The Colorado House on Thursday is planning to take up this year’s $26.8 billion budget long bill for debate.

Before they get to that, on Wednesday, members plan to meet in party caucus groups to set priorities, devise strategy, craft talking points and do math.

Related: On Friday the Colorado Rockies play this season’s home opener against the Dodgers, which means there’s a hard-stop long-bill debate deadline.

The Senate passed its version of the long bill last week – or, as any senator will tell you, the upper chamber members did the heavy lifting, planted the flags – and the Capitol has been notably quiet ever since. But it’s past midway in the session and there’s a lot of work to do. Why the pause in the action?

Newsroom speculation: Lawmakers are all meeting with stakeholders on the session’s big bills – transportation, construction defects reform, rural development/hospital provider fee reclassification.

Newsroom follow on the speculation: “Wait, if that’s the case, wouldn’t the public want to know what they’re talking about?! We need to be in on those talks!”

Last week, in a meeting with media, Denver Democratic Rep. Alec Garnett, assistant majority leader, shook his head and shuffled papers in front of him. He was by all appearances disillusioned and angry. He wanted to talk about the bipartisan bill he has been working on for months to reform the state’s strong consumer-protection construction defects litigation laws in order to restart stalled condominium construction across the state. But the bill suddenly was in deep trouble, he wanted to report. An interest group called the Homeownership Opportunity Alliance – a coalition of mayors and business groups and affordable housing advocates – was, in effect, playing hardball and opposing the bill.

Garnett said he wouldn’t stand for it. He had dedicated time and energy and political capital to the bill. He had negotiated in good faith. These people can ask someone else to try again next year, he said.

“For the 3 million people in Colorado who don’t work in this building, can you say for the record who and what is the Homeownership Opportunity Alliance?” I asked.

This week, it looks like Garnett’s bill might just climb off the mat, shake itself off, and live to weather another storm of stakeholder positioning. The stakeholders naturally had a slightly different take on the talks with Garnett.

But who knows what happened? The state’s open meetings laws intended to bring transparency to governing aren’t really designed to cover stakeholder meetings.

– john@coloradostatesman.com