referendum c
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2021 transportation bill did not violate TABOR, appeals court rules
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Colorado’s second-highest court rejected a legal challenge on Thursday to a major piece of a 2021 law that created new funding sources for the state’s transportation system. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative Virginia-based advocacy group with a chapter in Colorado, sought to strike down Senate Bill 260 and block various government-owned business from collecting fees until voters…
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Q&A with Henry Sobanet | Colorado’s fiscal Jedi moves on
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They say no one can serve two masters. But how about two governors – from opposing political parties? Such has been the odyssey of Henry Sobanet. He was budget czar – keeper of the keys to Colorado’s fiscal star chamber – for former Republican Gov. Bill Owens as well as current Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper. Holding…
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Q&A with Steve Johnson | ‘Most people are looking for more than just labels’
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During his many years in Colorado’s state House and then its Senate, Steve Johnson was the quiet, thoughtful guy standing off to the side while others pounded the podium or dominated press conferences – waiting his turn to speak as he seemed to reflect on his thoughts. When he held forth at the mic, he…
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HUDSON: Let’s not break our PERA promise to Colorado state employees
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The second PERA reform/bailout bill (SB 18-200) in less than a decade reaches the Colorado Legislature this week amidst a clash of competing narratives regarding who is responsible for the pension plan’s precarious fiscal posture. On one side is a tale that greedy employees have maliciously and surreptitiously burdened taxpayers with a bankrupting obligation that…
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Rubber will hit the road — without a tax hike — via GOP plan to fund transportation
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Coloradans and voters across the state agree that Colorado’s roads are in terrible shape and that improving and maintaining our state highways and roads needs to be Priority One for the state’s lawmakers. The mystery is why in the face of this broad, statewide consensus, from Grand Junction to Colorado Springs and Aurora to Alamosa,…
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Transportation has become the forgotten stepchild in the state budget
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Gov. Hickenlooper has again asked for zero taxpayer dollars for roads and bridges in his annual budget message. Sad to say, Colorado’s Governor cannot find even one taxpayer dollar for roads and bridges in $11.5 billion in planned General Fund expenditures. This pattern in the Governor’s annual budget submissions has been dutifully echoed in Democrat…
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YESTERYEAR: Ritter, Caldara face off over School Finance Act
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Twenty Years Ago This Week in The Colorado Statesman … A new welfare law was finally agreed upon and the Legislature narrowly averted a special session. “That’s the art of compromise,” Gov. Roy Romer said. He added that he would sign the latest version of the state’s welfare reform law that had successfully met the…
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Hudson: How public servants came to be viewed as coddled bureaucrats
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I was discharged from the U.S. Navy in July of 1970. After picking up a new Toyota Land Cruiser for $4,100 (a deal made possible through a purchase program available only to returning troops), my wife and I drove coast to coast with our two month old son, Byron, in a crib that slid neatly…
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YESTERYEAR: Supreme Court affirms Legislature’s gambling acts, Wadham’s wins GOP by acclamation
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Twenty Years Ago This Week in The Colorado Statesman … The Colorado Supreme Court had been mulling over the Legislature’s gambling restrictions on elected officials, passed six years earlier, and they had reached their conclusion. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared constitutional a law prohibiting elected, municipal officials of Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek as…
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YESTERYEAR: Colorado GOP performs autopsy on self, Legislature talks regulatory reform
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Twenty Years Ago this week in the Colorado Statesman … Too much sun in the Legislature? “Five hits and you’re out,” was the name of the game sponsored by Rep. Vickie Angler (R-Littleton) and Sen. Bill Schroeder (R-Morrison), which also went by its other more legislative moniker – HB 1159. The new law outlined in Colorado…
