Sources tell us that the replacement of moderate GOP Sen. Al White on the Joint Budget Committee with conservative firebrand Sen.-elect Kent Lambert isn’t being received warmly–by legislators on both sides of the aisle, or business and other lobbying interests with considerable sway over Republican politics. Nobody has told us that a reversal of the GOP Senate caucus’ vote yesterday is being considered, but the move is being described as an indication that Senate Republicans plan to make the resilient Democratic Senate Majority’s life, not to mention the JBC in particular, as miserable and unproductive as possible.
It’s not like Lambert is an unknown quantity to the JBC, having previously served there representing the House. He has drawn much criticism for wasting the committee’s time on ideological pedantic lectures that have little or nothing to do with the issues at hand–we note he won’t agree. It’s a much bigger problem, though, to lose the moderate Sen. White than it is for Lambert to switch from one seat on the committee to another, and they can’t keep both.
Based on the nonplussed reaction they appear to be getting, they picked wrong.
Remember, this is the representative who actually proposed in legislation that the state order the Treasurer to start hoarding gold Glenn Beck-style. He’s neither qualified to speak nor serious about addressing the state’s fiscal problems, and unanimously bouncing White from the JBC for Lambert is a pretty clear signal that the Senate Minority as a whole is not serious either.
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is the kind of trade Josh McDaniel likes to make…
In, you know, an innocent, Calvin and Hobbes kind of way.
Tebow for JBC, Lambert for QB? Hey, it couldn’t be any worse the other way around…
Al White probably does not represent the Senate minority as well as Kent Lambert, not that that’s a good thing. Seems like the reasonable moderates like Al White are getting harder to find these days..
But the JBC is no place for clowning around. The business community will not be pleased by this.
side with Dems on key legislation. And in a Redistricting year? Not a smart move by the Repubs.
From what I have seen and heard.. yeah this has pissed a LOT of people off.
They’re in the minority. The Democrat bill will be the only one to pass the Senate. If they were in the House, it could be a problem.
Frankly, on that issue, Ellen Roberts will vote however Cong-Elect Tipton wants her to vote.
in the Senate, or the whole Leg, what if the moderate Repubs formed a caucus? If they ever hope to establish a reasoned dialogue, that might be a good place to start.
Have you ever listened to a Long Bill debate?
Yeah but maybe not next year. How do you spell gridlock?
is the result of six months of bipartisan effort by the JBC, which is where the real work is done. And if we lose that platform for reasoned, bipartisan discussion, we are really glued, screwed and tattooed.
ended last year.
With the House in Republican hands, the JBC will be three Republicans and three Democrats. Who wants to bet whether there will be a budget at all?
But nobody will like it.
It doesn’t say it won’t stink to high heaven. And for that matter, it doesn’t require any legislator to vote for it. I’ve never seen a total deadlock, but if the fiscal year, which starts July 1, comes without a formal budget, do any of you barristers know what happens.
Congress always blows the deadline and goes on with continuing resolutions. God knows what would happen here if the House Rs. just flat out refused to pass a budget.
Teh Constitution. Just an old piece of paper. Let’s do what we want like warrantless wiretaps and a whole host of other civil liberties violations.
Now there are two of them, White and Ellen Roberts. That’s it. None left in the House. That would be a big caucus, especially next year when White is gone because of term limits.
I guess there is still Massey left in the House as a moderate but it is getting very, very, lonely for Republicans who live on our planet.
in his last term before term limits push him out? Not that I’ve heard.
He’s in his first term in the Senate – he can run again in 2012. He is term-limited only out of the House, where he served four terms.
won a hugely, huge, huge mandate Tuesday — just ask ’em. No time now for RINO’s and loser’s holding back the inevitable.
You go guys, ride that wave all the way to 2012!
sez McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, has appointed a newly elected freshman legislator, Republican John Becker of Fort Morgan, to sit on the six-person Joint Budget Committee in charge of dealing with the $1.1 billion budget shortfall. But it doesn’t say who the other House R. will be . Ferradino returns for the Ds.
Don’t know Becker, who is new to the lege. One good sign is that he is a former morgan county commissioner. As a general rule, county commissioners tend to be pragmatic, since they have to worry about roads and bridges, and human services, not abortion. But it isn’t an infallible rule, by any means. Douglas Bruce was an El Paso County Commissioner for a while.
And very intelligent – great management record as a County Commissioner
Can’t go wrong with him, in any capacity
a Representative for a while.
1-Neither of us was ever elected as a County Commissioner.
2-Neither of us was ever elected to the state legislature.
He bullied his way into both jobs through vacancy appointments. Quite the county to take the lege appointment, lost that primary,
after the infamous kicking incident.
he actually had lobbied for a vacancy post but didn’t get it. He won a three-way primary for the post, iirc. He has never won a legislative race, ran two senate primaries, lost won to Ron May and the other I forget, lost his race to keep his leg seat, of course.
I have known Cheri for more than 25 years. She is one of the few Republicans I vote for anymore. She opposed 60,61 and 101 publically and said it would do horrible things for the state. I suspect that you and she may have different priorities, but that is what the negotiations will be all about. She knows there are many things that just can’t be cut.
Cheri is pretty conservative, but nobody doubts that she is very bright. She is also practical, and understands the connection between state infrastructure and economic development.
If she is allowed to work independently of the McNutty group, she will do a good job for the JBC.
http://www.bizjournals.com/den…
note McNulty is making noises about restoring the business tax exemptions and even deleting FASTER funding from this budget.
The bus community might like the former, but they will be appalled if FASTER is rolled back.
I do want a competent Department of Revenue. But I also want adequate funding for the state so people are willing to live here.
But almost to the man and the woman, they supported improvements in our transportation system. You can move your product by the Internet. Coors needs roads. I think CACI and others need to put their foot down.
David,
Hickenlooper is looking for people on his transition committees. One of them is on IT. You should check it out.
I bitch so much I should offer to actually do something
http://partnersforcolorado.com/
Get your name in quickly – they’ll notify applicants for committee spots no later than Tuesday, and each committee already has several meetings scheduled (all detailed on the website).
To the committees on IT, Education, & Russian Pop Music (one of those three I’m kidding – guess which).
especially on IT I think you have thought about the subject a lot and how it can work for government.
On education, I’m always stunned at how poorly the schools and admin communicate. Our district even has Facebook blocked! Talk about a missed learning opportunity. And we say we want to prepare them for the 22nd century? Bah, Humbug. On the good side, 98% of teachers are great. They care about the students and learning. I think the challenge is that they are sometimes people who relate better to the students than to other adults. At least for our district, the challenge is to come up with a system that has accountability for the administrators, from principal and counselors on up to super. I don’t know if you follow education this closely, but they added a new format, statewide, for the School Improvement Plan. It’s now called the Unified Improvement Plan. While I approve of a statewide format, it doesn’t acknowledge the role of parents and community in the accountability process (as defined by state law) or allow for each school to provide unique format. It should be a framework, but it’s a fill-in the blank. In that sense, it’s a good example of what’s wrong with education – and it’s not the teachers. We need to get the tools we have working. We don’t need more reqs added on. Sorry about the length of the rant.
And it was similar to what you said – outside of the teachers the focus seemed to be on process rather than results.
After all, everybody on this board constantly says
David doesn’t get IT;-)
It is, perhaps, your best chance as part of a Transition Committee, to talk about what is wrong, what works, and the kind of person it will take to fix it.