The lighter side of the Capitol, especially in the past week

Apparently, the pending and eventual switch to daylight stupid time has put people in some pretty funny moods. And thank goodness!

On March 4, the Senate approved the appointments of three trustees to the Colorado School of Mines. Two of the appointees were on the Senate’s consent calendar, meaning no discussion was anticipated.

The third, however, did not appear on the consent calendar, indicating that someone planned to discuss it. And the roast was on.

It was for the appointment of former Senate President Steve Fenberg. “We have really scraped the bottom of the barrel…even under the barrel” for this appointment, said Sen. Chris Kolker.

“I was sitting in education waiting to present a bill” when she heard the back and forth on whether education should send a favorable recommendation, said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, who added that the approval meant she is really worried about the education committee. She also raised the possibility that Fenberg didn’t fill out an application and questioned whether he even attended school. 

She said she looked at the statutory requirements and that he’s neither a student nor faculty, and that the board holds legal and fiduciary responsibility for the college. “I’ve seen what he’s done on the budget,” Kirkmeyer quipped, and that was not good enough for her.

By then, Kirkmeyer was on a roll. She questioned his lack of governmental experience and said she knows he went to the University of Colorado – low standards, she called it – and isn’t it a little too soon to be appointing him to anything right now?

Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez followed it with a message and some advice for the Mines trustees: if their meetings start at 9, don’t expect Fenberg to show up until at least 9:15. Ouch!

As a graduate and alumnus of Mines, Senate Minority Leader Cleave Simpson said he is “deeply worried” about the direction Mines is taking. He said he was there to warn the board that there truly is something known as “Fenberg time…I’m at a loss for words, with a CU graduate attending trustee meetings” at Mines. Guggenheim Hall could collapse, Simpson warned.

“We should give him a chance,” Kolker said, and added that this service could help the former president earn an honorary elementary certificate from his local elementary school.

Once the vote – unanimous – was announced, Senate President James Coleman called for a moment of silence for the School of Mines and that the Senate chimes be rung.

They weren’t.

When Sen. Fenberg was majority leader, way back in 2020, there was a bit of a dustup about appointees to the state fair board. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were concerned that the governor was leaving out representation on the Eastern Plains, where the state fair is a very big deal. The governor had appointed someone from Longmont to represent the 4th Congressional District, and those opposed to the nomination had the votes to kill it. 

There’s a long story about this, but in the end Fenberg laid over the appointments until after sine die.

Given that only four members of the Senate were in 2020 (including Rodriguez), Capitol M is willing to bet that the former President is probably relieved that almost nobody remembers that day…

Roasts, Part Two, Concerning Death

Rep. Matt Soper is in his eighth and final year in the Colorado House, and among his biggest accomplishments are reforms in the funeral home business. 

One of the folks he’s worked with, and sometimes against, over the past few years is lobbyist Jason Hopfer, whose client list includes the parent company of Olinger’s Mortuary. 

Soper has one last bill in the mortuary space this year, on changes to “death-care related practices.” 

The bill is titled, very simply, Concerning Death. A title that broad leaves a hole you could drive a truck through, and Soper and his co-sponsor, Rep. Brianna Titone, who has been his partner on a lot of these bills, did.

HB 1258 came up for second reading in the House Tuesday. Soper and Titone were at the ready with four amendments. Two mattered, the other two, well, you decide.

The latter two had to do with the bill’s short title. Titone asked for support to change it from “Concerning Death” to “There are only two things certain in life, death and taxes,.” The amendment came with a three-page ASCII/text picture of something. She asked for a “no” vote on the amendment, and got it.

Soper, who may have tangled once or twice with Hopfer over mortuary legislation in the past couple of years, did one better: an amendment to change the bill’s short title from “Concerning Death” to “The Jason Hopfer Death Act” and asked for it to be “improperly displayed.”

Soper told the House that Hopfer allegedly asked for a bill to be named after him. Soper then withdrew the amendment, so it’s unclear how the House would have voted. A.Very.Good,Question. IYKYK.

Soper and Titone signed the amendment, once Soper withdrew it, “to the best lobbyist in the building, for better or worse.”

The Sonnenberg chain

Jerry Sonnenberg served 16 years in the General Assembly, eight in the House and eight in the Senate, which ended in 2022. He’s now the head of the federal Farm Service Agency for Colorado.

While he was in the Senate, he had one Dusty Johnson as his legislative aide. Johnson went on to serve as the aide to the Peltons – Byron and Rod – and she coined the term “Peltonia,” which described their districts, covering one end of the Eastern Plains to the other.

Johnson is now Rep. Dusty Johnson, and she’s getting payback. Sonnenberg’s son, Josh, is one of her district aides.

But that wasn’t enough, no, not by a long shot.

On Feb. 27, there was a mock legislative hearing held by the Colorado Future Farmers of America at the Capitol, and Jerry Sonnenberg was put in the most unlikely of positions: as a legislative aide to Johnson.

You could see her grin from a mile away.