The Colorado General Assembly met this morning for the second day of a special property tax session to pass tax relief as part of a deal with conservative activists to avoid even deeper cuts on the November ballot. The session will now extend at least until Thursday.

This story will be updated throughout the day.

Updated at 11:00 am: The final bill from a special session of progressive lawmakers failed Monday night when a House committee voted to overturn a measure that would have provided some property tax relief only for homeowners’ primary residences – but not for Colorado residents’ second or subsequent homes, including rental properties.

“With this bill, we want to make sure that we target additional tax relief to those who really need it – the people who are trying to stay in their homes,” said Democratic Rep. Javier Mabrey, who sponsored the bill along with fellow Rep. Steven Woodrow of Denver.

The measure, House Bill 1002, would have reduced the assessment rate that affects how tax liability is calculated for all residential properties, but the reductions would be limited to the primary residence. The bill was a proposed ballot measure, meaning it needed the support of two-thirds of lawmakers — a tall order at least in the Senate, where Democrats do not have a two-thirds majority — before going to the state’s voters in the fall.

The bill was defeated by a vote of 3 to 7, with three Democrats joining the Republican House Budget Committee in voting against it.

Debate over the bill came shortly after the Budget Committee approved the property tax deal, and it felt like a proxy war for the broader special session debate and the circumstances that brought lawmakers back to the Capitol.

When Representative Judy Amabile, a Democrat from Boulder, questioned the haste in passing the bill, Woodrow cheerfully replied that the entire special session had been rushed.

“It’s true that three weeks ago we didn’t have a spreadsheet that we could have presented to people and told them that it was a framework – and voilà! It has become a bill that cannot be negotiated,” he said, referring to the property tax bill that he had sharply criticized.

But Mabrey and Woodrow’s proposal is not dead yet: The House resumed work Tuesday morning and was scheduled to debate the main property tax bill on the floor, where progressives are preparing amendments to pursue their policy goals. Lawmakers were also scheduled to discuss a proposed ballot bill that would require local voters’ approval of statewide property tax decisions, as well as a technical bill to make a property tax exemption for farm equipment permanent.