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State speaker wants House to broadcast its business

Legislators could be on television as early as January

Justin Coons, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 19, 2007 at midnight

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The Colorado House of Representatives could be coming to your living room next year.

House Speaker Andrew Romanoff wants to to televise the House of Representatives as early as the next session, which starts in January.

"The idea is to bring the House of Representatives home," Romanoff said Monday.

If approved, Colorado will become the 35th state to broadcast its legislature on TV. Sessions are now audio-only on the Internet.

The broadcasts likely would land on cable. Comcast has pledged two digital channels to the project. Ideally, one of the two would be dedicated to the Senate, Romanoff said, but it has to submit a similar proposal to be included in the deal.

The state legislature would have to fund the project. A TV crew costs about $30,000 a year, Romanoff said, but the amount would be less if students do the work.

Romanoff said he hopes to cover costs through donations.

Romanoff said that as the proposal develops, he hopes to include a rule keeping legislators from using the footage in campaigning. California, which began broadcasting its state legislature in 1990, has such a rule.

"With any kind of political advertising, it's forbidden to use any of the footage from the feed," said California Assembly spokesman Richard Stapler.

"It's only for the public use, and news stations can pull a feed from that. Other than that, we're not allowed to touch it."

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