Clifford Blocks SB26-090 in 7-to-4 Colorado Vote
colorado lawmakers shut down SB26-090 on Monday evening when the House State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee voted 7-to-4 to postpone the bill indefinitely. The measure would have created an exception to the state’s repair protections for critical infrastructure, which would have narrowed access to tools and documentation for some digital equipment repairs.
Chad Clifford and the lava lamps
Chad Clifford, a Colorado state representative and House committee vice chair, used Cloudflare’s lava lamps as his example for why some sensitive systems should stay secret. “I don’t know why anybody has to have lava lamps on a wall to keep the Chinese from getting into a network, but it’s what they came up with that worked,” he said during the hearing.
He added, “How they do that, I believe they should be able to keep it a secret, even in Colorado.”
SB26-090 after the Senate
SB26-090 had already passed the Colorado Senate on April 16 after being introduced during a Senate hearing on April 2. The bill drew support from lobbying efforts by Cisco and IBM, while opponents included CoPIRG, PIRG, Repair.org, iFixit, Consumer Reports, Blue Star Recyclers, Recycle Colorado, Environment Colorado, and GreenLatinos.
The repair law at issue, Colorado’s Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment, went into effect in January 2026 after being enacted in 2024. It gave people access to tools and documentation needed to fix and modify digital electronics such as phones, computers, and Wi-Fi routers.
Colorado repair fight
Dozens of supporters and detractors spoke during the committee hearing, and Danny Katz said the fight took a broad coalition. “While we were making progress at chipping away at the momentum for it, we had still been losing,” he said in an email after the hearing.
“So, we took nothing for granted, and I believe the incredible testimony from the broad range of cybersecurity experts, businesses, repair advocates, recyclers, and people who want the freedom to fix their stuff made a big difference,” Katz said.
The committee vote leaves SB26-090 postponed indefinitely, and that outcome keeps the state’s repair rules intact for now.
