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The face of Colorado’s legislature may change dramatically in November-The Denver Post
The face of Colorado’s legislature may change dramatically in November
Posted: 06/01/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT June 1, 2012 2:19 PM GMTUpdated: 06/01/2012 08:19:56 AM MDT
By Lynn Bartels The Denver Postdenverpost.com
The number of gay lawmakers serving in the Colorado legislature could double after the November election from four to eight.
In addition, younger candidates and minority candidates appear to be in a strong position to win their races, potentially transforming an older, whiter legislature.
“I think the legislature is going to look more and more like Colorado,” said Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver. “I think that’s a good thing for the democratic process.”
If Colorado doubles the number of gay lawmakers, it could potentially tie California for the percentage of legislators who are openly gay, said House Minority Leader Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver.
He made the announcement about the possible addition of four new gay lawmakers at an event Wednesday night to herald the progress on a bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.
But not everyone is excited as Ferrandino about the idea of more gay legislators.
Republican Tim Leonard, who unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in 2010, testified against the civil unions bill. He said his concern with gay lawmakers is they don’t run on a platform of “pushing a radical homosexual agenda that changes the status quo,” but once they get elected, that’s what they attempt to do.
All four gay candidates are Democrats running in seats where voter registration indicates their party has the edge. They all have Republican opponents. Three are running for the House:
• Paul Rosenthal, in southeast Denver.
• Joann Ginal, in Fort Collins.
• Commerce City Councilman Dominick Moreno.
Jesse Ulibarri is running for a new Senate seat in Commerce City and southwest Adams County.
Moreno said no one asked whether he was gay when he ran for council in 2009, and he didn’t offer the information. But gradually, he said, people found out.
Although Ulibarri is open about his sexuality, he said is not running as “the gay candidate.”
“I’m running as the Adams County guy,” he said. “I’m running in the area where my grandparents raised my parents. I live a mile and a half from the trailer park where I spent my earliest years of my life. I understand people’s perspectives here.”
Ulibarri, 29, who has two children with his partner, went to college with the son of state Rep. B.J. Nikkel, R-Loveland.
Ulibarri said that Nikkel’s son contacted him recently and said his mother, who was going to hear the civil unions bill in committee, was “struggling with the issue.” Ulibarri e-mailed the lawmaker to say what civil unions would mean for his family.
Nikkel was the lone Republican to vote for civil unions in House Judiciary, a move that sent shockwaves through
In this May 8, 2012 file photo, openly gay Sen. Pat Steadman, right, D-Denver, embraces gay Sen. Lucia Guzman, D-Denver (AP)
social conservatives and started the bill on its journey to the House.The civil unions bill was sponsored by Ferrandino and Steadman, who are gay. The other two lawmakers who are gay are Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, and Sen. Lucia Guzman, D-Denver.
Both Ferrandino and Schafer are up for re-election.
Steadman noted that they are lawmakers who happen to be gay but are involved with other issues at the Capitol. Both he and Ferrandino are experts on the budget. Schafer spent years in education, and Guzman is interested in criminal justice issues.
Expansion of Colo. energy office becomes law- The Denver Post
Expansion of Colo. energy office becomes law
Posted: 05/24/2012 03:21:40 PM MDT
May 25, 2012 12:20 AM GMTUpdated: 05/24/2012 06:20:29 PM MDT
May 25, 2012 12:20 AM GMTUpdated: 05/24/2012 06:20:29 PM MDT
By IVAN MORENO Associated PressAssociated Press
DENVER—The scope of Colorado’s energy office will expand beyond renewables, with funding for all types of energy development projects in the mix under legislation that Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper signed Thursday.The office will now include two funds—one for clean and renewable energy development and another for all other sources of energy, including traditional sources such as oil and gas and coal. The bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Jon Becker and Democratic Sen. Pat Steadman also changes the name of the office from the Governor’s Energy Office to the Colorado Energy Office.
First created in 1977 to promote energy conservation, the office took on new significance under former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, whose focus on renewable energy development was a legacy of his term from 2007 to 2011. The legislation went through several changes before passing, and environmental groups that were critical saw it as a Republican attempt to dismantle a hallmark of Ritter’s time in office.
Becker, of Fort Morgan, called the re-organization a “next step” in the progression of energy development for Colorado.
“It opens up what this office is doing and how they can do it,” he said.
The bill gained wide bipartisan support. However, environmental groups initially opposed the idea because they worried it took attention from renewable energy projects like wind and solar.
“We wanted very much to keep those doors open,” said Pete Maysmith, the executive director of the Colorado Conservation Voters. “As introduced, the bill didn’t do that.”
Maysmith said his group is now “happy to support the bill because it does allow that focus.”
Money for a clean and renewable energy fund will come from the state’s general fund, while other energy sources will get support from severance tax dollars. Next year, each fund will get about $1.5 million. After that, each will get annual support until 2017—the clean and renewable energy fund will get $1.6 million, and other energy sources $1.5 million.
“I think it fits nicely with how we have now expanded and balanced the mission to look at all of the above,” said Steadman, of Denver.
The change comes amid growing interest from oil and gas companies in the oil-rich Niobrara formation that underlies northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming.
Expansion Of Colo. Energy Office Becomes Law-KKTV
Expansion Of Colo. Energy Office Becomes Law
DENVER (AP) — Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed a bill expanding the scope of Colorado’s energy office to go beyond renewable energy and encourage all sources of energy development.
Hickenlooper signed off on the reorganization on Thursday. The office will now include two funds — one for clean and renewable energy development and another for all other sources of energy, including traditional energy projects like oil and gas.
The bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Jon Becker and Democratic Sen. Pat Steadman changes the name of the office from the Governor’s Energy Office to the Colorado Energy Office.
Becker called it a “next step” in the progression of energy development for Colorado.
The governor’s energy office was first created in 1977 to promote energy conservation.
Last minute drama as Civil Unions Bill fails in Colorado-Washington Post
Last minute drama as Civil Unions Bill fails in Colorado
COLORADO, May 20, 2012 — The Colorado legislative session expired on Wednesday, May 9th with a civil unions bill and thirty others left unpassed by the House. Gay activists and the media focused on the civil unions bill, treating viewers and readers to scenes of tearful hugs and vows to raise the issue again next session.
The civil unions bill was authored by gay legislator Pat Steadman in the Senate—the second bill of the session.
When the bill got to the House the Republican leadership of Speaker McNulty and Majority Leader Stephens could have quietly killed it in committee but inexplicably failed to do so. (Stephens, who is running in a hotly contested primary, claims to be against civil unions.)
As a result, the bill came up for debate at the last minute and died on the floor along with the other bills.
But that was not the end of it: Democrat Governor Hickenlooper wasted no time the next day in calling for a special session to reconsider the civil unions bill, reportedly “emotional” as he made the announcement.
The Republicans’ last-minute kill seemed in jeopardy and pro-family conservatives rallied around the state on Sunday—Mothers’ Day—and prepared to descend on Denver on Monday when the special session would start.
This time the civil unions bill was killed in committee. Republican Don Coram (R-Montrose) voted against the bill despite having a gay son who wanted him to vote for it. Rep. Coram said that he could not overturn the will of the people who in 2006 voted against the idea.
In 2006, Amendment 43, specifying marriage as between only one man and one woman, passed with a 55% vote while Referendum I, to establish domestic partnerships, failed at 47%.
At the national level, the same week that ended the regular legislative session, Biden and Obama came out of the closet in favor of civil unions and in North Carolina, an amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman passed by 61% of the vote, making that state the 31st state to affirm traditional marriage.
Is all this just coincidence? Hardly. The Colorado Democrat Party takes its cues from Washington D.C. and the gay activist billionaires who fund their campaigns.
So much for civil unions and election politics. Are there serious issues involved? It is really not an issue of equity or fairness: two members of the same sex are free to enter into any contract or make any agreement that married couples can. Colorado law further allows any two people to designate each other as beneficiaries. And any person of any gender can use any public restroom. I am not making this up; it’s a state law.
The Colorado civil unions bill is really about securing state recognition of “gay marriage.” The proposed bill makes that clear in all but name. The word “spouse” would be replaced in statute with “civil unions.” And, yes, you’d need a state-supplied license to enter into a civil union.
Therein, I think, lies the objection that everyone concerned with civil liberties ought to be concerned about. Those who favor civil unions or homosexual marriage will often counter with, “Why not: the state recognizes heterosexual marriage.” As if two wrongs make a right.
Indeed if, as most Americans believe, marriage is an institution ordained by God and you are married by a church in the name of God, isn’t that enough? The involvement of the state is superfluous and at times even harmful. Why would homosexuals want more state involvement in their private affairs?
Over at the Green Dragon Tavern, Eric Moldenhauer writes that he is gay and he does not favor civil unions. He believes that marriage is a private contract and that people should be free to enter into those contracts without government interference. He is right: in Europe, marriages weren’t even commonly recorded until the sixteenth century and where they were recorded it was in the parish church record books.
That tradition came to Colonial America. In Maryland, for example, the Catholic Church recorded all vital records. When the government started requiring licenses the object was not to recognize or support marriage but to limit it—to prevent interracial marriage or, in the terms of the eugenics movement, to prevent “undesirables” from marrying and having children. This is the ugly truth of the Progressive eugenics of Margaret Sanger—founder and still the heroine of Planned Parenthood—and others, notably the National Socialists in Germany.
By involving the state in licensing marriage we also allow—even mandate—the state to define it. Religion defines marriage, not the state. We are not a theocracy, as Progressive liberals never tire of reminding us—and I agree. That’s why there is no definition of marriage in the Constitution and why there is a right to religious freedom. It is indeed completely a logical contradiction for those who argue for the separation of church and state to also argue for the state to become involved in the religious institution of marriage. That is exactly what the “wall of separation” was meant to prevent.
We’ve been too ready to trade our natural rights for artificial state-defined rights. It is time to stop; time to take the red pill.
