jovan melton
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After hours of pained testimony, homeless ‘right to rest’ bill fails on bipartisan vote
State House Democrats joined Republicans late Wednesday night to vote down a bill that has made waves in various versions the last three years for championing the civil rights of the state’s homeless population. After nearly six hours of emotional testimony, the “Right to Rest Act,” House Bill 1314, sponsored by state Democratic Reps. Joe…
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#Coleg Week 15: Legislative suspended animation, candidate tax returns, homeless civil rights, sexting, civil forfeiture
It’s a strange run-up to the home stretch at the Legislature. This week there will be floor votes and committee hearings same as the weeks before, but the whole endeavor seems to be operating in a suspended state, the major legislative projects of the year still hanging in the balance. The state’s $26.8 billion budget…
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Court: No message is worth a life, new texting-while-driving legislation
We all try to multitask in the modern world, but when it comes to texting while driving, no message is worth a life. Texting while driving kills people in Colorado. In January of this year, Brian and Jacquie Lehner, a couple, died while on their motorcycle when struck by a woman who was drunk and…
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Contours of House budget debate emerge in caucus meeting
Colorado House members on Wednesday drew up 93 amendments to this year’s state “long bill” budget proposal. Members are reviewing them together in caucus meetings before floor debate begins on the $26.8 billion Thursday afternoon. The number of amendments seems high but the general topics they seek to address, at least so far, come as…
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#Coleg Week 13: House budget debate, contraception, internet privacy, texting while driving, seaplanes
The Democratic-controlled House takes up the budget, which was passed without an inordinate amount of pain in the Republican-controlled Senate last week. Democrats will likely try to move the ball on items of priority that were shot down in the Senate. Contraception: It’s a personal matter and a state budget concern. State health estimates routinely…
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#Coleg Week 11: GOP tax proposal shot down, Transpo bill grumbling, fracking school setbacks, gay conversion, gun bills, budget countdown
The week is already moving fast. Republican-sponsored House Bill 1187 was shot down by Republicans in the Senate State Affairs committee. It was an important bill. Here’s a magazine-like summary of what it proposed to do, as best as I can write it at this stage: The bill aimed to allow the state to collect…
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Hundreds sign Colorado Senate GOP’s petition to save alleged wolf hybrid Capone
Colorado Senate Republicans want Aurora officials to know they’re standing with the owners of Capone, the dog being held by the city’s animal shelter on suspicion the longtime family pet is a wolf hybrid. And by Monday afternoon, hundreds of people had signed their names to an online petition started by the Senate GOP asking…
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Grantham: Don’t call new construction defects bill a ‘compromise’
Senate President Kevin Grantham tossed some cold water this weekend on the bipartisan backslapping that greeted the introduction of a new bill aimed at resolving longstanding tensions over construction defects litigation policy and spurring moribund condominium construction across the state. “Don’t call it a compromise,” the Cañon City Republican told The Colorado Statesman on Saturday. “It isn’t…