“I really have no idea what he is talking about,” Republican Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Sheila Reiner told the Colorado Independent.
Colorado lawmakers who last year introduced legislation to address claims that perhaps thousands of undocumented residents had voted in the state will not re-introduce the legislation this year. Secretary of State Scott Gessler reportedly waved off the lawmakers, saying he felt he could address the issue outside the halls of the capitol with means available to him through his office.
DENVER– Colorado Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette and representatives of the state’s top civil rights organizations this weekend railed against efforts by Republican lawmakers and officials around the country to recast voter rules. Flooded with pale mountain sun on the west steps of the capitol, the speakers took turns detailing ways new registration and voting requirements and restrictions will make it more difficult for millions of Americans to cast ballots in presidential election year 2012.
In filing suit yesterday against Denver County over its 2011 election plan, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has raised the specter for the second time since he took office in January that he is using his position as head of elections not to expand but to suppress voting in the state.
A bill to force counties to participate in Secure Communities died in a Senate committee Monday. Opponents cited racism and opposition to forcing another unfunded mandate on rural counties.
Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s bill to require proof of citizenship of all Colorado voters died Monday in a Senate committee–on a party-line vote. Proof the bill is needed just wasn’t there, Democrats said.
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.
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.
The feud between outgoing state Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams and state Sen. Ted Harvey, who aims to succeed him, is exploding with revelations about Harvey’s financial history.
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.
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