Democrat Randy Fischer is a freshman legislator who will represent the 53rd House District in Larimer County, formerly congressional candidate Angie Paccione’s seat.
He’s been busy working his way through freshman orientation and meeting veteran lawmakers, but he did take time to talk to Colorado Confidential about his upcoming plans for the next sessionPriorities?
“I campaigned on a platform to do what we can on health care reform, and on trying to invest in Colorado’s energy future by supporting research and development of renewable energy supplies in Colorado that are basically going untapped right now,” said Fischer.
The 53rd district is also home to Colorado State University (CSU) and Front Range Community College.
“CSU generates a tremendous amount of economic benefits for the city of Fort Collins and the surrounding community, and plus, it’s one of our major research universities here in Colorado. CSU and higher education in general would be my top priorities.”
Future bills?
“My three priorities are to introduce something that will help kids. I wanna introduce at least one bill that would be oriented to environmental concerns here in Colorado…and also something having to do with health care.
“As a freshman legislator one of the first things you realize here is that you don’t get anything done on your own, and I’ve been going through this process of meeting with all the different groups that are involved with some of these issues and wanting to make sure that I’m able to work cooperatively with people who already have ideas for bills they’re submitting, and so forth.
“It’s actually a quite a bit more involved then I thought it would be.”
Fischer also said there were others proposals he was looking at, although he hadn’t made any commitments to them.
Committees and Allies?
Fischer has been assigned to two House committees: the Education Committee and the Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources Committee.
“Both of those are areas I’m really interested in working on.
“Professionally, I do environmental engineering work here in Colorado and have a background in natural resources management, and so I’ve met with, and look forwarded to working with, the chair of the Natural Resources Committee, who is [Democrat] Kathleen Curry over in the Gunnison area.
“She’s the ranking member of that committee and I really look forward to working with her. She’s an expert on water issues as well as a lot of environmental issues, especially dealing with oil and gas development.
“On the education side, [Democrat] Senator Bob Bacon is one of my former high school teachers and has been a friend and mentor for many years, and I look forward to working with Bob. Bob’s been a leader on education issues for many many years, when he served back in the House and also as our senator from Fort Collins here.
“I’m looking forward to working with him on educational issues, as well as the chair of the Education Committee, [Democrat] Rep. Mike Merrifield from Colorado Springs.”
Best Possible Scenario?
“I think my top priority will be to continue to keep the Colorado promise that was made to voters when they approved Referendum C, and that would include continuing to invest in higher education, health care, and transportation.”
Fischer also mentioned the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform, a group created last session to examine and propose health care reforms.
“I think there are some things we need to do in health care immediately, but I’m looking forward – when we finish the session – to having a good idea where the commission hearings are going.
“To me, education, health care and renewable energy are the three things that I think, if we can come out of this session having made significant progress in those three areas, I would consider this a successful session.”
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