A bleary-eyed Colorado House voted for a bill to repeal the death penalty around 4 a.m. Tuesday, after about 11 hours of discussion.

The bulk of that time was taken up by Republicans either making speeches or bringing various unsuccessful bill amendments in an effort to slow the bill’s roll. They forced a couple hours of debate on whether voters should be allowed to decide this matter, but Democrats shot those amendments down.

“I’m not going to dodge the hard issues by sending them to the people,” said Rep. Jeni Arndt of Fort Collins, a sponsor of the repeal bill. “We are the people.”

At one point a GOP representative, Steve Humphrey of Severence, read from the Bible for approximately 39 minutes.

Stalling the bill was a team effort for Republicans, though Reps. Dave Williams, Terri Carver, Richard Holtorf, Larry Liston and Lori Saine were particularly instrumental. Democrats barely spoke after midnight.

“One side of this assembly defended families and victims,” said Saine, of Dacono. “One side defended criminals.”

The tone was somber throughout most of the discussion, particularly when Rep. Tom Sullivan, D-Aurora, offered a long speech about his son, Alex, who was murdered in the Aurora theater shooting and whose killer famously did not receive the death penalty.

Tuesday morning’s vote was taken by voice, so it’s not known exactly what the margin was. But it seemed throughout the debate that Sullivan would be the lone Democrat to vote against repealing the death penalty repeal, and that no Republicans would support the repeal. This was not a problem for the Democrats leading the bill, since the party holds a 17-vote advantage in the House.

The bill, which cleared the much tighter Senate last month, needs one final vote from the House to be referred to Gov. Jared Polis, who has said he’ll sign it into law once it reaches his desk. The outcome of this final vote, which could happen as soon as Wednesday, is not in question.

Colorado would be the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty.