House gives final approval to Democrats' sex education bill

The state House of Representatives sent to the Senate Friday a bill that would commit school districts who teach about human sexuality to doing so in a way that takes account of the circumstances faced by students who are not heterosexual or who must cope with disability.

HB 13-1081 was approved on third reading by a 37-28 vote.

The debate before that final vote of the chamber was less time-consuming than was the one that occurred on Tuesday. Nevertheless, Republicans reiterated their view that the bill is objectionable because it forces parents to excuse their children from sex education classes, rather than being given the chance to sign them up for such instruction, and that there is no reliable mechanism to verify that its policy prescription will actually result in fewer teen pregnancies or sexually-transmitted disease cases.

"Folks, this message hasn't been proven to work," Rep. Amy Stephens, R-Monument, said. "It has never gone through a federally-funded randomized control study. We are doing a grand experimentation on our children."

Stephens, who formerly worked for the evangelical advocacy organization Focus on the Family, argued that the comprehensive approach to be written into law by the bill rules out the sort of individual counseling that discourages risky sexual behaviors.

She told of her experience working in a California family-planning clinic, where some patients would repeatedly visit to determine whether a pregnancy had commenced.

"We need to connect," she said. "You cannot address this issue of comprehensive sexuality education unless you address behaviors."

Stephens, along with fellow Republican Lori Saine of Dacono, argued that parents would object to instruction about birth-control methods, while Colorado Springs Republican Lois Landgraf warned that school districts would be sued if teachers talk of birth control methods in the classroom.

"The real truth is that eight out of 10 Democratic parents, they want their kids taught abstinence," Stephens asserted. "They at least want their kids taught about restraint."

A 2004 survey conducted by National Public Radio, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government found that nearly three-quarters of respondents thought it "very important" that sex education be available to children.

Forty-eight percent of respondents agreed with an assertion that "[w]hen it comes to sex, teenagers need to have limits set, they must be told what is acceptable and what is not," and 48 percent agreed with an assertion that "[u]ltimately teenagers need to make their own decisions, so
their education needs to be more in the form of providing information and guidance."

Stephens, who has been her party's principal combatant on the issue as it has progressed through the House, also cited New York physician Michael Carrera's Children's Aid Society as a model for appropriate comprehensive sexuality instruction and slammed HB 13-1081 for not mimicking it.

"It's because this program deals one-on-one," she said. "They have a lot of mentoring, a lot of one-on-one mentoring, a lot of sheltering, a lot of community resources that come around to kids."

Democrats countered, as they did during the initial floor debate on the measure earlier in the week, with an emphasis on the imperative of overcoming ignorance and drawing kids away from a sense of isolation that can inhibit healthy questioning.

Rep. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, made the point with a personal story that reflected his party's point. He told his colleagues that he attended a high school with an infant and toddler care facility on the campus and that his sister became pregnant as a teenager.

The Democratic sponsor, Rep. Crisanta Duran of Denver, argued during a committee hearing and on the floor during Tuesday's discussion in the chamber's Committee of the Whole that her bill would lower teen pregnancy rates.

At the county level, recent data indicates that teen pregnancy is a significantly bigger problem than it is in others. In 2009, the teen pregnancy rates in Adams, Denver, Mesa, Pueblo, and Weld counties were higher than both the Colorado and U.S. averages.

The statistical case for an inordinate teen pregnancy rate in the state as a whole is not altogether clear. In 2005, according to the Guttmacher Institute, Colorado had the 19th-highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Other data indicates that the state's teen pregnancy rate dropped by 32 percent between 1988 and 2005.

The state's Department of Public Health and Environment issued a report last year that indicated the teen pregnancy rate in Colorado fell at an even faster rate between 2001 and 2009.

That report also indicated that, in 2009, the teen pregnancy rate in Colorado was 4 births lower per 1,000 women than it was for the nation as a whole.

The problem is daunting on a national scale. The U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed nation, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 400,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant every year in America.

Duran pointed out Friday, as she had during committee discussion of the bill and in floor debate earlier in the week, that her bill does not preclude educators from emphasizing the value of abstinence.

That position is consistent with the policy prescriptions of a number of medical organizations concerned with adolescent health, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and Society for Adolescent Medicine.

No general fund dollars would be available to fund sex education in schools under the measure's terms. Instead, CDPHE would administer a program through which school districts and charter schools could seek federal funds to pay for the instruction.

No district or charter school would be obligated to apply for the federal money, but if they did and received the grant, then the bill's sex education content mandates would kick in.

No Republican member of the House voted for the bill, which now heads across the Capitol to the Senate. Sen. Nancy Todd, D-Aurora, will carry it there.

ASSET bill gets initial Senate approval

The Senate gave initial approval to the ASSET legislation Friday, taking a historic step toward equalizing the college tuition paid by Colorado residents who are not U.S. citizens and Colorado residents who are U.S. citizens.

Matt Ferner of the Huffington Post has the story.

SB 13-033 drew Republican votes, which makes it even more likely that the Democrat-dominated General Assembly will send the bill to Gov. John Hickenlooper, who has previously indicated he supports it.

Eligibility to pay in-state tuition rates at Colorado universities would depend on several factors, including how long the individual attended high school in the state.

Sex education bill will soon head to Senate

The House of Representatives has preliminarily approved an overhaul of state law on sex education, likely setting up a partisan Senate clash on a bill that would assure a more broad-based discussion of human sexual behavior in Colorado classrooms.

HB 13-1081 gained initial approval Tuesday in a party-line vote.

Joe Hanel of the Durango Herald covered the debate.

Hickenlooper says he'd veto firefighter collective bargaining bill

John Hickenlooper does not like the idea of tinkering with the state's polyglot system of handling employment relations with local firefighters.

The governor wrote to Senate president John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and House speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, on Tuesday to express his opposition to SB 13-025, which would require all municipalities in Colorado to collectively bargain with firefighters.

“After careful review of the legislation, the concerns of relevant parties and the policies of this administration, we cannot support SB13-025 in its current form and urge the Colorado General Assembly to consider alternatives that respect both the political rights of firefighters and the ability of local governments to make locally accordant decisions regarding collective bargaining,” Hickenlooper's letter said.

Former Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed similar legislation in 2009.

One concern about this year's bill, as well as the measure killed by Ritter, is that it might violate the state constitution. A 1990 state supreme court decision seems to indicate that the General Assembly lacks authority to override article 20, section 6 of Colorado's bedrock law.

Another bill to let grocery stores sell beer dies

In what is becoming an annual tradition, legislation that would have opened the door to sale of full-strength beer in grocery stores has died in the General Assembly.

HB 13-1178, sponsored by Rep. Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, was terminated Tuesday at Priola's request after he realized there was not enough support for it to pass the House Business, Labor, Economic and Workforce Development Committee.

The committee voted unanimously to end the bill's journey through the legislative process.

The measure was opposed, as similar versions in prior years have been, by liquor stores. The state's micro-brewing industry also expressed skepticism about the bill.

Jeanne McEvoy, a spokesperson for the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association, said that safety is a principal reason for her organization's opposition to this and similar bills.

"You don’t put alcohol on shelves where kids can go in and grab their Red Bull and vodka and put it in a backpack and go out the door," she said. "That doesn’t happen in a liquor store."

McEvoy also noted that a study commissioned by CLBA showed that many of the state's liquor stores would go out of business if grocery and convenience stores could compete with them.

"The other thing is, the economics of losing your market to large corporations that can out-purchase you and then put you out of business pretty darn quick," she explained.

The state's craft brewing industry has been experiencing rapid growth, according to a spokesman, and does not believe that changing the current system would benefit the increasing number of small breweries in Colorado.

"We feel that the system that’s in place is an excellent system," Steve Kurowski, the marketing and public relations manager for the Colorado Brewers Guild, said. "We feel that it supplies the beer drinker, the wine drinker with a lot of options with great selection in these liquor stores and they’re very convenient. A lot of them are right next to the grocery store. To have a place that’s going to focus exclusively on beer, wine, and spirits is a good thing, especially in a state that has so many breweries, wineries, and now distilleries."

A 2012 study commissioned by CBG indicates that the industry produces a $146 million annual economic impact for the state.

"Growth is staggering," Kurowski said. "We are seeing breweries that are 10, 15-plus years old build new breweries from the ground up, expand at their breweries to add new fermentation tanks. We’re even seeing some of these breweries grow internationally. In Colorado, in the last sixteen months, it’s safe to say that we've opened around 40 breweries."

Kurowski explained that the advantage of current law is that it allows brewers to quickly form strong working relationships with those who make purchasing decisions at the state's many liquor stores.

"If you make good beer, if you’re product is in demand, you can find a place for it," he said. "What makes it easy is that a brewery can make some beer, put it in a delivery van, take it to a liquor store, and say, ‘hey, look at our Christmas beer, look at our summer brew, would you like to buy?’ The liquor store can say yes or no."

The state's major grocery chains do not station personnel with purchasing authority relating to beer in Colorado, Kurowski added. 

No bill to expand access to beer sales was introduced in last year's legislative session. During each of the four years prior to that similar proposals were considered.

Priola's bill would not have been limited to beer. It would have allowed grocery stores to obtain up to five liquor licenses, which could have in turn provided a pathway to sell wine and hard liquors in addition to full-strength beer.

The micro-brewing industry's opposition to the bill came in spite of a provision that would have allowed some of its participants to sell their product in all Colorado grocery and convenience stores.

Kurowski noted that the provision would not have benefited most of the state's craft brewers.

"There’s only a small handful of breweries that would be able to do business with the grocery stores," he said.

NOTE: This story also appears at Examiner.com.
 

Legislation to fix Colorado sex education standards to get House debate Thursday

A Denver Democrat will ask the House Thursday to approve legislation that would clarify what the state's public schools must teach about human sexuality.

The bill aims to eliminate disparities among districts and encourage schools to give children the knowledge they need to avoid pregnancy even if they become sexually active.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, argued in a committee hearing last week that the measure is necessary to advance public health and to protect teenagers.

"Colorado youth still face many barriers in obtaining the medically accurate information and resources they need to make informed and responsible decisions and lead healthy lifestyles," she said.

Duran's proposal would not preclude instruction about abstinence.

“Abstinence is incredibly important. If you do not want unintended pregnancy, if you do not want to see the transmission of disease, then abstain from engaging in sexual activity,” Duran explained.

However, Duran pointed out that educators also need tools to help students who do choose to become sexually active.

"For those who choose to do so, we should be able to have an approach that really teaches them how to protect themselves," she said.

At the core of the legislation is a provision that conditions compliance on receipt of federal grant money.

The money would be dispersed to school districts or charter schools by the state's Department of Public Health and Environment.

"This is not an unfunded mandate," Duran said.

One notable feature of HB 13-1081 is a clause that puts the burden on parents to excuse their children from sex education classes. Under current law a student is not permitted to learn about human reproductive behavior in school unless a parent gives permission in advance.

Republicans on the House Health, Insurance, and Environment Committee voted as a block against the bill last Thursday.

Former House majority leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument, led the GOP opposition to the legislation.

Among several arguments she advanced was one to the effect that any benefit of teaching children about the reproductive physiology of the human body is outweighed by the prospect that doing so may offend the religious sensibilities of some individuals.

Centennial Republican Spencer Swalm attacked the bill on grounds that it limits school districts to grants that advance the goal of comprehensive sex education. Duran disputed that argument, pointing out that the proposed statutory language would not prevent districts from working with external organizations that advocate for abstinence-only education.

The legislature last enacted a sex education bill in 2007. That one, however, did not require curricula used by public schools in the state to address the reality of homosexual and bisexual behavior among humans.

HB 13-1081 would correct that oversight, requiring that sex education programs in the state's public schools be "culturally sensitive."

That requirement, as well as the overall approach of the legislation, is based on a 2012 report on youth sexual activity issued by the state's Department of Public Health and Environment.

The sponsor of the 2007 bill, Nancy Todd, is now a senator from an Aurora-area district and is carrying HB 13-1081 in the Senate this year.

If the bill is approved on "second reading" Thursday then it must first be approved in another House vote before moving to the Senate.

Democrats' package of four gun control bills to be debated on House floor Friday

The set of four big firearms bills introduced by House Democrats will be debated in that chamber on Friday.

The package includes measures that would limit the size of bullet magazines, require all purchasers of firearms to obtain a background check, force gun buyers to pay for the required background check, and make clear that the state's concealed carry law does not apply on the campuses of public colleges and universities.

If any or all of the bills are approved by the House on Friday, they will be calendared for a second vote in the chamber a few days later. The bills move to the Senate only if they are approved on both "second reading" and "third reading" in the House.

Bill advancing fee for gun background check advances

The House Finance Committee has approved a bill that would require firearms purchasers to pay for the background check required by state law.

HB 13-1228 was cleared Wednesday afternoon on a 7-6, party-line vote.

The measure would force individuals subject to the background check mandate to pay a $10-12 fee associated with it.

Under current law the state's taxpayers pay for the background checks.

If enacted into law, the proposal would allow the state government to save about $1.5 million per year. That's according to an analysis prepared by the Colorado Legislative Council.

The measure is not without precedent. For several years prior to 1999 state law required those subject to the firearms background check to pay for it.

HB 13-1228 is sponsored by Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver.

House committee considers ban on firearms on college campuses

A House committee will examine Wednesday a bill that would ban firearms from all buildings and athletic facilities on the state's college campuses.

HB 13-1226 would overturn a 2012 state supreme court decision that applied Colorado's concealed carry law to higher education institutions.

The state's flagship college, the University of Colorado at Boulder, has wrestled with the requirement to accommodate concealed firearms.

"Certainly, given that we had a weapons ban in place for forty-plus years, there’s been thinking that banning weapons was a good thing," Ken McConnellogue, a vice president at CU, said.

McConnellogue said that CU forbids weapons in most residence halls and at Folsom Field and that administrators deal with arguments that they should be banned in other circumstances, too.

"The nuance of that, both with the residence hall and the football games, those are essentially contracts," he explained. "We have some discretion over that. There are many more. People say, you are banning them at football games, you can ban them at commencement. You can ban them at guest lectures. At the end of the day, the university is obliged to follow the law and we’re going to do that. The challenge for us is to determine how the law works within the particular environment."

Colorado State University applies limits similar to those in place on at CU's Boulder campus, according to spokesperson Mike Hooker.

"The places on campus where you’re not allowed to carry are the residence halls and our [in] basketball arena [or] during sporting events," he explained.

CSU opened the doors to possession of guns on its campus about nine years before last year's decision in Regents of the University of Colorado v. Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, believes that her proposal is essential if the state's universities are to effectively help students who may be suffering from emotional disturbance or mental illness.

"In the years since the Virginia Tech shooting Colorado and other states have responded with increased attention to the mental health needs of their college students," she said. "State colleges have created threat assessment teams so [that] students who are struggling with emotional problems can be identified and provided the help and support they need. But we haven't addressed one of the biggest threats to campus safety, which is the presence of guns on campuses."

The veteran legislator also explained that her bill is an effort to enhance student safety.

"The bill also recognizes that college students are at heightened risk of suicide and impulsive conduct, which the presence of guns will only exacerbate," Levy said.

At the CU-Boulder campus, suicide by gun has been a rare occurrence.

"Within the past seven years we know of two suicides where a firearm was used," Ryan Huff, a spokesperson for the campus police, said. "In both cases they were not students."

In general, young adults are at an elevated risk of suicide. According to a 2004 report from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among college-age adults.

The CU experience indicates, however, that it is less likely to occur in the absence of firearms.

"Students are safer if there are no guns," Dr. Allan J. Schwartz, a professor of psychiatry and staff psychologist at the University of Rochester and the author of several studies that examine suicide risks among college-age young adults, said. "The evidence for that is pretty strong."

A representative of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention confirmed that assessment.

“We know that reducing a suicidal person’s easy access to lethal means, including firearms, can be an effective strategy for preventing suicide," John Madigan, AFSP's senior director of public policy said. "This is critical because it gives individuals and those who care for them something they desperately need – time: time to change their minds, time for them to get help or time for someone to intervene.”

The number of college students who attempt suicide, and succeed in taking their life, is thought to be about half of the equivalent rate among those who are not enrolled in higher education.

Schwartz explained that, across the nation as a whole, young adults who study on a college campus are not likely to have access to a gun.

"When you look at the proportion of suicides that are completed using a firearm, by students, as compared to the proportion of suicides that are completed using a firearm in the general population, matched by age and gender, for students it tends to be on the order of one-third as common," he said. "For the general population, firearms account for as many suicides as all other methods combined. For students, firearms remain one of the most likely methods, almost equal to suicide by hanging."

“Why is that the case?," Schwartz rhetorically asked. "It’s just a huge difference in the accessibility of firearms."

Most students who use a gun to take their own lives gain access to the weapon by traveling off-campus to their parents' home.

"Sometimes it’s a few tens of miles, sometimes it’s hundreds of miles," Schwartz said. "But it’s a frighteningly relevant story."

The likelihood that more firearms will be used in suicide attempts is not the only factor that raises the risks to student safety on college campuses that are required to allow guns.

According to one 2007 study, a person who attempts to take their own life with a firearm will succeed about 90 percent of the time, which is a rate that exceeds other methods that are commonly deployed in suicide attempts.

To Schwartz, these statistics demand that legislators treat the prevention of guns on college campuses as a public health imperative.

"To allow firearms on campus would be catastrophic," he argued. "It’s not just unwise public policy. You’d double the suicide rate."

Proponents of extending the concealed carry law to college campuses have argued that students are likely to be safer if they have the option of being armed.

"Allowing licensed concealed carry would give potential attackers pause and ultimately give innocent victims a fighting chance,” Students for Concealed Carry spokesperson David Burnett said in a statement.

One problem with this argument is that students face little risk of homicide on college campuses.

Schwartz explained that homicide is a rare event, statistically speaking, on college campuses everywhere in America.

"There are concerns that folks may have about protecting students from harm by others," Schwartz said. "The thinking goes, if they had a firearm, we wouldn’t have these slaughters like what took place at Virginia Tech. We’re talking about 20 homicides among about 10 million students every year. It's a horrific headline when it happens, but it virtually never happens. Can you imagine any city in the United States with 10 million people in which there are just 20 homicides each year? That’s what it’s like on college campuses. There’s virtually no homicide."

The situation on Colorado's public college campuses bears out Schwartz' assertion. There were no homicides on the CU-Boulder campus between 2009-2011, the most recent period for which data is available.

"The last homicide we had here was in 1997, involving two transients," Huff said. "A firearm was not used there.”

CSU experienced the same paucity of crimes involving a loss of life during the same three-year period.

A 2010 report of crime statistics from the University of Colorado at Denver, which is the most recent data available from that institution, revealed that no homicides occurred on the urban campus in Denver during the period 2007-2009.

Rapes and sexual assaults are occasional risks on college campuses in the state. Each of the major institutions on the Front Range report that several occurred during each of the years between 2009-2011.

Nevertheless, crimes involving the use of a gun appear to be rare on college campuses in Colorado.

"The frequency of crimes where guns are used is quite low on our campus,” Huff said.

Twenty-five states ban firearms on campus, while 23 others allow universities and colleges to set their own rules touching on gun possession. Two states - Colorado and Utah - require state institutions of higher learning to permit the concealed carry of firearms on campus.

Michael Carrigan, the chairperson of the CU Board of Regents, did not respond to a request for a comment about the regents' position on HB 13-1226.

Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, is carrying the bill in the Senate.

The fate of the legislation, should it clear the General Assembly and head to Gov. John Hickenlooper for signature into law, is not clear.

"We are monitoring this bill and have not taken an official position," Eric Brown, a spokesperson for Hickenlooper, said.

UPDATE (2:10 pm MST):

The House Education Committee approved HB 13-1226 on a 7-6 vote.

NOTE: A slightly different version of this article appears at Examiner.com.

GOP abortion ban legislation dies

Another in an annual parade of Republican abortion ban bills died in a House committee Wednesday.

HB 13-1033 was rejected by the House Health, Insurance, and Environment Committee.

The measure would have criminalized all abortions except those deemed by a doctor to be necessary to prevent a pregnant mother's death.

Abortions can be regulated to an extent under U.S. Supreme Court cases that interpret relevant provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The Court, however, has held that a ban with a reach similar to that proposed in HB 13-1033 is unconstitutional.

A GOP member of the committee - former majority leader Amy Stephens of Monument - sought to amend the bill to permit the use of emergency contraception in cases of rape or incest.

Stephens, a former employee of the conservative advocacy group Focus on the Family, argued that criminalizing abortion when a woman becomes pregnant as a result of such assaults is not consistent with the ideals of justice.

The amendment was rejected by the other members of the committee, including the Democrats. 

The measure was sponsored by Rep. Steven Humphrey, R-Severance.

State's colleges and universities get financial boost from two advancing bills

Two bills that would give a financial boost to Colorado's public universities and colleges are moving steadily toward the law books.

HB 13-1144, which makes permanent a cigarette-specific supplemental sales tax and devote the annual revenue it produces to higher education, is on the way to the Senate. The bill would add about $28 million per year to the state's budget for colleges and universities.

The measure was approved by the House Monday on a 40-24 vote. The chamber's caucuses divided on the bill.

Votes to pass the bill came primarily from majority Democrats, but also from six of the chamber's 28 Republicans. They included Kathleen Conti of Littleton, Don Coram of Montrose, Cheri Gerou of Evergreen, Frank McNulty of Highlands Ranch, Carole Murray of Castle Rock, and Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling.

The opposition came from the other 22 Republicans and two Democrats - Reps. Crisanta Duran and Dan Pabon of Denver. Interestingly, Duran is a co-sponsor of the bill.

Meanwhile, SB 13-090 sailed out of the Senate on the same day. The supplemental appropriations bill would increase this year's budgets for the state's institutions of higher learning by more than $9 million.

The vote was 27-6. All of the opponents were Republicans. They included Sens. Bill Cadman, Owen Hill, and Kent Lambert of Colorado Springs, Kevin Grantham of Canon City, Ted Harvey of Highlands Ranch, and Scott Renfroe of Greeley.

SB 13-090 will next be considered by the House appropriations committee.

Academic acceleration mandate for public schools clears House

A bill that would require public schools to provide opportunities to learn at a faster pace to academically capable students was approved by the House of Representatives Monday.

HB 13-1023 allows school districts and charter schools some flexibility to meet its mandate. The bill provides that an "acceleration policy" might incorporate options such as advancing a student in a particular subject, "compacting curriculum," allowing a student to enroll in an advanced class at the same time he or she is in a less advanced course in the same subject, permitting credit to be gained by passing a test, providing advanced placement or International Baccalaureate programs, or authorizing independent study efforts.

The measure's reach is not limited to students who have been determined by school administrators to be "gifted and talented." Instead, school districts and charter schools are instructed to make acceleration programs available "to all students who demonstrate high ability and who may benefit from content acceleration or other acceleration interventions in their area or areas of strength."

The bill sets a July 1, 2014 deadline.

The bipartisan bill was approved on third and final reading in the House by a unanimous vote. It now heads to the Senate.

The House sponsors are Rep. Carole Murray, R-Castle Rock, and Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora. In the Senate, Republican David Balmer of Centennial and Andy Kerr of Lakewood are carrying the measure.

Identity theft victims gain tool to fight back, CBI gets hiring flexibility in bills moved ahead Tuesday

Bills that would give identify theft victims a new tool with which to fix public records corrupted by criminals and that would allow the Colorado Bureau of Investigation additional flexibility in filling senior positions progressed at the capitol Thursday.

The identify theft measure, which is sponsored by Rep. Steve Lebsock, D-Thornton, would permit a person to enlist the aid of CBI in obtaining corrections of public records relating to criminal justice proceedings. The bill requires the crime victim to provide fingerprints to the agency and leaves open the option of seeking the fix in court. 

It also allows the victim to recover his or her costs as part of any restitution judgment entered against the convicted thief.

HB 13-1146 was approved by the House Judiciary Committee and now heads to debate on the House floor.

The second bill would allow CBI to hire a director, assistant directors, and deputy directors who do not have certification from the Peace Office Standards and Training Board. Current law requires that candidates for those slots at the agency hold such certification.

“This change will expand opportunities for those already employed by the State of Colorado and expand opportunities for the agency to attract highly-qualified people without diminishing the quality of the directors,” the measure's sponsor, Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, said.

HB 13-1076 was approved by the House of Representatives on a 41-22 vote. It now heads to the Senate, where Republican Steve King of Grand Junction is the sponsor.

CBI supports the bill.

Bill opening door to creationism, climate change denial in science classrooms dies in committee

A Republican bill that would have allowed science classrooms to become a locus for discussion of religious ideas about the origins of life, rejection of the central principle of the life sciences, and denial of the climate change now occurring on Earth was rejected Monday by a House committee.

HB 13-1089 died in the House Education Committee on a party-line, 7-6 vote. All Democrats opposed it and all Republicans supported it.

The Colorado Education Association and the Colorado Association of School Boards opposed the measure, which was based on a template provided by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. DI advocates for the teaching of "intelligent design," a variant of creationism, in public school classrooms.

Federal court decisions have made clear that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution forbids the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in public school science classrooms.

The measure sought to avoid that stricture by couching its mandate in terms of "critical thinking." Sponsoring Rep. Stephen Humphrey, R-Severance, argued that students cannot learn to do that unless they hear opposing sides of a "debate."

There is no debate in the mainstream scientific community about whether evolution accounts for the diversity of life on Earth. The process by which populations of organisms adapt to environmental conditions. and develop over time into separate species, is generally considered to be the most fundamental principle of the biological sciences.

HB 13-1089 also aimed to force teachers to encourage, or at least tolerate, political arguments against the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Rep. Chris Holbert, R-Parker, argued that climate change is a "myth."

"If that is a theory, I hope we are encouraging and empowering students to absolutely attack that as nonsense,” he said.

In science, a theory is not a guess, speculation, or hunch. Instead, it is an explanation about why a phenomenon occurs in nature that is based on factual evidence gathered during multiple investigations.

Nearly all climate scientists agree that humanity's greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities, motor vehicles, and electric power plants are causing Earth's atmosphere to warm.

That conclusion is based on a variety of observational evidence, including melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, desertification, increasing atmospheric and ocean surface temperatures, a reduction in the extent of Arctic Ocean seasonal ice, glacial retreat around the world, ocean acidification, and extreme weather events, as well as modeling.

In addition, scientists have understood the tendency of carbon dioxide molecules accumulating in the atmosphere to prevent dissipation of heat from the planet's surface since at least 1895, when the phenomenon was discovered by chemist Svante Arrhenius. The heat-trapping capacity of the atmosphere has been known since 1824.

Representatives that voted to kill HB 13-1089 were John Buckner, D-Colorado Springs, Lois Court, D-Denver, Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, Brittany Pettersen, D-Lakewood, Dave Young, D-Greeley, Cherilyn Peniston, D-Westminster, and Millie Hamner, D-Dillon.

The GOP members of the chamber that voted to advance the bill to the floor of the House were Justin Everett of Littleton, Holbert, Lois Landgraf of Colorado Springs, Carole Murray of Castle Rock, Kevin Priola of Henderson, and Jim Wilson of Salida.

Post article: ASSET bill might get GOP support

The measure that would allow students who are undocumented residents of the Colorado community to pay in-state tuition rates at public universities and colleges might get some Republican support this year.

Tim Hoover of the Denver Post explains.

The ASSET bill cleared a Senate committee last week and has not yet come up for debate on the floor of that chamber. SB 33 is expected to pass both the Senate and the House, now that both are under Democratic control, and Gov. John Hickenlooper has indicated he will sign it.

"Arm the Teachers" bill dies in committee

A bill that would have given school boards the authority to permit administrators and teachers to carry concealed weapons on the state's public school campuses was defeated in a Senate committee Monday.

SB 9 lost on a party-line, 3-2 vote.

Sen. John P. Morse, D-Colorado Springs, was quoted by the Colorado Springs Gazette as saying that the bill would not only be of no help in reducing violence, but contribute to the problem.

The sponsor of the measure, Republican Ted Harvey of Highlands Ranch, had said he believed the measure is needed so that those who work in schools can protect children and themselves.

The defeat of the measure does not mean that schoolkids, teachers, support employees, and administrators have no protection against a firearm-toting intruder intent on doing harm. Current law permits armed police officers to patrol public school buildings in Colorado.

The presence of an armed guard or other people with guns in a building attacked by a shooter is not a guarantee that no one would be hurt. Some advocates of eliminating laws that set up schools as gun-free areas argue that the presence of an armed security guard at Columbine High School during a mass shooting incident in April 1999 prevented the deaths of some individuals. However, thirteen people, including 12 children, died in that massacre despite his presence.

SB 9 was co-sponsored in the Senate by Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, and in the House of Representatives by Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono.

Rep. Fischer's graywater recycling bill set for debate

A bill that would revolutionize one aspect of Colorado water law, allowing re-use of water circulated through showers and appliances, may make into the law books this year.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan has a detailed story about the odyssey and impacts of HB 13-1044, sponsored by Rep. Randy Fischer, D-Fort Collins, in today's paper.

The measure gets its first hearing on Monday before the committee Fischer chairs.

Senate committee clears bill requiring mandatory collective bargaining agreements with firefighters

A Senate committee has green-lighted a bill that would force Colorado municipalities to engage in collective bargaining with firefighters.

Similar legislation was vetoed by former Gov. Bill Ritter in 2009.

This year, with Democrats again in control of both chambers of the legislature, the issue looks likely to again wind up on the governor's desk.

One interesting note on the debate is that the mayors of two of Colorado's most politically diametrical communities - Boulder and Colorado Springs - both spoke against it during a hearing last week.

Peter Marcus of the Colorado Statesman has coverage of this year's proposal.

GOP rallies against civil unions bill

The west side of the Capitol was a protest site Friday, with opponents of SB 11 - the proposed civil unions legislation - rallying against the measure.

Speakers included former House speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, and former House majority leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument.

Stephens complimented the bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, but nevertheless urged its rejection, while McNulty argued that repeating the choice made last year to prevent it from becoming law would reflect "courage."

Former Sen. Ed Jones, R-Colorado Springs, used his opportunity at the microphone to engage in some rather distasteful criticism of House speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver. Jones said Ferrandino had a "wife" named "Eric," neither of which is an accurate statement.

He also misleadingly argued that people who are gay can choose not to be and insisted that this rendered null arguments for improved civil rights protection.

“I never saw a water fountain that said 'gays only,'” Jones said.

While the tools used to ostracize gay men and women in the Jim Crow south, and elsewhere in the nation, may have been different from the methods of enforcing segregation of the races, the available scientific research shows that, in fact, homosexuality is possibly an immutable characteristic of an individual.

According to a website maintained by Catholic News Agency, a high-ranking representative of the Roman Catholic Church's Denver archdiocese complained that the bill would infringe on Catholics' religious freedom by interfering in the practices of Catholic adoption agencies.

"We have been involved in the state of Colorado for over 80 years in helping to take care of the children of our community and make sure they are placed in adoption and foster care in good, healthy, wholesome settings, for the good of our society,” writer Kevin J. Jones quoted Monsignor Thomas Fryar, the Denver archdiocese's second-highest ranking official, as saying to the crowd.

The version of the proposed legislation considered in 2012, and killed by the Republican-ruled House of Representatives in office at the time, would have exempted Catholic adoption agencies from its reach. The state's Catholic dioceses nevertheless opposed the bill.

The Catholic hierarchy, as well as leaders of a variety of other socially conservative faith traditions, oppose recognition of civil unions because they view the step as providing a social sanction to same-sex relationships and as a threat to traditional marriage.

Colorado voters forbade any changes to the traditional view of marriage as involving only men and women when they approved Amendment 43 to the state constitution in 2006. A statute cannot override or contradict a constitutional provision.

Denver Post reporter Lynn Bartels wrote Friday that Jones was among several speakers who urged Gov. John Hickenlooper to veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

That result is not likely. Hickenlooper has said he will sign the bill.

Friday's rally was organized by the Denver Catholic archiocese.

Levy: Republican bill attacking science education won't get out of committee

A GOP bill that would open the door to discussion of religious ideas about biodiversity and the origin of mankind in science classrooms, and which could sanction denial of the scientific consensus that human activities are changing Earth's climate, is likely to die in committee.

That's the prediction of Boulder Democratic Rep. Claire Levy, a veteran legislator who serves as speaker pro tempore of the House of Representatives.

Levy made the comment during a Friday interview by radio talk show host Geoff Berg. Berg asked her whether HB 13-1089 would progress in the chamber.

Levy's bluntly said it would not:

The bill looks innocuous enough when you read it…but when you look beneath the surface it’s pretty obvious it’s…allowing science teachers to teach creationism and deny global warming. Democrats are about teaching real science and giving students a good education. So I don’t think it’ll make it out of committee.

Her comments can be heard at about the 19:30 mark of the recording. 

HB 13-1089 is scheduled to be heard by the House Education Committee on Monday, Feb. 4.