Will House Leaders try to hold bill on third with two outs and Ferrandino up?

House Speaker Frank McNulty and Representative Jon Becker, House Appropriations chair, chastised bill sponsors of SB12-002, the Civil Unions Bill, for holding up the bill in the Senate until two weeks ago.

McNulty rightly stated that Democrats played out the clock on favorite Republican bills when they were in the majority.  But let the record be clear - bills can get through both chambers in two weeks, as follows.

Speaker McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, accepted 12 bills since April 24 for hearings, within the two week time frame he cited as a problem for the civil unions bill.  One bill, HB12-1354, sponsored by Representatives Wes Mckinley, D-Walsh, and Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, has the stirring title, "Dog Breeder Provide Solid Flooring for Dogs."

The civil unions bill has to get through Becker's Appropriations Committee.  Becker said to The Denver Post about SB-002,  "it might depend on whether the committees meeting this afternoon send bills to the House Appropriations Committee."

Six bills have already been assigned to Appropriations since Friday for hearings today:  HB12-1356 and 1309 and SB12-165,086,104,002.  If Becker doesn't call a meeting, then apparently these bills go down with the civil unions ship.

Becker introduced two bills into the pipeline, HB12-1351 and 1353, in the last two weeks.  At this point, HB-1351 has been postponed indefinitely in the Senate and HB-1353 is on its way to the Senate's consent calendar and will certainly pass before the session ends.

Both parties are playing hardball with elections coming up.  But if two weeks aren't enough to get bills through, then neither party should accept "late bills" because they're wasting tax payer money.  In the case of civil unions, Republicans are in a tight spot, but using the "not enough time" argument is not much of an argument. PEN, CCW

This post was published on May 8, 2012. Permalink »