DENVER – As the Colorado Legislature hits mid-session, lawmakers are bracing for the most difficult battles of the year.
A host of issues hang over the House and Senate chambers, including controversial measures around construction-defect law, police impropriety, oil and gas regulation, and, of course, the annual fight about the state budget.
“Mostly the work is ahead of us,” said Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, who stepped to the helm as president when Republicans took control of the chamber after last year’s election. “The first half is kind of getting ready for it.”
Much of the beginning of the session was dominated by a political hangover from the election. With Republicans in control of the Senate, they were able to flex muscle, blocking funding for an immigrant driver’s license program and concealed-carry background checks.
Democrats are optimistic they still can reach an agreement on the driver’s license funding, which remains alive with a whimper of hope. Otherwise, they will attempt to address the funding issues through the budget for next year’s fiscal year.
The lack of Republican dedication to the programs frustrated Democrats. But what really irked them were procedural moves by Cadman, who declined to send the background-check funding to a conference committee for negotiation, a commonplace practice when dealing with impasses.
“It truly is unfortunate the games the Republicans have played,” said House Majority Leader Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, who entered leadership when Democrats held control of the House, electing Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, to serve as speaker this year.
Cadman downplayed the politics: “I don’t think it was an unusual move. ... That gets back to government accountability. We said we weren’t going to rubber-stamp failed programs.”
House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, offered an honest account of the Legislature: “There’s a large group of folks out there in Colorado who say if we didn’t exist, or we didn’t pass any bills, they might be better off.”
For Senate Democrats, the year has been dominated by navigating their new role in the minority, something the caucus hasn’t felt for a decade.
Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll, D- Aurora, watched as her colleagues on the other side of the aisle pushed measures that rolled back Democratic priorities from the last two years, including attempts to erase gun-control laws and renewable-energy standards. Those bills, however, either already have been checked by the House or soon will be killed by that body.
“We spent the rest of our time trying to fight rollbacks, repeals and ideas that we think are a little scary and sort of fringe,” Carroll said.
The question is whether the politics from the first half of the session will carry over into the second half when lawmakers begin the heavy lifting.
The centerpiece debate will be over whether to make it more difficult for homeowners to sue for construction defects. The issue has Democrats split, with Hullinghorst expressing skepticism.
And a package of bills is on the way to crack down on law enforcement after police shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City and here in Colorado.
Ideas include increasing the use of body cameras, prohibiting law enforcement from confiscating recording devices during police-citizen confrontations, collecting demographic data on arrests, banning the use of chokeholds and appointing a special prosecutor to review decisions not to charge an officer when deadly or excessive force is used.
Oil and gas also looms large, with lawmakers questioning whether to pick up where a task force appointed by the governor left off. The task force recommended modest steps for legislation, but stopped short of addressing a local government’s authority to enact rules and regulations, which remains the crux of the issue.
Hullinghorst believes Democrats and Republicans will be able to find common ground in the second half of the session.
“We’ve had some good bipartisan work,” she said. “We seem to be agreeing to disagree in most instances fairly respectfully and also agreeing that we’re going to work on the really big issues that impact the people of the state of Colorado.”