The Colorado Independent

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Posts Tagged Kevin Lundberg

Hitchens dies, leaves craven people in power to sigh with relief

By | 12.16.11 | 10:58 am

Christopher Hitchens died yesterday of cancer. He was a learned and caustic cultural critic who wrote for the popular press and who was at his best when eviscerating the hypocrisy and pretense of people in power. He famously hated organized religion. It’s easy to imagine that, had Hitchens ever trained his talents on Colorado politics, he might have reserved his best stuff for the small-town Christian moralizing and persecutorial grandstanding that erupts in regular intervals from certain corners of the state capitol.

Senate kills high-driving bill, cites fuzzy science

By | 05.10.11 | 9:16 am

The Colorado Senate killed a bill that would have established a legal limit in Colorado to the amount of THC drivers can have in their system. Lawmakers on the right and left who voted against the bill felt they were attempting to make policy without adequate information. House Bill 1261, sponsored in the Senate by Grand Junction Republican Steve King, died 20 nays to 15 ayes.

Sex offenders offered hope of redemption in new law

By | 04.28.11 | 1:26 pm

A bipartisan agreement designed by members of the Senate to give hope to sex offenders entering into state required treatment passed on 2nd reading Thursday. Likened to the entrance into the Hades of Dante’s Inferno by one member of the Senate, the existing law, until its sunset, asked the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board to treat sex crimes as a disease with “no known cure.” That section has now been removed and states sex offenses are often repetitive but in some cases are the result of a manageable condition.

Health exchange bill passes even as debate centers on Affordable Care Act

By | 04.27.11 | 12:45 pm

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.

(image: Alan Light, Flickr)

Former Colorado Republican legislator Rob Witwer says yes to civil unions

By | 04.20.11 | 10:24 am

Rob Witwer, a former state Representative and today’s Republican appointee to redraw the redistricting lines for the Legislature, has published an editorial detailing his support for civil unions.

Pinnacol spending bill may limit expenses even further

By | 04.14.11 | 6:52 am

A bill designed to put a stop to lavish “business” trips taken by government entities, such as Pinnacol Assurance, was laid over Wednesday after Democratic senators proclaimed the bill still too lenient with taxpayer dollars. The bill was laid over in the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine support for an amendment.

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Colorado GOP senators mimic U.S. House leaders, would hold budget hostage over abortion

By | 04.08.11 | 3:44 pm

As the federal government prepares for a disastrous shutdown pinned largely to a House Republican amendment that would defund Planned Parenthood, Colorado Republican Senators attempted to mimic the legislative strategy that has led to the Capitol Hill standoff. Weeks of tense negotiations in Denver produced a budget plan tentatively embraced on both sides of the aisle. Then on Friday in stepped social conservatives in the Senate who during floor debate inserted a hot-button “defund Planned Parenthood” amendment into the budget negotiation.

(image: Alan Light, Flickr)

After Colo. civil unions debate, Miss. poll underlines folly of subjecting rights to a vote

By | 04.07.11 | 1:27 pm

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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Boyd calls Stephens’ amendment ‘poison pill’ as healthcare bill passes out of committee

By | 04.01.11 | 11:21 am

Bipartisan co-sponsorship of a bill to set up a public healthcare exchange in Colorado appears now to be on shaky ground after House Majority Leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument, broke a pact between herself and Democratic cosponsor Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, by pushing what Boyd called a “poison pill” amendment.

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The Republican dilemma: Colorado civil unions debate spotlights conservative-politics fault line

By | 03.28.11 | 4:57 pm

The coming debate in the Colorado House Judiciary Committee on same-sex civil unions bill SB 172 will center on Republican arguments for and against the legislation. The debate scheduled to take place under the Dome in Denver Thursday will underline the dynamics shaping the larger national debate on gay rights– a debate that now pits Republicans against Republicans because Democrats and Independents have already made up their minds on the matter.

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