Looking back at the 2008 legislative session

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 9, 2008 at 7:29 a.m.
Updated May 9, 2008 at 7:29 a.m.

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Gov. Bill Ritter and lawmakers started the legislative session with daunting big-ticket problems — a rickety transportation system, nearly 800,000 uninsured Coloradans and poorly funded higher education.

The problem: little money for solutions.

The governor's trio of blue ribbon commissions estimated it would take $1.1 billion annually to provide universal health care; $1.5 billion annually to keep highways, bridges and transit apace with a growing population; and $750,000 annually to raise state funding for Colorado's universities and colleges up to the national average.

So, Ritter, who campaigned as a "pragmatic problem-solver," narrowed his sights on one tax measure for the Nov. 4 ballot, signaling a boost for higher education. The governor said he'd take smaller strides toward addressing "marathon" transportation and health care challenges.

Here's how Ritter and the legislature fared on key goals

K-12 education

GOAL: Ritter vowed a "revolutionary" reform of the state's K-12 educational content standards.

RESULT: With bipartisan backing, the "Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids" passed. It updates the state's curriculum standards and adds tests to ensure high school graduates are ready for college or work.

GOAL: Democratic legislative leaders advocated repairing or replacing dangerously dilapidated public schools across the state.

RESULT: They pass a bill allowing the state to loan up to $1 billion to repair schools.

GOAL: Ritter vows to expand preschool and full-day kindergarten.

RESULT: Democrats pass a bill to wipe out the 3,000-child preschool waiting list and expand full-day kindergarten for 22,000 children.

Transportation

GOAL: Ritter sought $500 million to address bare-bones upkeep of highways and bridges.

RESULT: Democratic lawmakers' attempt to increase vehicle registration and car rental fees to raise $300 million annually was killed by Republicans. Ritter and Democrats blame GOP's election-year posturing for torpedoing what they call a bipartisan "public safety" priority.

Health care

GOAL: Ritter proposed enrolling 17,000 more low-income children in the state health insurance program.

RESULT: Democrats deliver more — providing health care to 50,000 children.

GOAL: Democratic lawmakers introduce bills to penalize insurance companies that reject valid claims and authorize the Insurance Commission to reject unjustified health-care insurance rate hikes.

RESULT: Both bills pass over Republican objections that they will increase rates.

Alternative energy

GOAL: Ritter and Democrats champion legislation to advance the "new energy economy" and produce cleaner power and high-paying "green collar" jobs.

RESULT: Democrats deliver on bills to allow consumers to get credit from utilities for their "homegrown" solar and wind power; to promote low-interest loans to homeowners for energy-efficiency and clean-energy improvements; to encourage the Public Utilities Commission to consider large-scale solar plants to combat global warming emissions

Mandates

GOAL: House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, proposes the legislature place a measure on the ballot to unshackle the state from conflicting spending limits and mandates in the Colorado Constitution.

RESULT: Facing legislative opposition, Romanoff opts for a citizen campaign to fix the constitutional "mess" with a ballot amendment that would lift the spending limits imposed by the 1992 Taxpayer's Bill of Rights but retain Coloradans' right to vote on all tax increases. It also would repeal Amendment 23's requirement to increase education spending regardless of the health of the state's economy.

Higher education

GOAL: Ritter and bipartisan lawmakers propose tapping $2.7 billion in oil and gas revenues over the next decade to fund higher education construction, K-12 education and to address drilling impacts on local communities.

RESULT: Passed SB 218, which includes $650 million in funding for state university and college construction.

GOAL: Ritter spends months pondering whether to back legislation or a ballot measure to increase state revenue from the oil and gas industry to boost higher education.

RESULT: Governor sidesteps legislature and backs a citizens' ballot initiative to use the energy revenue to double state college scholarship funding to $200 million annually.

• May 9, 2008

  12:56 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jacka writes:

  Clearly now is the time to strike. We can erase TABOR, re-order regressive statutes and reconstruct government.

  Now is the time that all born persons residing in Colorado (including foreign nationals) may participate on a level playing field according to Democratic doctrines founded within the political correctness of a socially focused state.

  Defining the revenue enhancements and structural confines needed to forge the new socially focused economy shall be easily achieved.

  Trial Lawyers: opening up the courts so that all may participate in proactive justice is essential; regardless of their standing to introduce a case within the current confines of the radical justice systems barriers to file suit. We can only hope that more opportunities will evolve to enhance cash funding of the court and opportunities to punish the free market radicals.

  Unions: continuing to find opportunities to enhance membership dues shall drive the opportunities presented within all core silos that seek to re-distribute wealth.

  Enviros: continuing to hoard our natural fossil resources with the goal of absolute purity shall define the goal of driving our (to be nationalized) power companies to use 99% of their existing capacity. We shall bear down to allow only the gods of wind and sun to drive our new economy.

  Businesses: Remeber the Ref C coalition that took you and your workers tax overpayments to fund democratic work programs and re-grow government? This coalition model shall be used to facilitate your mandated participation under the state in this conversion to the new economy.

  Budget: freeing the masses from the burdens of taxation decisions will deliver salvation for a government engineered economy driven by principles of the socialist state maxim: absolute equality; heavy regulation (speech, investment, reproduction); and wealth re-distribution formulas known only to the successful North Koreans and Venezuelan; and collective ownership.

  This control shall be based on an indirect-direct model. As exercised through popular collectives, such as workers' councils, and on behalf of the people by the state. As an economic system, our socialism shall be characterized by collective ownership of the means of production.

  The distribution of wealth shall be controlled as a whole and not individually.

• May 9, 2008

  10:47 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  builder77777 writes:

  I have an even better idea. We can give most of the money to say, oh, 2000 Coloradoans. Once they have all the money then we can eliminate their taxes, thus creating a tax free society. Then, all our roads can return to where they were in the 1800s and we can live in the Rocky Mountain High way. Why care about the 800,000 without health care, why do you think we build all of these roads. They can camp out on them with the new laws that will be proposed. Then they can go around and clean up all of the junk around here and make little shacks so that the rain doesn't get on them. With the high price of gas who needs roads anyway. Then when we look like Bolivia we can start to put ads in the papers to attract tourists. Oh, and colleges, why who needs them. There are only a couple thousand people around here that actually have anything so who needs to know how to talk good or do math. Once we have totally privatized things, then maybe we can do something about all of those pesky people that want to work.

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