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 3:50 p.m.: The House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to the entire property tax deal. Although several House Democrats expressed frustration with the process that led to the backroom deal and the special session to ratify it, it ultimately passed on a comfortable majority vote, with most Democrats voting to push through the deal and two other measures receiving preliminary approval today.

The measure now faces a final vote in the House on Wednesday. That vote will be recorded and will provide a better overview of the House’s full support – or opposition – for the measure. The bill passed today by voice vote.

If it clears Wednesday’s hurdle — and bills rarely fail the final vote — it will go to the Senate. If lawmakers want to wrap up the special session by Thursday, the Senate will have to move the property tax bill through a committee and then hold a first vote before the end of Wednesday (which took the House two days to do).

The House is also sending two other bills to the Senate: One is a smaller measure to make an existing property tax exemption for farm equipment permanent. The second is a more controversial ballot bill that would require local voters’ approval of statewide property tax changes in order for them to take effect locally. Republicans have criticized the bill, and if it is to pass in the Senate, it will need to be supported by at least one Republican.

Updated at 11:42: And so the proposed popular initiative has passed its first vote in the House of Representatives. The chamber now moves on to the debate on the property tax agreement, which is the most important event of the day and the week.

Updated at 11:37 am: The House is debating Rep. Mike Weissman’s proposed ballot initiative that, if passed, would require local voters to approve statewide property tax ballot changes. Republicans have already taken a strong stance against it, and House Republicans spoke out against the measure at length throughout this morning.

That included introducing time-consuming amendments, including one that hit another political nerve: the reintroduction of wolves. Republican Rep. Ken DeGraaf joked – or didn’t joke – that he had been given a note to speak for another hour.

Today, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that would permanently exempt farm equipment from property taxes. The main property tax bill, which also has bipartisan support (and opposition), is still in the wings.

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.