Ballot Access Bill (HB1271) passed the House 58-7 this past week and is now going to be heard in the Senate. Six republicans and one democrat, Rep. Ed Vigil, voted against the bill. Hopefully the Senate will also be in favor of allowing a more reasonable time period for unaffiliated candidates to gain access to the ballot.

Another one of my bills, SB52 (about ground water wells in a designated basin), passed the Ag Committee on a very narrow vote of 7-6. I am sponsoring this bill for the Republican River Water Conservation District, the Yuma County Water Authority, the Colorado Corn growers and the Colorado Farm Bureau. It is a high priority bill for these Eastern Plains farmers because it will protect existing non-tributary wells that were permitted by the state 40 years ago from being shut off in the future. I expect a big fight on the House floor next week on that one.

Here is a short story you might want to read that sheds light on how party politics really works at the capitol:  SB165, a bill that deals with extending the deadlines for coal bed methane gas well producers to comply with water permitting requirements passed on second reading in the House yesterday. I had a particular interest in that piece of legislation because I spent over four months during the last session crafting legislation to create a system for integrating oil and gas wells into the prior appropriation system of water rights. This is a pretty technical area of law and last year’s bill took months of negotiation to finalize. SB165 is being offered this year by the Governor’s Department of Natural Resources to amend the work I did last year. When I inquired as to why I was not asked to sponsor this bill, given that I spent months working on this issue last year with the water community (Representative Hullinghorst, D, Boulder is the sponsor) I was informed by the Department of Natural Resources that my “party affiliation status is a problem”. Rep. Hullinghorst has no direct experience with water law or gas well permitting. Interestingly enough, at the same time that I was informed that I couldn’t be the sponsor of this legislation because of my party affiliation (or lack thereof) I was asked if I would “help Rep. Hullinghorst with the bill because it is so critically important to the oil and gas industry and the state that it pass”. If the bill doesn’t pass the State Engineer’s office will be swamped with thousands of applications for well permits from the oil and gas industry within the next two weeks.

Lastly, with regard to the budget – the Joint Budget Committee is still in the middle of setting figures for the individual departments. We will take up the Long Bill (the budget proposal for 2010/2011) in a few weeks after the final bill is introduced. We have also been moving some individual budget bills through the system to try and cut expenditures, and just yesterday passed a bill through Appropriations Committee that aligned the Old Age Pension payments with the federal requirements for legal immigrant recipients. These beneficiaries are elderly people at the poverty level that have come from other countries to live with family or other sponsors. By limiting their benefits in this bill the state will save over $20 million next year. There was testimony against the bill from the AARP because these are very vulnerable people – but the Old Age Pension benefits required by the state constitution are intended to be for Colorado citizens. I voted for the bill. These are the kinds of steps we must take, but the downside is that now these people may have to go to the emergency room for services (and that increases the cost of health care for all of us) or could end up homeless. There just aren’t any simple answers to any of this.

Thanks again for your interest,