parentage can be established under Colorado law, tribal law, or tribal custom, and courts can order genetic testing. Once parentage is established, all protections apply even if the parent never had custody.
Stronger custody protections for Indian families
Colorado courts can order foster care for an Indian child only with clear and convincing evidence, including qualified expert testimony, linking home conditions to likely serious emotional or physical harm. Poverty, isolation, single parenthood, a custodian’s age, crowded or inadequate housing, substance abuse, or nonconforming social behavior alone are not enough. Consent to foster care, pre-adoptive or adoptive placement, or ending parental rights must be written and recorded before a judge, who certifies that the person understood the terms and consequences in a language they understand. Consent given before birth or within 10 days after birth is invalid. Parents or Indian custodians can withdraw foster-care consent at any time; parents can withdraw consent to ending parental rights or adoptive placement for any reason before the final decree, and the child must be returned.
Stronger reunification help for Indian families
Courts must check and document active efforts to prevent removal and reunite Indian families, a higher standard than reasonable efforts. County help must fit the family's needs and culture and involve the family and tribe. If required help is missing in a dependency case, the plan must stay focused on reunification. Generally, permanent-orders hearings must wait until missed service days are made up, subject to the law's stipulated-agreement exception. If return within six months is unlikely and the child appears adoptable, missing active efforts also trigger county justification about not seeking termination.
Tribal adoptions recognized with transfer deadline
Colorado courts must recognize and enforce applicable tribal custody orders, including tribal customary adoptions. On request from the tribe or a party, courts must certify a tribal customary adoption order. After notice that customary adoption is being pursued, a parent, Indian custodian, or tribe has 63 days to secure a transfer motion. Without that motion, the court can consider other permanent placements, although a later transfer motion remains allowed.
Tribal agreements support culturally relevant family services
Colorado's human services department must keep working in good faith on agreements with the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Tribes. It must revise an agreement with the tribe when that tribe requests it. The department can also make agreements with out-of-state tribes having significant numbers of member or eligible children in Colorado. Agreements support cooperative child-welfare services, using tribal or Native-serving organizations when available and culturally relevant community services otherwise.
Tribal courts gain stronger custody authority
Tribes have exclusive jurisdiction over tribal-court wards and children living or domiciled on their reservation, subject to temporary state emergency authority. Courts must determine residence and tribal jurisdiction with tribal input. A parent's, Indian custodian's, or tribe's transfer request must be granted unless the tribe declines, a parent objects, or good cause is proven. Good cause requires clear and convincing evidence; travel distance alone and the child's best interests cannot justify denial. After transfer, records must follow, services must be coordinated, and Colorado must dismiss the case with prejudice once receipt is confirmed.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsors
Jessie Danielson
Democratic • Senate
Junie Joseph
Democratic • House
Monica Duran
Democratic • House
Cosponsors
Andrew Boesenecker
Democratic • House
Alex Valdez
Democratic • House
Brianna Titone
Democratic • House
Chad Clifford
Democratic • House
Cecelia Espenoza
Democratic • House
Eliza Hamrick
Democratic • House
Emily Sirota
Democratic • House
Elizabeth Velasco
Democratic • House
Gretchen Rydin
Democratic • House
Jennifer Bacon
Democratic • House
Jamie Jackson
Democratic • House
Javier Mabrey
Democratic • House
Julie McCluskie
Democratic • House
Jacque Phillips
Democratic • House
Jenny Willford
Democratic • House
Kyle Brown
Democratic • House
Karen McCormick
Democratic • House
Katie Stewart
Democratic • House
Lorena Garcia
Democratic • House
Lindsay Gilchrist
Democratic • House
Meg Froelich
Democratic • House
Mandy Lindsay
Democratic • House
Meghan Lukens
Democratic • House
Matthew Martinez
Democratic • House
Manny Rutinel
Democratic • House
Naquetta Ricks
Democratic • House
Regina English
Democratic • House
Rep. S. Bird
Affiliation unavailable
Sean Camacho
Democratic • House
Sheila Lieder
Democratic • House
Steven Woodrow
Democratic • House
Tammy Story
Democratic • House
William Lindstedt
Democratic • Senate
Cathy Kipp
Democratic • Senate
Cleave Simpson
Republican • Senate
Dafna Michaelson Jenet
Democratic • Senate
Dylan Roberts
Democratic • Senate
Sen. F. Winter
Affiliation unavailable
Iman Jodeh
Democratic • Senate
Judy Amabile
Democratic • Senate
Jeff Bridges
Democratic • Senate
John Carson
Republican • Senate
James Coleman
Democratic • Senate
Julie Gonzales
Democratic • Senate
Janice Marchman
Democratic • Senate
Kyle Mullica
Democratic • Senate
Katie Wallace
Democratic • Senate
Lisa Cutter
Democratic • Senate
Lindsey Daugherty
Democratic • Senate
Lisa Frizell
Republican • Senate
Marc Snyder
Democratic • Senate
Mike Weissman
Democratic • Senate
Sen. P. Lundeen
Affiliation unavailable
Tony Exum
Democratic • Senate
Tom Sullivan
Democratic • Senate
Roll Call Votes
House vote • 5/1/2025
Senate amendments: Concur
Yes: 57 • No: 7
House vote • 5/1/2025
Senate amendments: Repass
Yes: 55 • No: 10
Senate vote • 4/28/2025
Third reading: Bill
Yes: 33 • No: 1
Senate vote • 4/23/2025
Refer House Bill 25-1204, as amended, to the Committee of the Whole and with a recommendation that it be placed on the consent calendar.
Yes: 9 • No: 0
House vote • 3/19/2025
Third reading: Bill
Yes: 62 • No: 2
House vote • 3/14/2025
Refer House Bill 25-1204 to the Committee of the Whole.
Yes: 9 • No: 2
House vote • 3/4/2025
Refer House Bill 25-1204, as amended, to the Committee on Appropriations.
Yes: 13 • No: 0
Actions Timeline
Governor Signed
5/31/2025HouseSigned by the Speaker of the House
5/14/2025HouseSigned by the President of the Senate
5/14/2025SenateSent to the Governor
5/14/2025HouseHouse Considered Senate Amendments - Result was to Concur - Repass
5/1/2025HouseHouse Considered Senate Amendments - Result was to Laid Over Daily
4/29/2025HouseSenate Third Reading Passed - No Amendments
4/28/2025SenateSenate Second Reading Special Order - Passed with Amendments - Committee
4/25/2025SenateSenate Committee on Health & Human Services Refer Amended - Consent Calendar to Senate Committee of the Whole
4/23/2025SenateIntroduced In Senate - Assigned to Health & Human Services
3/24/2025SenateHouse Third Reading Passed - No Amendments
3/19/2025HouseHouse Second Reading Special Order - Passed with Amendments - Committee
3/18/2025HouseHouse Committee on Appropriations Refer Unamended to House Committee of the Whole
3/14/2025HouseHouse Committee on Health & Human Services Refer Amended to Appropriations
3/4/2025HouseIntroduced In House - Assigned to Health & Human Services
2/10/2025House
Bill Text
Engrossed
Final Act
House Health & Human Services Preamend
Introduced
Reengrossed
Rerevised
Revised
Senate Health & Human Services Preamend
Signed Act