Vote Uncertain on Colorado Civil Unions Bill

Last week, the state's Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee approved the bill, days after the state Senate moved forward on the legislation extending rights to unmarried couples.

In a bipartisan 6-5 vote, the committee voted to send the bill to the Finance Committee before a House floor vote. Outgoing representative B.J. Nikkel, a Republican, cast the deciding vote in favor of the legislation, which died along a party-line vote in the same committee last year.

Nikkel voted against last year's civil union legislation but said Thursday's hearing changed her mind.

"I've thought about it a lot, and I think it's the right thing to do," Nikkel said after the vote. "I simply believe in going with the legal rights that I think these folks ought to have. As I've said in the past, we're all Coloradans -- they're Coloradans too -- and I believe that they deserve to have some of the legal rights that the rest of us have."

Senate Bill 2 would afford all unmarried couples many of the same legal rights and benefits of marriage, including second-parent adoption, inheritance rights, and end-of-life and medical decision-making rights. All told, SB-2 would offer 27 rights at the state level. The bill does not allow for same-sex marriage, which Coloradans voted to constitutionally prohibit in 2006.