Coloradans who had hoped the 2026 legislature would stick to bread-and-butter issues — for a change — will be sorely disappointed. Only weeks into the new session, the noisy fringe among ruling Democrats at the Capitol already appears determined to make headlines rather than constructive policy — rekindling divisive debates over social issues.

Exhibit A could be the pointlessly provocative Senate Bill 26-018, which would require courts to seal records of transgender name changes for minors — and to weigh whether parents “recognize” a child’s identity as it relates to a protected class in custody cases.

Whether or not the bill passes, the upshot for majority Democrats is likely to include a face-off with their own party’s governor; a knock-down-drag-out with Republicans across the aisle, and general bewilderment among the voting public.

You’d think the sheer rarity of the scenario the bill’s most problematic provision purports to address — a child-custody battle in which a divorcing parent doesn’t accept the “trans” identity of a child — would give it a low priority among most lawmakers of both parties. Add to that how relieved Gov. Jared Polis seemed to be last year when the same provision was stripped from another bill on trans rights he then signed into law. Groups like One Colorado and Planned Parenthood of the Rockies had opposed the clause, too, over concerns LGBTQ Coloradans could lose protections under the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

Fundamentally, it amounts to an unprecedented and heartless intrusion into family life at one of the most trying times. It would impose on a custody case a value arbitrarily anointed by politicians — accepting a child’s presumed transition from one gender to another — seemingly to score points with narrow interests on some outlying segment of the political spectrum. 

Perhaps such misplaced priorities are only to be expected from the bill’s main author, Democratic state Sen. Chris Kolker of Centennial. His fixation with the issue notoriously included a bizarre musing at the Senate podium last year that, “on my day of judgment, I might be standing in front of trans Jesus.”

But more earth-bound lawmakers, especially those who wield the levers of power, ought to consider whether all such legislative lurches by the party are in their best interest — not to mention the state’s. Democrats for years now have faced mocking questions about whether they’ve become the “party of pronouns,” and it’s likely a lot of rank-and-file members of the party and even plenty of its elected officeholders must be tired of the rap.

The Colorado legislature’s near-veto-proof Democratic majority in both chambers has unfortunately emboldened a wing of the party that seeks to drag it into one offbeat sideshow after another. The extremists seem to think the time is right amid the fever pitch of national politics — yet that’s precisely the time for legislative leaders to step in and get things back on track. 

Whether or not they can call off this latest foray — maybe by walking Kolker to the Senate majority leader’s woodshed — leadership in both chambers should be making clear they want their fellow lawmakers to get down to business. It’s time to set aside trivial pursuits.