May 01, 2019 11:48 AM UTC

Um, Your Talking Points Are Broken

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican obstructionism at the State Capitol has been a key story in Colorado politics for much of the 2019 legislative session. This topic has only trended more with lawmakers scrambling to finish up work before Sine Die on Friday.

Republican obstruction — particularly in the State Senate — is putting a number of bipartisan measures important to everyday Coloradans at risk of failure, which is starting to prompt calls for a special legislative session. While there’s no indication as of yet that Republicans will actually work with Democrats to pass important bills before the end of the session (at Midnight on Friday), GOP talking points on their obstruction rationale have now fallen apart completely.

As Bente Birkeland reports for Colorado Public Radio:

“Any bills that die on the calendar are the result of poor calendar management by the Democrats,” Republican Senate spokesman Sage Naumann said. “If bipartisan pieces of legislation are unfortunately postponed to the next session in an effort to stop bills that violate the rights of our constituents and put their livelihoods at risk, then that’s a price we’re willing to pay.” [Pols emphasis]

Naumann is the Communications Director for the Republican State Senate Minority, where he has delighted in promoting GOP maneuvers for forcing bills to be read at length or insisting on pointless amendments — all for the sole purpose of trying to run out the session clock. But Naumann is now mixing up his messaging, as you can see in those two incongruent sentences above.

Republicans can A) Take credit for obstruction as their sacred duty, or B) Accuse Democrats of mismanaging the legislative calendar. But they can’t do both. That would be sort of like getting stranded somewhere after slashing your car tires…and then accusing someone else of forgetting to put gas in the car.

On one hand, it’s not terribly surprising that Senate Republicans are confused about their own obstructionist messaging. Earlier this week, Sen. Ray Scott (R-Grand Junction) was quoted decrying Democratic efforts to speed up debate on legislation just hours after he was caught literally watching a movie at his desk on the Senate floor. It’s hard to take Scott seriously about being mad at the pace of debate when he obviously isn’t paying any attention anyway. Naumann’s messaging disaster puts the rest of the GOP caucus in a similar bind.

(h/t 2Jung2Die)