The Colorado Legislature acted quickly and in bipartisan fashion today to require biweekly campaign finance disclosures in advance of this year’s primary elections in June.
Survey results released by Public Policy Polling this week underline broad support in Colorado for some form of legislation that would grant gay couples equal partnership rights. Although Republican members of the House Judicial Committee last year quashed a popular civil unions bill, PPP found that even among Colorado Republican voters, support for civil unions-style legislation is now nearing 60 percent.
In the end, it came to the sort of calculation payday lenders might understand. After spending political capital fast and furiously in the last hours of the legislative session Wednesday, Colorado House Republicans seemed to accept that spending any more in the service of the payday loan industry would end in more loss than gain. They did the smart thing and just stopped spending altogether. They decided to withdraw the amendment they had attached to the annual rules bill on Tuesday that would have rolled back payday fee regulations put in place last year.
DENVER– On Tuesday afternoon, Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Bob Gardner set off a firestorm on the House floor and in the Twittersphere when in the last hours of the 2011 legislative session he amended the annual rules bill to strip out regulations passed last year on payday lending. It was a surprise move sure to generate rancor and just the latest battle in the ongoing war over payday lending in the state.
Denver Democratic Rep. Mark Ferrandino this morning told radio host David Sirota that Coloradans should demand state Republican Speaker of the House Frank McNulty strip out the last-minute amendment his caucus added to the annual rule-making bill in order to roll back payday loan fee regulations put in place last year. Ferrandino said Republicans were playing chicken with billions of dollars in Colorado business revenue just to cater to one special-interest group.
DENVER– The payday lending industry isn’t giving up on this legislative session in Colorado. Lawmakers who have failed at several attempts to roll back regulations passed last session limiting high payday interest rates and fees are now reportedly planning to attach to a bureaucratic rule-making bill an amendment that would thin the payday regulations. The legislative session ends at midnight tomorrow.
A bill to create health insurance exchanges in Colorado passed out of the Senate today, becoming one of the few bills to make it through the fires of Tea Party and other conservative groups this year. While Republicans largely voted against the bill, it passed with no discussion in the Democratically controlled Senate and is now on its way to the governor’s desk.
Conservative state Senator Shawn Mitchell voted against the same-sex civil unions bill introduced this legislative session in Colorado, and there was nothing surprising about that. He did surprise, however, with his silence on the chamber floor during debate and with his absence in the media coverage around the bill. Turns out Mitchell, a high-profile opponent of gay rights in the past but also a strong libertarian and no prude, was waffling.
Medical marijuana lobbyists vigorously plied their trade Monday in a furious attempt to stop an amendment to HB 1043, the medical marijuana “clean-up” bill, that struck language allowing for the creation of investment funds that proponents hoped would fund a restructuring of the industry. The amendment passed and the funds will not be allowed.
A recent survey of Mississippi Republicans conducted by Public Policy Polling (pdf) found that a majority of them believe inter-racial marriage should be illegal. According to the poll, 46 percent of the Republicans told PPP staffers that interracial marriage should be illegal and 14 percent of them said they weren’t sure. Only 40 percent of Mississippi Republicans believe interracial couples should be allowed to legally marry. The poll comes a week after Colorado Republicans voted down a bill that would have granted Colorado gay couples domestic partnership rights already granted automatically with marriage to straight people. The Republican lawmakers said the issue should be left to voters to decide.
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