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.

GOP "right to work" bill rejected by Senate committee

A bill that would have made Colorado a "right to work" state did not move out of a Senate committee Thursday.

SB 24, sponsored by freshman Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, would have prohibited employment contracts requiring union membership or payment of union dues.

The bill died in the Committee on Business, Labor, & Technology. Democrats Rollie Heath of Boulder, Cheri Jahn of Golden, and Lois Tochtrop of Thornton provided the votes to kill it, while Republicans Randy Baumgardner of Hot Sulphur Springs and David Balmer of Centennial supported it.