Tag: SB 108

The Colorado Senate GOP filibuster that went into the wee hours of Monday morning makes for high political drama and probably some juicy negative ad fodder for the next campaign cycle. But there were 14 elephants who forgot their own roles in the transportation funding crisis. Referendum D, anyone?

State Sen. Dan Gibbs (D-Dillon) took his controversial transportation-funding bill on the road over the weekend, trying to get out in front a fickle public largely unwilling to increase taxes for road and bridge fixes in recent years.

Lawmakers, after initially singing Kumbaya on a transportation funding bill that would raise vehicle registration fees to pay for road and bridge repairs, went their bipartisan ways late Wednesday when the possibility of tolling on existing roads was reintroduced. That prompted a Democrat-led state Senate vote of approval by a 19-16 party-line margin late Wednesday, and a mass exodus by Republicans.

Senate Republicans and Democrats smoked a peace pipe Wednesday in their heated debate over a transportation funding bill called FASTER (Funding Advancement for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery).

State lawmakers continue to be divided along party lines on a controversial Senate bill that would raise vehicle registration fees $32 a year to pay for badly needed road and bridge repairs. The bill's main impact would be to boost vehicle registration fees $32 annually, raising a little over $200 million in its first year to fund badly needed road and bridge repairs, including the state’s 126 structurally deficient bridges. It's cruising through the statehouse under the catchy slogan-title Funding Advancement for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery or FASTER.