With an agreement to avoid a vote on the property tax, the halfway point of the legislative process was reached on Wednesday, so that the law can be finally passed later this week.

Shortly after noon, the Colorado House of Representatives passed the measure, which would provide homeowners and other property owners with a modest additional tax break, by a vote of 45 to 18, with 15 of the majority Democrats voting against. In the afternoon, the bill cleared its first hurdle in the Senate with a unanimous vote in committee and was approved on a first vote in the Senate just before 6:45 p.m.

This means the bill is ready for final passage and its departure to Governor Jared Polis’ desk on Thursday.

House Bill 1001 builds on a property tax cut passed in May. If passed, it would reduce property tax revenues across the state by about $254 million — on top of the $1.3 billion cut passed in the spring — by further reducing the state’s tax rate. That rate is used along with local tax levies to determine how much property owners owe in taxes.

The change would save the average homeowner about $62 in the next property tax year and $179 the following year, according to an analysis by the Colorado Fiscal Institute; lawmakers’ estimates of the initial impact were slightly higher. The bill would also expand the range of nonresidential properties eligible for the business tax rates passed in the spring as Senate Bill 233.

The progressive think tank’s analysis found that 62 percent of the tax cuts proposed in the special session would go to owners of non-residential properties. The analysis did not include average estimated savings for those types of properties.

But the real stakes of the special session, supporters of the deal say, are that it will lead Advance Colorado, a conservative advocacy group, to withdraw Initiatives 50 and 108 from the November ballot. If approved by voters, those measures would force deeper cuts to assessment rates, potentially worth billions of dollars, and set tighter caps on the property tax revenue that local governments can keep.

“Whether yes or no, I believe that passing this bill and removing these initiatives from the ballot is the most responsible and important thing we can do today for the future of this state,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie told her colleagues shortly before the vote.

The House also passed a proposed ballot bill on Wednesday that would have required local voters to approve future property tax changes decided by a statewide vote. Democrats had welcomed the bill as a way to prevent new statewide property tax wars – like the one that sparked the special session.

But Republicans opposed it, and that opposition caused the bill to die later that day in the Senate, where at least one Republican had to support the bill. Senator Chris Hansen, a Democrat from Denver who had sponsored the bill, voluntarily withdrew the bill during a committee meeting.

This gives lawmakers a written commitment from Advance Colorado and its allies, including the business-oriented Colorado Concern, that they will not take similar property tax action for at least six years if the property tax law is passed in this form.

Some lawmakers had been angry at being forced into a special session to codify a deal that the governor, legislative leaders and outside groups had already agreed to. That frustration led to a series of speeches by House Democrats denouncing the process and complaining that they were being forced to choose between immediately cutting local services or risking even deeper cuts if the ballot measures pass.

“I don’t work for anyone who isn’t on this floor. Or, if I may say so, behind glass,” said Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Democrat from Denver and assistant majority leader in the House, referring to the governor’s office, which is one floor below, and the lobbyists who watch the House work through glass windows.

She stressed: “It is our job to make laws.”

While Bacon spoke, numerous MPs from both parties stood at their desks, a sign of solidarity in the room.

Republican Rep. Stephanie Luck of Penrose criticized the process that triggered the special session. Democratic Rep. Tim Hernández of Denver, who lost his primary in June, spoke at length about his own upbringing – and the estate his family could never afford – and compared it to the forces he said forced lawmakers back to the Capitol this week.

“There are a lot of brilliant poor children growing up in this state whose families don’t have the opportunity to own property, who don’t have the opportunity to come here and be heard in this House – poor people, oppressed people who don’t get a special session,” Hernández said.

After extensive testimony from both Democrats and Republicans, McCluskie and Minority Leader Rose Pugliese – a Republican who co-sponsored the bill with the speaker – acknowledged that there were concerns within their own ranks as well.

However, they still called on their members to support the deal.