Thursday, the Senate Education Committee passed the bipartisan Opportunities for Higher Ed Success Act, sponsored by Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminister, and Sen. Keith King, R-Colorado Springs.
Republicans attacked a bipartisan bill to set up a health benefit exchange in Colorado with a 3rd reading poison-pill amendment Wednesday while calling the bill an extension of the Federal program. Democrats voting to pass it said that the bill was anything but that.
After extensive and energetic debate, a bill which would allow undocumented students who attended high school in Colorado access to in-state tuition, passed second hearing in the Senate in a 20-13 vote. The bill passed on party lines.
The surplus of $172.6 million transferred to the education fund in the governor’s 2010-2011 FY budget isn’t expected to do much to save school districts from having to make deep cuts that would see teachers and staff lose jobs.
Senate Republicans delivered Pat Steadman’s same-sex civil unions bill to the Republican-controlled House Thursday with momentum and a message. Although the twelve Republican men in the Senate voted against it, the three Republican women in the Senate voted in favor of the bill, making the case to leaders of the Republican-controlled House to take up the bill with good faith and allow it to move beyond committees and onto the floor of the House for a vote.
The bill offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants passed out of the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday under intense scrutiny by Republicans of bill sponsors’ claims that undocumented alien students would not be subsidized by Colorado tax dollars.
DENVER– Colorado is one step closer to providing education to youth awaiting trial as adults in jails across the state. The current status quo sees un-convicted teenagers languishing for months and years in adult prisons ill-equipped to provide even constitutionally mandated services such as education.
Colorado’s politics junkies were likely not surprised by Republican leading light Bobby Jindal’s flame-out on national TV, as he rushed through his ill-conceived response to Obama’s non-State of the Union.
On Wednesday, the Colorado Senate Finance Committee approved Senate Bill 228 — legislation that seeks to provide greater flexibility to lawmakers in deciding where to spend the state’s shrinking revenues.
Sponsored by Democratic Sen. John Morse, the bill would eliminate the so-called Arveschoug-Bird provision, which restricts the state’s General Fund to 6 percent growth per year and allocates any surplus specifically to transportation and construction projects. Morse’s bill and the problem it seeks to address are tongue-twisting and arcane, yet the small corner room of the Capitol where the hearing took place was filled with laptop jockeys, community leaders, a webcast crew and a buzz that hung in the air when it became clear that SB228 was going to clear its first public hurdle.
The final word is in: Newcomer Dennis Apuan has edged out Catherine “Kit” Roupe in Colorado’s House District 17, making him the third member of a Democratic delegation from El Paso County — and marking the first time since the 1970s that the Republican stronghold has sent three donkeys to the golden dome.
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