The four-month legislative session is halfway done, and if you think Colorado lawmakers’ only significant accomplishment so far is kicking out Rep. Steve Lebsock over sexual harassment allegations, then you’re paying attention.

Lawmakers on the right and left like to talk about the bipartisan bills they pass, and at the end of every legislative session I’ve covered in four states over three decades, they always congratulate themselves at the end for being productive. They will again in May. Watch.

The big-ticket items that show Republicans and Democrats can really work together are still undone. Statehouse incumbents need a win worse than the Broncos needed one in December. We know how that played out. Voters might be looking to draft a quarterback in November.

Transportation? Going nowhere.

Dump the negative factor and pour millions into K-12 education? Negatory.

Gun rights, abortion rights, right to rest? Right.

The best chance for a win big enough to move the dial on the campaign trail this summer and fall is fixing the state’s pension plan. If the fund tanks when the economy dips, that won’t just punish people whose golden years are covered by the Public Employees’ Retirement Association. If the state’s credit rating takes a hit, higher interest rates will chew up millions of dollars that won’t be spent on roads, schools and all sorts of things that touch your life.

Colorado lawmakers are being asked to find at least $32 billion and maybe as much as $50 billion. The Capitol’s best negotiators have been working on it for months, and the first hearing last week for Senate Bill 200 showed all sides are still tugging on who should pay the biggest share of the solution. The answer reflected in the bill is shared responsibility between taxpayers, public workers and retirees – higher contributions all around, with lower dividends and cost-of-living allowances, and amendments to rules that regulate early retirement at full benefits.

Ultimately the bill will wind up in a conference committee to be shaped into a compromise the House and Senate can vote on before the session ends at midnight on May 9.

Most contentious of the proposals is allowing new public employees to opt out of the pension and steer their retirement savings into a private 401(k)-style program. That will get you votes from Republicans, but it scares the school glue out of Democrats and teachers. They see it as a loss of money for the system that already might not be able to support current retirees.

The state teachers union has – to use the debate cliché of the 2017 session – “skin in the game.” That’s an X factor for the ages, but especially this year.

The Colorado Education Association’s Kerrie Dahlman told a legislative committee that its plan to let new state employees opt out of the pension just makes it more expensive for taxpayers and does nothing to shore up the current system.

Another statehouse player, the Colorado Municipal League, also is in the fight for a fix, even though its members and their workers face paying millions more each year.

“The Local Government Division would be fully funded in 30 years under SB 200,” deputy director Kevin Bommer told me. “CML and our 27 PERA-member municipalities support a little lighter touch.”

Everyone wants a lighter tough. But this political house of cards will depend on everybody leaning in together, starting with Republicans and Democrats.

But at the top of that pyramid is the biggest November prize of all, the governor’s race. Republican state treasurer Walker Stapleton has been ringing the warning bell for years, and now people are listening. To his credit, Stapleton hasn’t tried to politicize the legislative fix for his campaign benefit. His people would have already leaned on me, if that was Stapleton’s play.

“This is not a Democrat or Republican problem, this is a math problem,” Stapleton tells Colorado Politics. “This is the biggest unfunded liability Colorado has, $50 billion, and it’s choking off funding to our schools and cities. Time to put politics aside and deal. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and future generations of public workers.”

On the other side of the same coin is Democrat Cary Kennedy, the teachers union choice to run the state – the teachers’ union that doesn’t like Senate Bill 200. She was beaten by Stapleton in her re-election bid for state treasurer eight years ago.

“Over 10 percent of Colorado’s population relies on PERA instead of Social Security, and as with Social Security, we must uphold our commitment to current and future retirees,” Kennedy says in reply. “As state treasurer, I helped develop a bipartisan solution that improved the financial status of PERA by over $9 billion – the largest improvement in its history. We succeeded because everyone gave a little to strengthen the fund. I am hopeful that the legislature will bring together a bipartisan coalition to build on this progress.”