DENVER — Colorado’s 2012 Legislature may not have achieved greatness. It may not have risen above partisan divide to solve complex problems and unify a state. It may not have addressed the state’s economic malaise or found a way to reliably fund education for the long term.
Colorado legislative debate this year on education, gay rights and women’s health policies reflected larger well-worn national political back-and-forths, where showy speeches on immigration “illegals,” “traditional marriage” and religious freedom often sidetrack efforts to serve the public good.
“NOM is not a partisan organization or a stalking horse for either party,” wrote National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown in March. “We are a movement of people of every race, creed, color — and party — willing to stand up for marriage.”<
DENVER– The gay-rights civil unions bill at the center of a special legislative session called by Gov. John Hickenlooper died as expected on a party line vote Monday in the Republican-controlled House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
DENVER– Republican House Speaker Frank McNulty in the first hours of a special session of the legislature called to consider a gay-rights civil unions bill has effectively assured that bill’s death, assigning it to the hardline Republican-controlled State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
As the special session of the Colorado legislature launches today centered around gay-rights civil unions legislation, national media outlets are circulating a memo written by a high-profile Republican pollster advising GOP candidates and operatives to embrace equal rights for LGBT Americans. The arguments made in the memo reflect arguments in favor of civil unions made over the past five months by conservatives in Colorado.
DENVER– Outmaneuvered over the last six days in a legislative chess game centered on a gay-rights civil unions bill here, the Colorado Speaker of the House on Tuesday, the second-to-last day of the session, effectively turned over the board. Frank McNulty, a Republican from Highlands Ranch, walked out of the House at roughly 9 p.m. and stayed away for more than two hours, letting a recess run all the while and killing the civil unions bill and nearly 40 other bills in the process.
DENVER– “Let them vote! Let them vote!” chanted the crowd gathered on the west steps of the capitol here this morning, urging Republican House leaders to bring a controversial civil unions bill to the floor for consideration.
Conservative Rep. B.J. Nikkel, R-Loveland, voted to advance a state civil unions bill that would recognize same-sex partnerships last week in large part because she had come to believe the legislature, not the ballot box, was the best place to weigh civil rights questions.
DENVER– The House Judiciary Committee voted Thursday evening to advance a state civil unions bill that would grant legal recognition to same-sex couples. The bill died in the same Republican-controlled committee last year but on Thursday won the deciding vote of Loveland Republican Rep. B.J. Nikkel.
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