Lawmaker sorry about 'sluts' : rockymountainnews.com

COLORADO SPRINGS — One month. Three embarrassments. Ninety days yet to go.

House Minority Leader Mike May said Thursday he felt like Kathleen Turner's character in the movie War of the Roses, who says in an exasperated moment, "What fresh hell is this?"

Indeed, May and House Speaker Andrew Romanoff have had more than their fair share of crises to deal with since opening day Jan. 9.

First, incoming Rep. Doug Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, kicked a Rocky photographer on the House floor and was censured for refusing to apologize.

Then Rep. Michael Garcia, D-Aurora, resigned after a female lobbyist accused him of sexual misconduct at a bar.

And on Wednesday, Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, called unmarried teen parents "sluts" at a Republican caucus.

The session, which ends in May, hasn't seen this kind of turmoil since the spring of 2006, when May was promoted to his current post after House Minority Leader Joe Stengel, R-Littleton, resigned from leadership over excessive per diem billing.

Sen. Deanna Hanna, D-Lakewood, was next, resigning after she wrote a letter to Realtors demanding "reparations" for their past financial support of her Republican opponent.

Soon after, Rep. Jim Welker, R-Loveland, was forced to apologize on the House floor for forwarding an essay by another author that called black Hurricane Katrina victims "immoral" and "welfare-pampered." When a congressional committee investigating the black market sale of phone numbers and other information focused on his Loveland firm, Welker decided against running for re-election.

May thought of the War of the Roses line then, and he was shaking his head with Turner's voice in his ear again Thursday as he read a newspaper article about Liston's comments.

Liston used the derogatory term during a Republican caucus lunch on health care to express his view that unmarried teen parents are sexually promiscuous and to complain that society condones premarital sex.

"In my parents' day and age, (unmarried teen parents) were sent away, they were shunned, they were called what they are," Liston said at the lunch. "There was at least a sense of shame.

"There's no sense of shame today. Society condones it ... I think it's wrong. They're sluts."

Liston apologized for his word choice Thursday afternoon.

"I'm definitely sorry that I ever used that word," he told the Rocky. "I had no intention of offending anybody. That was not my intent all — never was, never has been."

Romanoff, D-Denver, called the apology appropriate.

"Obviously I don't share his sentiments and I'm glad he took responsibility in the end," Romanoff said.

May said he too was glad to see Liston apologize. But he was irritated that Rep. Debbie Stafford, D-Aurora, had taped photocopies of a news article on Liston's "slut" comment at the back of the stalls inside the women's bathroom off the House floor Thursday morning.

May noted that Stafford, a former Republican, held her tongue publicly when Garcia resigned.

"It's the hypocrisy," May said. "Be offended, but don't be partisan offended."

Romanoff said he admonished Stafford as soon as he heard about her bathroom stunt.

"She apologized and took responsiblity and agreed not to do it again," Romanoff said.

"I'm going to get kicked out of the Democratic Party if I keep making trouble," Stafford said in a moment of levity Thursday afternoon.

However, she said she was not being partisan, but was truly offended by Liston's comments.

"It's not partisan," she said. "I just don't appreciate calling young people in pain a slut."

May took a self-effacing tack in regard to the most recent embarrassment.

"We're not professional politicians down here and it shows," he said. "We are citizen legislators. Sometimes we are going to do things that don't play well in prime time."

bargec@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5059

Rocky staffer Alan Gathright, the Associated Press and The Gazette contributed to this report.