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– In a highly anticipated Senate debate here Friday, Republicans launched early-round attacks against a bill that aims to create a mid-level state-university tuition rate for undocumented students who have graduated from Colorado high schools. Although the bill easily weathered the GOP barbs in the Democrat-controlled chamber, passing on a 20-13 voice vote, the two-hour back-and-forth showcased the lines of argument opponents of the bill will seek to sharpen before it arrives a few weeks from now in the Republican-controlled House.
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.
Former Colorado Springs Senator Dave Schultheis is no longer holding forth on bills on the Senate floor in Denver, but he has continued to exert influence this year as the powerful force behind the conservative Republican Study Committee of Colorado. Now that influence may be waning. This week, a third of the RSCC flock quit the committee, rejecting the would-be radical-right revival.
Though the power of the Tea Party weighed on the minds of some Republican legislators today, it was not strong enough to stop the passage of a resolution that would make it more difficult for people to amend the constitution through the ballot amendment process.
A bill that might have outlawed edible marijuana in Colorado was pulled for revisions Thursday before it came before committee. HB 1250′s very presence on the docket spurred an immediate backlash from the medical marijuana community.
Liberal Boulder Democratic Congressman Jared Polis and a small group of Colorado’s most conservative state lawmakers share a focus: They’re all pushing immigration policy reform and they all believe that now is the time to act.
Eighteen Republican members of the Colorado State Legislature Monday sent a letter (pdf) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding the federal agency refrain from regulating the natural gas drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” no matter…
On the floor of the state senate, firebrand social conservative lawmaker Scott Renfroe has compared homosexuality to murder and lambasted the governor for not calling out the national guard on medical marijuana protesters. But Renfroe is up for reelection and told a reporter from his hometown Greeley Tribune this weekend that he was merely a “mainstream Republican” whose values were in line with those of his constituents. A lot of Coloradans would disagree and they have disagreed, some directly to former Weld County deputy district attorney Ken Storck, who is running against Renfroe precisely to bring more mainstream representation to Senate District 13.
Greeley Republican state Senator Scott Renfroe told his Senate colleagues Wednesday during debate on medical marijuana regulation that the large April 20 pro-pot rally at the capitol was an “embarrassment” and that Gov. Bill Ritter should have called out the…
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