Colorado Politics’ May 19 story reporting on the “batting averages” of the 100 state legislators is seriously misleading in both its superficial conception of “success” and the numbers it presents (“2022 SESSION: The most and least successful Colorado lawmakers,” May 18). Readers and voters trying to follow the new legislation enacted by the 69-to-31 Democrat “super majority” in the 2023 General Assembly deserve better.

Since when is it the measure of good government for a legislative body to enact every bill introduced? Yet, by the implicit definitions of success used in this story, a perfect legislative session would simply enact every bill introduced by every lawmaker! Absurd? Yes, absurd on its face, but that is exactly the measure used to calculate a high “batting average” for lawmakers who “succeed” by getting all or most of their bills passed! I can’t even imagine a single professional association or parent or small-business owner who thinks a terrific legislative session is one that passes all the bills conceived and written by 100 lawmakers and their lobbyist friends.

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Here is the ugly truth underlying the high Democrat “batting averages” and the far lower “success rates” of Republican lawmakers: No Republican-sponsored bill can be reported out of its first committee without Democrat votes, while Democrat-sponsored bills need only Democrat votes to win majority approval in a committee hearing. The story noticeably does not provide that particular scorecard: how many Republican-sponsored bills died on party-line votes in their first committee hearing compared to Democrat-sponsored bills?

Politics is not baseball! Elected legislators are judged by their constituents and not by fictional “batting averages.”

Your reporter does find time to share one little gem: The Colorado legislators with the highest number of bipartisan bills are all Republicans. Why do Democrats not seek Republican cosponsors for their bills more often? The answer is simple: most Democrat-only bills – like the onerous “property tax reform” bill, Senate Bill 23-303 – could not find a Republican cosponsor because the proposals were not good for the citizens, parents and taxpayers of Colorado.

Kevin Lundberg

Berthoud

The author, a Republican former state lawmaker, represented Senate District 15 from 2008 to 2018, and House District 49 from 2002-2008, in the Colorado General Assembly

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