Junction Daily Blog

My topic for tonight was why the Governor ought to sign HB12-1036, which, after Frank McNulty screwed up the session, now contains parts of SB12-155. I say “was” because I have some nasty malware stuff going on my laptop and might or might not get through this post. I certainly won’t be providing the detail I usually provide. I need to get in and get out.

I don’t know much about the original version of HB12-1036, which was about the law enforcement investigative records and the Colorado Open Records Act. I do know about SB12-155, however, because I have been following it since its inception.

SB12-155 created a structure and process around voted ballots as public records, who may access them, and when. The structure and process are sorely needed. SB12-155 was actually sailing along through the General Assembly, but because of McNulty’s “fear of queers,” it died on the calendar.

I’m as in favor of open and transparent elections as anyone; provided, of course that nobody besides me knows how I voted. I’m also in favor of elections departments across the state being able to conduct an election without undue distractions or chain-of-custody problems. SB12-155 provided safeguards against those issues. I wasn’t crazy about how its provisions were incorporated into 1036, but you can thank Speaker McNulty for that.

Recently, a number of activist groups have asked the Governor to veto HB12-1036, because it contains the guts of SB12-155. There were many hundreds of person-hours that went into SB12-155. Activist groups and other stakeholders were part of the process. What they didn’t achieve by legitimate means they are now trying to achieve by trying to convince the Governor to veto the hard work of many others. Such is their right. Let’s hope they fail.

Today, the Denver Post wrote an editorial asking the Governor to veto the bill, which is a curious stance considering that the Colorado Press Association testified on behalf of 155. Let’s hope the Post fails too.

It wouldn’t be the first time these activist groups were wrong, as it wouldn’t be the first time the Denver Post was wrong.

The Governor needs to sign this bill sooner rather than later. Primary ballots have already gone out to overseas military absentee voters. There’s an election in full swing.

OK, Coloradoans.  It’s safe for you to let your wives and daughters out of the house.  The General Assembly has adjourned Sine Die for the second time this year.  Let’s hope that this time is the charm.  They can’t hurt you anymore.  They’re going home.

We hope.

The Governor is spinning the results of the Special Session.  I don’t agree with the Governor.  There was much that was needed to be done that wasn’t done.

And as far as Steve King’s whining about people driving while impaired, where was he on Laura Bradford?  And why was nothing done about the apparent exemption from the law that Legislators enjoy no matter what chemicals they have put into their systems?

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In this world, there are reasons and there are excuses.

Today, Montrose Republican Representative Don Coram expressed his “reason” for voting to make his son a second-class citizen.

Coram said he objected to the use of the word “spouse” in the Civil Unions bill.

Let me be the first to call bullshit on Representative Coram.

The committee on which Coram serves was the first committee to hear the Civil Unions bill during the Special Session.  If Coram was really bothered by the language of the bill, he could have introduced an amendment to change the word “spouse” to “domestic partner” everywhere in the bill.

But Coram introduced no such amendment.  Instead, he made a speech and then did what his leadership sent him there to do–kill the bill.

Representative Coram: it’s hard to take your “reason” seriously.   It’s just an excuse.

This is personal, but I can tell you that if I had to make a choice between supporting a child and supporting the Speaker of the House, it would be a no-brainer.  I would support my child every time. Every time. When she was alive, any time someone picked on me in these pages, my daughter would jump in and support me. Such is the bond between a father and his child (see below).

I have a hard time understanding Coram’s “family values.”  I don’t share them.

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I’d like to welcome John Leane to the County Commissioner race. (Subscription required.)

I plan to vote for him.

In his last stint on the Board of Mesa County Commissioners, Leane was a no-nonsense fiscal conservative. He made a lot of enemies with his budget cuts (it was a different era), but his fiscal conservatism helped guide us through the post-Exxon era. It was tough, but we sucked it up and we survived.

While I don’t expect anyone with an (R) after his or her name to support someone who is not a Republican (such is the sad state of partisanship in this country), I think that if you’re a D or a U, Leane is definitely worth a look.

More than worth a look. Worth a vote. He knows what he’s doing and he could be a solution to the County’s fiscal problems.

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Speaking of the father-daughter bond, here is an example.  A daughter, wearing her dad’s jersey, consoles her father after a tough soccer loss.

I could see my daughter doing this. In a heartbeat.

Gay bashing continued at the Colorado State Capitol today.

It wasn’t quite as blatant as yesterday’s denial of a simple up-or-down vote on the rights of human beings, but it was there nonetheless, in the form of a bill that not many people really cared about (except, or course, for the gay-bashers).

The issue was a little-followed bill:  SCRS12-001. In the last session it was known as SCR12-001. It was a seemingly simple bill. It proposed to allow the voters of the State of Colorado to vote on whether they want to remove from Colorado statutes any laws that are no longer necessary because they have been ruled unconstitutional by a court of law. And not just any court, a seriously high court that the legislature couldn’t possibly overrule.

This was a no-brainer, right? Why keep laws on the books that can no longer be enforced?

That question works for half of the contents of SCRS12-001. The first half of the bill proposed to get rid of campaign contribution limits that can no longer be enforced. After all, Citizen’s United isn’t going to go away anytime soon, right?

But the other half of the resolution was the bone of contention. It would ask the people of Colorado to eliminate portions of Amendment 2. (Remember Amendment 2? It was passed back in 1992, 20 years ago, when I was still relatively young, thin, and handsome.) If you don’t remember it, here’s what it said:

Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of, or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. This Section of the [Colorado] Constitution shall be self-executing.

In 1996, the United States Supreme Court ruled Amendment 2 unconstitutional and enjoined the State of Colorado from enforcing it.

But the language of Amendment 2 is still on the books, where it has been for 16 years since being declared unconstitutional.

Today, Republicans on the House State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee, the same “kill committee” that killed Civil Unions yesterday, killed this relatively innocuous bill to remove obsolete provisions from Colorado law that will never be enforced.

Why did the Committee do this? Because it’s a good idea to have crap in the statutes? No. Because the crap in the statutes is about “queers.”

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Senator Steve King’s “Dope Driving” bill was killed in the Senate today.

That was sort of a surprise. It passed the senate last time and sailed through the Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee today.

Why did it fail this time? Because Senator Nancy Spence, a proponent of the bill, was in California visiting her grandson and celebrating his birthday.

God bless her.

She was prepared to fly back to Denver to vote on the bill if her vote was needed, but she was not expecting the bill to come up today.

The bill died on a tie vote. Perhaps if Senator King were just a wee bit smarter, he would know how to count. Alas, he’s not and he doesn’t.

The coalition that killed the bill was very much bipartisan. King’s bill received “No” votes from Democratic civil libertarians who didn’t want to delegate the job of a judge and jury to a lab technician, as well as true conservative Republicans who didn’t want to pass yet another law that makes something illegal when there are already laws on the books that make the same acts illegal. If something is already illegal (driving while impaired), why do we need another law?

I wish I could mourn for the demise of this bill, but I felt it was based on questionable science.

King deserves kudos for at least one thing. Through his stupid bill, he was able to get Senators like Carroll, Aguilar, Giron, and Steadman to vote on the same side with Senators Brophy, Harvey, Lundberg, and Mitchell. King ought to bottle that and use it to get some truly useful work done next year.

Naah. Ain’t gonna happen.

The special session of the legislature started today.

Representative Mark Ferrandino, one of the co-sponsors of the Civil Unions bill in the regular session, decided to introduce the Civil Unions bill in the House this time, rather than in the Senate where it started the process last time. He wanted Speaker McNulty to play his hand as early as possible, so McNulty couldn’t accuse Democrats of sitting on the bill.

In the regular session, the bill passed three Senate committees, then the whole Senate, then three different House committees: Judiciary, Finance, and Appropriations. Three House Committees. Three different Republican House members voted to pass it in each of their committees. The Republicans only hold a one-vote majority in the House, so with no less than three Republican votes, the bill clearly had enough votes to pass on the floor of the House. However, McNulty made sure there was no vote by recessing the House before the bill could come up.

Today, on re-introduction of the bill (renumbered HB 12S-1006), Speaker McNulty went forum shopping. McNulty assigned the bill to House State, Veterans, and Military Affairs, where bills go to die. Because of the effect it has on contracts and so many other laws, the bill rightfully should have gone to Judiciary. But McNulty couldn’t rely on Judiciary to kill it for him. No matter. McNulty, as Speaker, can assign a bill to whichever committee he wants. He was afraid to give the question of equal rights for all a fair up-or-down vote. So he wanted the bill to die as quickly as possible, before a bipartisan group could debate it and, God forbid, pass it.

And die it did, by a vote of 5-4, in a carefully-selected forum where party discipline means more than right or wrong.

Had the bill been allowed an up-or-down vote before the full body of the people’s elected representatives, it would have passed.

Why is McNulty so opposed to equal rights for all citizens of Colorado? Voters should ask him. Let McNulty and other Republicans live with their new motto, “With Liberty and Justice for Some.”

By the way, our local representative Ray Scott filled in for Representative Janak Joshi today in the House State Affairs Committee today. Scott voted against passing the bill along for a debate and vote by the full House. He should be held to answer a couple of question by the electorate in November. First, why do you, Ray Scott, oppose basic human rights for all citizens? And second, why do you, Ray Scott, oppose free and open debate and a vote by the people’s representatives on the subject?

Before that happens, of course, someone will have to ask the question. I don’t see an opposing candidate with enough balls to do that.

I think today was a tough day for Cheryl. She spent much of the day cleaning.

I might have made it tougher. One night this week, our late daughter came to me in a dream and told me to make sure I sent Mom a card from her. Carina never missed a Mother’s Day. When I went to get a card, Carina’s hand guided me to select one that was uniquely her sense of humor.

When Cheryl got it today, she cried. I didn’t want to do that, honest.

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I’m still listening to Monster Trucks. No County Commissioner showed up at my house for free beer. It’s almost as if they don’t want to know the consequences of their decisions.

I’ll get over the Monster Trucks, more or less.

In the meantime, I want to exude good karma and give you something that will make you smile no matter how pissed off you might be about other things.

Frank McNulty and the Republican Party are girding their loins for the Special Session of the General Assembly.

Sources tell me that McNulty is realigning his House Committees so that there are no slip-ups in killing any civil union legislation.  I was told that one of the casualties is B.J. Nikkel, formerly of House Judiciary, and a vote for civil unions.

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Colorado Ethics Watch is looking into the cozy relationships between certain bonding companies and School Districts.  Search back into the archives of the Daily Blog to see the cozy relationship between G.K. Baum and District 51.

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Tonight is one of those nights when the Mesa County government is interfering with my right to the quiet enjoyment of my home.  It’s Monster Truck night.  Right now, I can’t hear myself think.  Of course, I could close my windows and suffocate–that’s up to me. It’s not a choice I want to be told by the government that I have to make.

If any of the Commissioners would like to drop over for a beer tomorrow night to see what they have wrought, I’m buying.

According to a press release from the Governor’s office, a special session of the legislature will begin on Monday.

The Colorado Constitution, Article IV, Section 9, spells out the requirement that the special session bebe focused on specific things.

The Governor’s office says the following about the goals of the session:

The seven specific subjects that should be considered in the special session are:

• Funding of Colorado Water Conservation Board projects.
• Penalties for persons who drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
• Authorization of civil unions.
• Administration of the unemployment insurance program to stabilize unemployment insurance rates, facilitating the issuance of unemployment revenue bonds and accelerating the creation of the Division of Unemployment Insurance in the Department of Labor and Employment.
• Creating “benefit corporations” in Colorado.
• Registering Special Mobile Machinery Fleets.
• Submitting to the registered electors of the State of Colorado an amendment to the Colorado Constitution repealing provisions deemed obsolete.

The General Assembly determines how long the special session will last. The cost to taxpayers is $23,500 per day; there are 15 days already budgeted in the current fiscal year.

Bullet point #2 tells me that Steve King is going to get another bite at the apple.

Too bad, really. The U.S. Constitution says what it says regardless of what ex-cops imagine it says.

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The Washington Post today tells us an unfortunate story of bullying by a member of the privileged class.

Bullying is never acceptable. . Period

Let’s see, when I last left you, the majority of the Colorado House was making stupid amendments to stupid bills, then failing to pass them. They were also filibustering no-resistance bills like trans-fats in schools. In case any of you are reacting negatively to my characterization of the House Republicans as “filibustering,” just give me a couple of days’ notice. I downloaded the audio of last night’s debate, and will be happy to edit a “worst of the House” audio for you once I get my tomatoes into the ground.

After several hours of filibuster attempt, Representative Claire Levy (D-Boulder) managed to pick off two rogue Republicans and made a motion for the House to Rise and Report. I’m not an expert on Robert’s Rules, but it seems that the motion, combined with the majority, would have left Levy in charge of the agenda. No matter how badly Speaker McNulty and Majority Leader Stephens wanted to run out the clock on civil unions, Levy was in control. Sort of.

Levy was immediately gaveled down, then the House went into recess. This all happened in the bottom of the third in the Rockies game. The House stayed in recess until after the game was over. 11:19 on my clock.

When it came back, the Speaker announced that the House would adjourn for the night. In other words, screw whatever was left on the calendar. McNulty and Stephens didn’t want a vote on Civil Unions and were prepared to discard any bills on the calendar for the rest of the session. Somewhere between two and three dozen bills. One source said 25, another said 31, my own finger-counting said 33. Here’s one list that suggests thirty bills beyond Civil Unions. These bills represented several man-months of effort. Many of them were bipartisan. McNulty didn’t care, as long as he could leave Civil Unions to die on the calendar. What a chickenshit.

Keeping my personal rhetoric to a minimum beyond what has already been opined, let me just say that the desire of House leadership to trash a session just to avoid an up-or-down vote was about the ugliest thing I have ever seen since I have been following the Legislature. No. It was THE ugliest.

Now more of my opinion. McNulty is toast. He lost control of his caucus. He had to take draconian measures to act in behalf of his social-conservative benefactors. Whether he is in a safe district is not at issue. The key is that he lost control. A leader he’s not.

This morning, the Senate put on its big-boy pants and decided to figure out what could be done to save the session. By 1:30, the Senate had a plan to resurrect some of the lost bills by tacking their language onto previously-passed bills that were before the Senate for third reading. Targets were bills with the broadest titles. By dinner time, the Senate had worked through its calendar and sent the amended bills on to the House.

As I write this, the House is trying to put the pieces of Humpty Dumpty together again by passing the bills amended by the Senate.

I have no idea how it has or will come out. I won’t know until I read the Journal tomorrow.

God help them.

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Regardless of what the House and Senate do today, Civil Unions can’t be resurrected. There was no bill with a broad-enough title to fix what the House did last night.

No matter. Governor Hickenlooper has announced that he will call a special session to deal with this and other bills.

I’m not a big Hick fan, but I think the special session shows a certain willingness to expend political chits on an issue that Hickenlooper is morally connected to. (Equal justice for all, in case you’re wondering.)

The Governor gets a few points from me. I figured he’d run and hide from this issue.

Things happen quickly in the final days of the legislative session.

You can’t miss any part of any session. The Calendar published in the morning is out of date the minute it appears on the web. You have to listen to everything, particularly the announcements, to find out what is going to be heard when.

I had lunch with friends today. Therefore, I missed the last hour of the morning sessions of the House and Senate. I’ve lost track of a couple of bills.

For example, I have no idea how the Screw Paul Brown bill and the Inactive-Failed-To-Vote voters bill did. Someone told me that the inactive voters bill never made it to a conference committee, but I won’t know until the Journal is published in the morning.

I do know that SB155, the “ballots as open records” bill passed out of Committee. I also know that Steve King’s unfortunate invasion of our Fourth- and Fifth-Amendment freedoms, the drugged driving bill, passed out of Committee. I did manage to hear the Civil Unions bill pass out of committee at about 4:30. Earlier in the Appropriations Committee hearing, Republicans insisted on debating three bills that have no chance of clearing the House and going to the Senate in time to be passed. The cynical side of me says that this was just to push the Civil Unions bill back as far as possible.

The Civil Unions bill got amended today by the Appropriations Committee to include things that had nothing to do with an appropriation. One amendment allows religious schools and hospitals to discriminate against same-sex couples and their children. Another allows psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and other professionals to discriminate against gay couples. Both amendments had been offered in the Senate but were defeated. No matter, the House sponsor has enough votes to strip these amendments and just needed to get the bill out of Committee.

And that’s where I broke for dinner and lost track.

I don’t know if the Civil Unions bill has come up on the House Floor during its fairly rare evening session.

Right now, the House is busy debating the government’s God-given right to feed your kids transfats in school. This is only important because Michelle Obama thinks transfats are a bad idea. It’s also important because such a debate is a good way to run out the clock on other unpopular legislation. You know, like Civil Unions.

For some strange reason, I think I need to go back to listening to the debate. I’ll watch the Rockies game on TV and listen to the House in my earbuds.

Wish me, same-sex couples, and the purveyors of transfats good luck.

DE K0RFD QRT