Weld County Commissioners could vote on new “pro-life sanctuary” resolution as early as Monday if Lori Saine gets her way

By Kelly Ragan

The Weld Board of County Commissioners may vote on a new “pro-life sanctuary” resolution as early as next week if Commissioner Lori Saine gets her way. 

“It’s always the right time to do the right thing – even more so when something is hard,” Saine said at a press conference Wednesday. “However, with this imminent overturn of Roe v. Wade, I think this will become easier and easier. We’ll see more and more counties picking up this mantle and more and more states asserting life-affirming resolutions and legislation.”

But the draft of Saine’s new resolution isn’t yet final, and it’s not clear how it will be different from the resolution the majority of commissioners abstained from voting on (read: rejected) the first time around.

The NoCo Optimist asked for a copy to review and did not receive one. 

Saine recently introduced a resolution that failed with commissioner Perry Buck voting yes and commissioners Mike Freeman, Scott James and Steve Moreno abstaining. At a board meeting last week, Saine said she’d bring back a stronger resolution. The move was initially made in reaction to the passage of the Reproductive Health Equity Act. Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law April 4, cementing the right to abortion access in Colorado. The law also states a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights. 

While the newly passed law doesn’t change how Colorado already handled abortion, it serves to solidify the law in the event the Supreme Court overturns or weakens its Roe v. Wade decision. A leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court revealed this week that Roe v. Wade, a nearly 50-year-old court decision that ruled in favor of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion, may indeed be overturned in the coming months. 

The initial resolution was essentially an attempt to work around the Reproductive Health Equity Act by way of zoning laws and building codes, declaring that “regardless of the Board's position regarding abortion, it is the Board's belief that C.R.S. §25-6-404(1)(a) unlawfully restricts local governments' exercise of their legitimate land use authority and enforcement of their police powers to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens, and WHEREAS, therefore, the Board wishes to express its opposition to the prohibitions established in Colorado's "Reproduction Health Equity Act" against the promulgation and enforcement of local government zoning and building code regulations that protect the health, safety, and welfare of Weld County citizen.” 

Buck, Freeman, James and Moreno saw the new draft for the first time Wednesday. Saine brought it forward at a board meeting. Saine motioned to put a reading of the resolution on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting, but the motion failed as the rest of the commissioners asked for more time to read the new resolution. 

County attorney Bruce Barker said that the initial resolution would have had no legal effect, even if it had passed the first time. 

It’s not clear how confident the county attorney Barker is in the legality of the new resolution.

As of Wednesday, Saine indicated she and community faith leaders, such as Steven Grant, pastor of Destiny Christian Center in Evans, drafted the new resolution. 

“The resolution drafted this morning came about as a result of myself, and the input of several other faith leaders in this area, as well as the aggregated portions from county attorney Bruce Barker,” said Grant. 

When asked if Barker had given the group any assurances that there were legal actions that could be taken from the county commissioners on the subject, there was some ambiguity. 

“We believe so,” Grant said. “We’ll leave that to what will be released next week. We believe there are some steps that can be taken.” 

James pushed back against the initial resolution, saying that while he agreed with the sentiment, the initial resolution didn’t do anything. Beyond that, he said the county didn’t have the authority to declare Weld a “pro-life sanctuary.”

“To ask me to move into a space where this county has no authority is asking me to break my oath to uphold the law,” James said in a previous meeting. “I can’t do that.” 

Commissioner Mike Freeman agreed with James. 

During an interview with Tanner Schwindt on KFKA, Freeman said if Saine introduced another resolution, he would struggle with it. 

“I’m pro-life, I think all of us are pro-life, that being said, that doesn’t give us the ability to violate state law,” Freeman said. “We can disagree with state law all we want, but we still have to follow state law.” 

Freeman said this situation is different than when the board decided not to enforce mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The mask mandates weren’t law, he said. Mask mandates did not go through the state legislature or go through an open hearing process. 

“That’s why our county attorney, and I agree with him, said that was unconstitutional,” Freeman said. “There’s a big difference between those two situations.” 

Nonetheless, Saine said she believed the new resolution spelled out action the county could take and that she believed she had support from her fellow commissioners. 

“Weld County has led the way on so many things, including the Second Amendment Sanctuary County, also pushing back against the governor in various formats with Agriculture Matters and the Meat-In Resolution,” Saine said. “We’ve led the way in what I would consider lesser matters than the protection of rights.”