The lighter side of the Capitol, usually.

First, apologies for skipping last week. After the voting rights debate in the House, there was little joy or humor to be had for the rest of the week.

Note to new Rep. Mandy Lindsay of Aurora, don’t believe everything you hear.

A scattered assortment of scalawags tried to teach her Wednesday the finer points (ahem) of running a committee of the whole (COW).

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Cathy Kipp of Fort Collins, used a made-up bill from the Business Affairs and Labor Committee (which none of the trainers is on, for which we should all be glad) as the topic for the COW session. The “trainers” included Reps. Karen McCormick, Don Valdez and Patrick Neville.

The bill’s title: Designating all roads in Colorado as scenic highways and byways. 

Among those who weren’t taking the training seriously: Neville, who launched into one of his famous potato amendments, with a speech to follow, something along the lines of celebrating the value of roadside stands that sell fresh potatoes.

The potato jokes date back to the 2019 session. It was the year of the reauthorization of the Colorado Potato Seed Act and extending the advisory committee for the seed act, both coming from a 31-page sunset review. 

Sit up and pay attention! said Rep. Marc Catlin of Montrose during the second reading debate on the seed potato bill on March 25.

Rep. Mark Baisley of Roxborough Park, who was paying attention, asked how he could explain the bill to his constituents, given that potatoes don’t have seeds.

“Look for the eye,” Catlin responded. Cut a potato in half, making sure there is an eye on the potato, and that becomes the “seed” potato.

The bill gave Neville his cause célèbre for the rest of the week.

It started the very next day, when the House voted on the seed potato act, and Neville launched into his first potato filibuster on the healthy aspects of eating potatoes.

“I had a wonderful experience” with potatoes, which resolved some cramps, he said.

House Speaker KC Becker tried to get him back to the subject of the bill, without success. The filibuster, which included other members of the caucus, was intended to slow down the Democrats’ agenda, with one of the session’s most controversial bills ahead.

Two days later, the House debated SB 181, the reform of the oil and gas conservation commission. The second reading debate in the House – close to five hours of debate – was late in the day on March 28, when clouds were forming, both outside (a snowstorm hit later in the day) and inside the House chamber.

Neville, then Minority Leader, initially talked about the provisions of the bill he objected to, as did other members of the House Republican caucus, along with amendments that all went down to defeat.

The one that didn’t even get to a vote: Neville’s L.176. The amendment would exempt potato farmers from the regulations of SB 181, although that would assume some kind of nexus between oil and gas and potato farming. 

Potatoes have a very high and valued potassium, nearly double of that of a banana, and good for maintaining blood sugar levels, he argued, sort of. 

Becker, the bill’s sponsor, asked for and got a title ruling on the amendment from COW Chair Rep. Matt Gray of Broomfield, who within a few seconds ruled it out of order “after in-depth and considerable consideration” of the amendment, to the dismay of few and the laughs of others.

Neville resurrects his potato dialogues from time to time. He told Capitol M this week that at the time, Becker wasn’t all that amused, but said they now share a laugh about it.

Not sure newly-minted representative Lindsay actually learned anything from that training session, other that some folks in the House are mighty silly when the occasion demands.

And congrats to Rep. Neville on completing his MBA from DU, a degree he was awarded last August. In one of his classes, on accounting, which he indicated was a bit on the dull side, some of his classmates were from the oil and gas industry and knew about the “potato filibuster.” They dared him to do a report on potatoes. He did it, but said the professor didn’t get the joke.

Final word on the subject: Won’t someone think of the potatoes? We’re losing Rep. Neville at the end of 2022 to term limits, so someone should go into training ASAP to learn from him the finer points of potato filibusters. 

His boisterous “no!” – which he shouts when the occasion demands – does have an imitator, apparently: Rep. Alex Valdez of Denver, so at least that’s covered for the near term.

Don’t blame me. I just see what needs to be done.

The National Western Stock Show ended its annual run last week, capped by the Junior Livestock Auction. The House and Senate, with a little help, raised $14,000, which went for the purchase of a reserve champion Berkshire hog, owned by Kylie Kaiser of Eaton. The General Assembly has just one rule for its purchase: it has to be owned/exhibited by a Coloradan.

Proceeds from the sales go to the exhibitors, with a portion to the stock show’s scholarship fund.