Voter Photo ID Bill Killed Again

Yet another GOP effort to require that voters show a government-issued photo identification document before being allowed to cast a ballot died at the statehouse Thursday.

The House killed a similiar bill last year.

HB 1115, sponsored by Rep. Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, would have mandated that a prospective voter show a Colorado driver license or Department of Revenue identification card, U.S. passport, local, state or federal government employee identification card, military identification or state university student ID card before being given a ballot.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April 2008 that states may require voters to show photo identification before voting without violating the U.S. Constitution.

The decision in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board has not yet prompted any state that did not already require voters to show a photo ID every time they vote to do so, according to a website maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires states to enact statutes requiring voters that have registered to vote by mail, and who did not supply such proof of identification with their registration, to show identification the first time they vote.

The vote in the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee was on a party-line basis, with all seven Democrats opposing Summers' measure.

Ethics Committee to Look Into Allegations Against Balmer

A bipartisan committee of House members will investigate allegations that assistant minority leader David Balmer, R-Centennial, attempted to improperly influence colleagues' votes in the race to replace Rep. Mike May, R-Parker, as minority leader.

The committee, which was announced by speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, today, includes five veteran legislators.

Members of the ethics committee, which will consider a complaint filed against Balmer on Dec. 16, include Reps. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, Joel Judd, D-Denver, Claire Levy, D-Boulder, Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, and Ken Summers, R-Lakewood.

The complaint against Balmer, which was filed by May, alleges that Balmer attempted to coordinate a campaign contribution by a professional association in exchange for a vote in his favor in the GOP caucus meeting. It also alleges that Balmer promised a future committee chairmanship to another legislator in exchange for his or her vote for Balmer as the new minority leader.

As a Rocky Mountain News article on the ethics controversy points out, the partisan makeup of this committee is different from the one that investigated Rep. Douglas Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, last session. That committee has three Democrats and three Republicans.

Balmer is accused of violating House Rule 49b, which requires that ethics committees assigned to investigate such allegations "shall be in proportion generally to the relative number of members of the two major political parties in the House."

Bill Requiring School Districts to Post Open Enrollment Info Killed

The House Education Committee killed Monday a bill that would have required school districts to post open enrollment information prominently on their websites.

HB 1214, sponsored by Rep. Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, would have made it much easier for parents to learn the dates by which the state's school districts require applications for enrollment in schools available for open enrollment to be submitted, as well as the schools with available slots.

Bill Requiring School Districts to Make Websites More User-Friendly To Get Hearing

A bill that would require Colorado school districts to post open enrollment information on their websites is due for a hearing before the House Education Committee Monday, Feb. 11.

HB 1214 would require school districts to create a separate page with information about open enrollment on their websites. The bill also specifies that the school districts would have to put tabs for those pages on their websites' home pages.

The sponsor is Rep. Ken Summers, R-Lakewood.

Republican Voter ID Bills Die Quickly

Two GOP bills aimed at forcing voters to present photo identification and prove U.S. citizenship before being allowed to cast a ballot died in a House committee Thursday.

HB 1039 and HB 1177 were killed on party-line votes in the House State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee.

Republicans argued that the bills are needed to assure that only people entitled to vote do so. "The issue we're dealing with is the integrity of our voting system," Rep. Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, said.

But Democrats, including committee chair Paul Weissman, D-Louisville, said they thought the bills would disenfranchise people. The bills were "thinly veiled means of discouraging some people from going to their polling places, and would severely damage an already fragile system," Weissman said.

HB 1039 was sponsored by Summers, while HB 1177 was sponsored by Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch.