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March 12, 2019 04:08 PM UTC

GOP Lawmakers Have Time for Everything BUT Governing

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Colorado Republicans at work.

Colorado Republicans were squawking about Democratic “overreach” long before the final ballots were counted in the 2018 election. They were warning of “secession” in mid-November. Republicans have been throwing around “recall” threats for months and pushing counties to pledge to be “sanctuaries” in the event that so-called “red flag” legislation is passed.

In response to getting walloped in the last election cycle, Republicans have focused their energies on doing whatever possible to muck things up at the state legislature. They don’t want Democracy; they want anarchy.

As the Denver Post reports, Republicans are now suing Democrats for not allowing them to do more to waste everyone’s time at the State Capitol:

Colorado state Senate Republicans have sued Leroy Garcia, the Democratic Senate president, over the use of multiple computers to read a 2,000-page bill Monday, claiming the move violated the state Constitution…

…On Monday morning, state Sen. John Cooke, a Weld County Republican, asked for a 2,000-page bill to be read at length, a request that could have taken up 60 hours to accomplish. No committee hearings or other floor work may take place during the reading, which would mean bringing work in that chamber to a halt.

However, Senate leadership used five computers simultaneously speed reading to get through the bill by 5:30 p.m. Monday.

The Post writes that the lawsuit is the latest development in “a legislative session that has been defined in part by the brinkmanship between the two parties in the statehouse’s upper chamber,” but that’s not a fair assessment of what is really taking place at the State Capitol. Republicans are doing everything they can to prevent the legislature — comprised of lawmakers duly elected by Colorado voters — from doing its job. They’ve been throwing wrenches into the process since well before the 2019 session even began.

Republicans aren’t even pretending that they aren’t trying to gum up the works wherever possible. This is a sad day in what has been a sad couple of months for a political party that seems determined to remain irrelevant when it comes to governing this state.

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11 thoughts on “GOP Lawmakers Have Time for Everything BUT Governing”

  1. Going back to Hillman's article asserting that Republicans can't govern if they can't win, Republicans have proven time and again that they can't govern even when they DO win.  They're incapable of governing.  Either by choice, or whatever.

  2. Let the lawsuit wind through the court. In the meantime, the Legislature will continue to debate and pass bills. The worst case scenario from the suit is almost certainly that someone eventually has to read the thing on the Senate floor at regular (or auctioneer) speed.

    1. I nominate John Cooke, let that dimus bulbus read the 2,000 pages aloud every night between 6:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. . . . 

      . . . Vicki Marble can turn pages for him (since it’s unlikely she can read).

    2. I doubt there will be much winding.  I'm finding it hard to think how this dispute isn't nonjusticiable.  This is a fight over the legislature applying its rule to itself, which is a quintessential political question.  The bill was read– nothing says who (or what) it must be read by.

      Even the GOP's snowflake tweet talks about the "spirit" of the rule being broken.  Try harder, goppers.

      1. Whereupon I am almost immediately clowned by a Denver judge's TRO.

        Judge rules Democrats can’t use computers to combat GOP efforts to slow Colorado Senate

        A Denver judge gave Republicans in the Colorado legislature a victory Tuesday, ordering that Democrats in the state Senate and the chamber’s clerk be barred from reading legislation in an unintelligible way.

        The temporary order came after the GOP on Monday requested that a 2,000-page bill be read in full as part of efforts to gum up work in the Senate in protest of a major oil and gas bill.

        1. I wonder what Alva’s gonna’ headline the next yay-dumbocrats diary? . . . 

          “The Schoolers get Schooled”?

          “Who’s Schooling Who?”?

          “Won’t Get Schooled Again!”?

          “Schooledhousesenate Rock”?

          “All Schooled Out”?

          “Wha’ Happened?”?

          “We Sure Schooled Them Gooder, Huh?”?

          “Michael Bennet For President!”?

        2. I should say that I think I'm right on the law and the actual end result will be the courts saying they don't have the power to flex in this space, but the timing of the court's temporary ruling was wonderfully humbling.

  3. Does the Colorado Constitution REALLY have something in it about how fast a bill can be read?

    If it is a matter of Senate rules, then let there be motion to suspend the rule OR a motion to change the rule.  from the Colorado Senate's Rules:

    34. AMENDMENT OR REPEAL OF THE RULES

    (a) To amend or repeal one or more rules shall require a majority vote of all members elected provided three days' notice thereof shall have been given. To amend or repeal one or more rules without such prior notice shall require two-thirds vote of all members elected.

     

  4. So Coloradans vote with a majority against 112 and Republicans are trying to protect that vote and the voice of our citizens, yet you all are mad about a computer reading a bill.  You guys are fucking stupid. #stillyourpresident#nocollusion#dumbdumbdemocrats

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