Health care executive Donna Lynne will be Colorado’s new lieutenant governor.

Lynne was approved by the Senate on a 35-0 vote Wednesday night after winning unanimous approval by the five members of the Senate State Affairs committee earlier in the afternoon.

Gov. John Hickenlooper announced Lynne as his choice to replace outgoing Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia at the end of March. Hickenlooper touted Lynne’s experience as a top-level figure in corporate and government settings. He said she would serve as chief operating officer for the state.

Lynne was approved last week by the House on a 54-11 margin, with the 11 “no” votes coming from some of the most conservative members of the House minority caucus.

During her hearing in the Senate committee Wednesday, the three Republican members praised Lynne for her experience and her work both in and out of government, and gave high marks to Hickenlooper for choosing a candidate who had extensive private sector background. Lynne said she was driven to accept the nomination, and her work in the public sector, as part of her upbringing and having two parents who served in the U.S. Navy.

Much of the conversation between Lynne and the committee revolved around making government more efficient and effective, part of her COO job description. She said there were multiple opportunities for state agencies to use shared resources to save money.

Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, and Lynne spent much of the hearing talking about how she would go about establishing quantitative measures to state government’s operations. Lynne said instituting some way to measure success for government agencies would be key to increasing the state government’s efficiency.

Along with measuring the effectiveness of departments, such as how many miles of road the Department of Transportation paves compared to how much money was spent on the project, Lynne said creating a system of qualitative measurement was important as well.

“Also we want to say what happened as a result — does the road feel better? That’s the purpose of doing the road work,” Lynne said. “What was the outcome? We were supposed to have smoother roads and more people being able to drive efficiently at the speed limit. … I like the combination of those two measures.”

Sen. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction, who chairs the Senate state affairs committee, seemed to think Lynne’s confirmation wasn’t going to be in doubt when he moved her confirmation be put on the Senate’s consent agenda.

When committee member Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, suggested keeping the nomination off the consent agenda because some senators might want to comment on the nomination, Scott responded, “If someone wants to pull it off then, by God, let them do it.”

Looks like Scott knew what awaited Lynne in the Senate.

— ramsey@coloradostatesman.com