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.
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.
DENVER— The political battle in Colorado over abortion, women’s healthcare and family planning heated up Monday when lawmakers, activist groups and supporters on opposite sides of the issues took turns rallying on the west steps of the capitol here.
Election-year gun-rights debate visited the capitol again Monday when the Senate Veteran and Military Affairs Committee considered two bills aimed at firming up citizen rights to use guns at the workplace for defense and in times of state-declared emergencies. After two hours or so of testimony, the bills were killed on party-line votes in the Democrat-controlled committee.
DENVER– Seizing momentum on an upbeat first day of the 2012 session of the state legislature, House Minority Leader Mark Ferrandino, Democrat from Denver, encouraged members to cast aside gloomy predictions of election-year partisan gridlock and work together to pass bills to bolster the Colorado economy and create jobs for citizens across the state.
Fresh off a Denver fundraiser, Texas governor Rick Perry today became the fourth GOP candidate to sign the National Organization for Marriage’s anti marriage equality pledge. Thursday night Perry hosted a fundraiser in suburban Denver. Admission was said to be $5,000 a pop.
Colorado House Majority Leader Amy Stephens is feeling the heat – not from sweltering summer temperatures but instead from the sizzling tempers of Republican “anarchists” who think the Monument legislator has violated conservative and constitutional values. They seem bent on anointing a warrior to defeat Stephens in 2012 – the frontrunner is Kanda Calef.
Monday marked the first day of meetings to implement the new Colorado Health Benefit Exchange – one of the most controversial bills to make it through both chambers of the State Legislature last session. But it’s clear that Republicans, many of whom voted against the bill, still see it as a hedge against the evils of the federal Affordable Health Care Act, which they derisively refer to as “Obamacare.”
Former President George W. Bush’s chief of staff and senior adviser Karl Rove was greeted by right-wing protesters Wednesday evening at the annual Lincoln Dinner in Colorado Springs, a fundraiser for the El Paso County Republican Party.
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