Robert Rodriguez (D-Denver) is Majority Leader of the Colorado State Senate and the legislator most closely associated with Colorado's AI statutes. He was lead Senate sponsor of the 2024 Colorado AI Act, of the 2025 measure that delayed its effective date, and of the 2026 law that repealed and replaced it (Source: governorsoffice.colorado.gov; Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205) and SB 25B-004 (Date Amendment); Colorado SB 26-189 (Signed Act, May 14 2026)).
Legislative record
SB 24-205 (2024)
Rodriguez sponsored SB 24-205, the Colorado AI Act — the first comprehensive state AI statute in the United States, and the model against which subsequent state proposals were measured. His Senate co-sponsors were Sens. Cutter, Michaelson Jenet, Priola, Winter and Fenberg, with Reps. Titone, Rutinel and Duran in the House, and the act was enacted on May 17, 2024. It required developers and deployers of high-risk AI systems to use reasonable care to avoid algorithmic discrimination, with impact assessments, consumer notice and enforcement by the attorney general (Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205) and SB 25B-004 (Date Amendment)).
SB 25B-004 (2025)
Rodriguez was also the first-listed Senate sponsor of SB 25B-004, enacted in 2025, which amended the effective dates throughout SB 24-205 from February 1, 2026 to June 30, 2026, giving developers and deployers additional time to comply (Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205) and SB 25B-004 (Date Amendment)).
SB 26-189 (2026)
On 1 May 2026 he and Senate President James Coleman introduced SB 26-189, which "would repeal and rewrite most of SB 24-205 before its June 30, 2026 effective date" (Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205)). The rewrite followed an August 2025 special session that did not produce a revised bill, and the Colorado AI Policy Work Group convened by Governor Polis, which met weekly from October 2025 and released a unanimous framework on 17 March 2026. On May 5, 2026 the American Fintech Council wrote to Coleman and Rodriguez urging that the bill rest its provisions on the sector-specific risk-management frameworks financial institutions already maintain (Source: insideaipolicy.com).
Governor Jared Polis signed SB 26-189 on May 14, 2026, with Rodriguez and Coleman as lead Senate sponsors and Reps. Duran and Bacon as lead House sponsors. The act replaces the 2024 law's risk-based duties with a disclosure-and-transparency framework over automated decision-making technology used in consequential decisions, with developer duties effective January 1, 2027, post-adverse-outcome disclosures, rights to correct data and to human review, and exclusive attorney-general enforcement with a 60-day cure period (Colorado SB 26-189 (Signed Act, May 14 2026)). At signing Rodriguez said that "if someone is denied housing or a job, loses their healthcare, or sees their insurance rates mysteriously skyrocket at the hands of automated technology, they deserve to know what criteria went into that decision and to have an opportunity to correct mistakes," and that the law "strikes an appropriate balance of protecting consumers while not being onerous on developers or the businesses who use AI technology" (Source: governorsoffice.colorado.gov).
Sponsoring both the original act and its replacement places Rodriguez's record across each stage of Colorado's AI legislative cycle: a first-mover statute, an implementation gap identified before it took effect, a stakeholder process, and a substantially narrower successor. See Colorado SB 26-189 (Signed Act, May 14 2026).
Relationships
- related: Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205) — sponsor of both SB 24-205 and its rewrite
- related: Colorado SB 26-189 (Signed Act, May 14 2026), State-Level AI Regulation, Jared Polis
- related: Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205) and SB 25B-004 (Date Amendment) — SB 24-205 and SB 25B-004, both sponsored by Rodriguez
- related: xAI LLC v. Weiser (challenging the Colorado AI Act) — constitutional challenge to the 2024 act