Category: Politics & Elections

Bipartisan Hamner-Rankin Bill Creates Framework to Improve CO Education System

The House Education Committee this afternoon approved a bipartisan bill sponsored by Reps. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon, and Bob Rankin, R-Carbondale, to establish a legislative steering committee to create a strategic plan for the future of education in Colorado.

“We need to make sure we’re doing everything for the children of Colorado to be prepared, to be successful, and to get a good job,” said Rep. Hamner. “This plan will unite the energy, excitement and ideas about education throughout the state to create a plan that reflects what we really want for our children.”

“Colorado can and should do better,” Rep. Hamner continued. “We are well-positioned to succeed— we have great educators and great schools. We just need to make sure we engage every citizen and stakeholder in this state.”

HB17-1287 creates a legislative steering committee tasked with establishing a vision for the future of education in Colorado and developing a strategic plan to achieve that vision. The bill also creates an advisory board with representatives from the department of education, department of higher education, governor’s office and early childhood leadership commission. A second advisory board would consist of representatives from various education stakeholder groups from across the state.

The plan would undergo four phases:

·        Researching high-performing education systems in other states and countries to compare with Colorado’s current system

·        Collecting public input from teachers, parents and any groups wanting to be involved across the state

·        Analyzing information collected and creating the vision and strategic plan to achieve it

·        Adopting and implementing the plan

The 9-4 vote sends the bill to the House Appropriations Committee.

Dems + 1 Approve State Budget That Was Months of Bipartisan Work in the Making

House Republicans told Coloradans to pound sand today when they voted against a state budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

The long bill, as it’s called, funds the state’s core services. It is the biggest annual piece of work the legislature conducts and the only bill that it is constitutionally required to produce.

The vote on SB17-254 was 38-27. Only Rep. Bob Rankin, R-Carbondale, joined the House Democrats in support of the bill. As a member of the legislative Joint Budget Committee, Rep. Rankin is one of the three Republicans (and three Democrats) who drafted the state budget and knows the months of negotiation and bipartisan compromise that went into the document.

“We are very pleased that we have a bipartisan bill for you to vote on today,” said Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon, vice chairwoman of the JBC, which worked for months to prepare SB17-254. “It was not easy work.”

“We started with a budget that was a half billion dollars in the hole,” Rep. Dave Young, D-Greeley, who also sits on the JBC, told the House. “We managed to find a pathway through that.”

Rep. Hamner said the legislature’s budget work this session was not complete. “To really make this budget work,” she told the body, “we need to figure out how to reinvest in our hospitals, particularly in our rural hospitals. We need to figure out how to provide more funding and more resources for our critical infrastructure needs, particularly in the way of transportation.”

She was referring to SB17-267, which would shore up hospital financing and free up funding for K-12 and other key priorities, and HB17-1242, a sweeping plan to upgrade Colorado’s dilapidated transportation system. Both bill have bipartisan sponsors and are awaiting their first Senate hearing.

“We have a real opportunity in front of us to have a positive impact on every Coloradan,” said Speaker Crisanta Duran, D-Denver. She called on legislators over the final 30 days of the session to “put problem-solving as a priority to insure that we invest in our rural hospitals and that we come up with a bipartisan, statewide plan to be able to invest in transportation.”

Republicans argued that there’s something wrong with a state budget that is growing, when the real problem is that the budget isn’t growing fast enough to keep pace with Colorado’s expanding economy.

Rep. Hamner noted that the alternatives, including cutting K-12 spending, were unsavory. “Would you have rather that we reduced the senior property tax program?” she asked the House. “Would you have rather that we increased the negative factor? Our choices are not all very pleasant here.”

The long bill is headed back to the Senate, which will consider 26 amendments added by the House during second-reading debate on Friday.

Dems Swat Down GOP Efforts to Upset Careful Balance of ‘Worthy and Competing Priorities’  

After a debate that began at lunchtime Thursday, the House gave preliminary approval this morning to a balanced state budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

“This budget achieves a delicate balance between a variety of worthy and competing priorities,” said Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon, vice chairwoman of the legislative Joint Budget Committee, which worked nearly five months to prepare SB17-254. “With our budget restrictions we simply cannot adequately address every need.”    

House Democrats spent much of Thursday’s 10-hour debate and again in this morning’s approval of the report of the committee of the whole swatting down GOP attempts to amend the “long bill,” SB17-254, by gutting funding for critical state programs. Republicans proposed amendments totaling $887 million in transfers to transportation, but all they accomplished was to expose their oft-repeated myth that Colorado is able to fully fund its transportation system without crippling other parts of the budget. Their amendments would have eviscerated education, healthcare and critical services for those with disabilities.

One of the ugliest GOP efforts was an amendment that called for a doubling of Medicaid copays to fund transportation.

“We have had a bipartisan transportation effort that has come through this chamber,” Speaker Crisanta Duran told the House on Thursday, alluding to HB17-1242, the sweeping transportation plan that’s now in the Senate. “But instead we now have an amendment coming forward that says, ‘You know what? We’re going to fill those potholes and we’re going to deal with traffic congestion and we’re going to do it on the backs of those who are sick and we’re going to do it on the backs of those who are vulnerable.’ ”

The House did adopt a variety of significant amendments, seven sponsored by Democrats, two by Republicans and two with bipartisan sponsorship. They include:

·        Majority Leader KC Becker, D-Boulder: $16.3 million from marijuana revenues for affordable housing grants and loans.

·        Rep. Jon Becker, R-Fort Morgan: $9.45 million from a telecoms fund to boost rural broadband service.

·        Reps. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont; Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood; Tracy Kraft-Tharp, D-Arvada; and Clarice Navarro, R-Pueblo: $8 million from marijuana taxes for substance abuse prevention and treatment services.

·        Rep. Phil Covarrubias, R-Brighton: $7.7 million for career and technical education by transferring money within the Department of Education and the Department of Higher Education.

·        Reps. Diane Mitsch Bush, D-Steamboat Springs, and Jim Wilson, R-Salida: $5.4 million for ambulance services for rural Colorado by moving existing funding within the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

·        Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver: $4 million from marijuana taxes for marijuana research grants.

·        Reps. James Coleman, D-Denver; Leslie Herod, D-Denver; Jovan Melton, D-Aurora; Dominique Jackson, D-Aurora; Janet Buckner, D-Aurora; and Tony Exum, D-Colorado Springs: $1.5 million from marijuana tax revenue to increase funding for the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program, which funds youth development programs statewide.

·        Rep. Melton: $1.5 million for the state film incentives program.

·        Reps. Exum and Barbara McLachlan, D-Durango: $1.1 million for firefighter safety. Republicans fought against the amendment, which provides fire safety equipment.

·        Reps. Exum, Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, and Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins: $1.1 million from the governor’s office for the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program weatherization operation.

“As a member of the Joint Budget Committee, tradition prevented me from supporting individual amendments to the long bill,” said Rep. Dave Young, D-Greeley. “But I must say this package of amendments has improved a tight and very difficult budget.”

After a recorded vote likely to take place on Monday, the long bill will head back to the Senate.

WASHINGTON D.C. — U.S. Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO), Richard Burr (R-NC), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and others today introduced legislation to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which would fully realize LWCF’s promise to conserve parks, open spaces, and wildlife habitat for the benefit of hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) also cosponsored the legislation.

“LWCF is essential to protect Colorado’s natural treasures and I have long supported a permanent reauthorization of this program,” said Senator Gardner. “This bipartisan, commonsense legislation is supported by countless Coloradans and Americans who want to protect our country’s public lands for future generations to enjoy. I’ll continue to work with my colleagues to see permanent reauthorization of LWCF signed into law.”

“The LWCF has a proven track record of making good on the promise of conserving our parks, open spaces, and wildlife habitats for the benefit of future generations of Americans,” said Senator Burr. “My colleagues and I offer this bill to permanently extend the LWCF, a program that preserves our natural heritage but does so without asking American taxpayers to shoulder the burden. I look forward to my colleagues coming together to pass this bipartisan legislation.”

“Access to Colorado’s open spaces is critical to our thriving outdoor recreation economy,” Senator Bennet said. “The LWCF has supported hundreds of projects across Colorado, from protecting the Ophir Valley to expanding and improving the Animas River Trail to providing Denver kids with outdoor educational opportunities in their own neighborhoods. We should pass this bill to reauthorize the program permanently, and at the same time, Congress should move to ensure the LWCF receives full and dedicated funding going forward.”

“The LWCF is our most important and successful conservation and recreation program.  I have long supported this landmark program that has created opportunities for Americans to enjoy the outdoors in every state,” said Senator Collins. “By permanently extending the LWCF, our legislation will help create a more stable, long-term plan that allows landowners, states, local communities, and conservation partners to reasonably plan for the future.”

“LWCF is a critical tool that helps expand access to our public lands and preserves our Montana way of life,” said Senator Daines. “By permanently reauthorizing LWCF we can remove uncertainty and protect access to public lands for future generations.”

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund has helped protect some of our most treasured public lands and wildlife refuges in New Mexico like the Valles Caldera and Ute Mountain,” Senator Heinrich said. “LWCF also expands opportunities for outdoor traditions like hunting, camping, and fishing that are among the pillars of Western culture, and a thriving outdoor recreation economy. Permanently and fully funding LWCF will help ensure that our outdoor heritage and public lands will be protected for future generations to enjoy.”

Read the legislation here.

Sponsored by Majority Leader KC Becker, Rep. Jeff Bridges and Rep. Chris Kennedy, three pieces of legislation to increase transparency and accountability in Colorado’s elections passed out of the House State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee this afternoon.

“One thing we can do to create greater confidence in our electoral system and our elected officials is to create greater transparency—and both of these bills will do just that,” said Majority Leader Becker, D-Boulder, referring to HB17-1261 and HB17-1262.

Sponsored by Majority Leader Becker and Rep. Bridges, HB17-1261 ensures that voters know who is paying for any mass electioneering communications by requiring “paid for by” disclaimers on all electioneering materials.

HB17-1262, also sponsored by Majority Leader Becker and Rep. Bridges, closes a crucial gap in reporting requirements between the date of the primary and 60 days before the general election. The bill applies the same disclosure requirements throughout the campaign—from before the primary and continuing up to the general election.

“Everyone knows that elections last for more than just 60 days,” said Rep. Bridges, D-Greenwood Village. “This is a necessary step to make sure Coloradans know who is spending money to influence their vote. This bill brings dark money into the light and reflects the Colorado values of transparency and accountability. We owe it to the people of Colorado to pass this bill.”

The third bill, sponsored by Rep. Kennedy, limits individual contributions to county candidates to $2,500 per cycle with proportional limits for partnerships, political committees, small donor committees, and political parties. HB17-1260 maintains the prohibition on corporate contributions.

“Not having any contribution limits whatsoever for county candidates is really an outlier in our state’s campaign finance laws,” said Rep. Kennedy, D-Lakewood. “I’ve seen a county candidate who received a $40,000 contribution and it was perfectly legal. Contributions that size raise concerns that elected officials may not be putting the people first. Putting in place these contribution limits is a reasonable step to restore faith in county elections.”

All three bills passed on a 6-3 party-line vote and now proceed to the House floor.

Michaelson Jenet-Danielson Bill Helps Vets Receive College Credit for Certain Military Training

A bill by Reps. Dafna Michaelson Jenet and Jessie Danielson to facilitate applying college credit for military service passed the House unanimously this morning with a 63-0 vote. Every representative present in the chamber also chose to co-sponsor the measure, signaling overwhelming support for the bill.

“Coming from a military family, I understand the frustration of Colorado veterans who return to civilian life and face unnecessary obstacles,” said Rep. Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City. “We owe it to our veterans to honor their service and training, and empower them to pursue their educational goals.”

“We have an obligation to our veterans to honor the American dream they fought for,” said Rep. Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge. “And part of that is taking concrete steps to give them access to the good paying jobs available to them. One significant obstacle that veterans face when transitioning to civilian life is not being able to convert their service into college credit. That’s where our bill comes into play.”

HB17-1004 would require Colorado colleges and universities to have a policy in place to award credit for military service.

The bill now continues to the Senate for consideration.