#Coleg Notebook: Powdered alcohol blues, concealed carry craziness, cont’d

By
Tessa Cheek
-

Lawmakers not all pals when it comes to Palcohol

It was the debate that launched 1,000 tweets. Should the House agree to a “ban” on powdered alcohol that had been amended by the Senate so that it wasn’t really a ban? And should lawmakers even be considering anything to do with “Palcohol,” given that it’s yet to be approved by the FDA and not available for retail?

Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, a former military chaplain turned web-evangelist, won the day in the House.

After talk and whipping, the House agreed to delay a final vote on the powdered alcohol ban regulation until Friday. In the Senate, it looked to some like a rehash of the failed debates around marijuana that Colorado has finally moved beyond.  

 

 

Latest moves in session-long game of budget chess

The Joint Budget Committee is still gripped in a battle over whether to fund a program that provides driver’s licenses to non-citizen residents of the state. It’s a “defunding” battle worthy of the kind of dysfunctional legislating Republicans are overseeing on Capitol Hill, and its teamed in Denver with a battle over new funds aimed at speeding up concealed-carry gun-owner background checks. Republicans on the budget committee are voting against that money, saying they don’t believe that wait-times for the background checks really take two months, as reported. Senate Republicans want to go a step further on the issue and do away with concealed-carry permits altogether.  

The fight kicked into high gear when the budget bill, SB 159, started ping-ponging between the legislative chambers without compromise. Now, it is up to the House to either kill the bill, along with funding for vital safety programs like impaired driving tests and rape kits, or pass the bill and lose the funding for the background checks and, in effect, submit to Republican budget chess as a new normal. 

Of course there’s two sides to every near-shutdown story and both sides usually get docked. While Republicans have taken heat for everything from disrespecting gun owners to disrespecting the legislative process, Democrats got flack for delaying their vote to fund the rest of safety programs. 

In other news, Capitol Cowboy enters #stateofkind

According to the Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels, Sen. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs, gave away his shoes Wednesday morning in a random act of kindness. He did not use Governor Hickenlooper’s #stateofkind Twitter hashtag to promote the goodwill gesture, though Twitter did take notice.  

 

Photo by Cher Amio

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR