May 12, 2009 12:44 AM UTC

Colorado Pols Legislative Session Awards

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• by: Colorado Pols

Your votes have been cast and considered, and after much deliberating, here are our choices in the first annual Colorado Pols Legislative Session Awards: 2009:

BEST LEGISLATOR

Republican Rep. Don Marostica

As a member of the bipartisan Joint Budget Committee, Marostica has spent the last year poring over the state budget and trying to come up with solutions that didn’t involve cutting so many services that it turned our state into a “Mad Max” movie. Marostica knew the budget numbers and what the state faced, regardless of the political spin that either side might wish to make. So Marostica did something that most Republicans castigated him for: He told it like it was.

Marostica correctly called out his fellow Republicans as “lemmings” for not having the courage to make a good-faith effort at fixing the budget, and then he went out and acted like the leader that the GOP so badly needs right now. Supporting SB-228, which repealed the Arveschoug-Bird Amendment, was the right thing to do if Colorado is ever going to fully recover from our current budget crisis.

Most Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, were horrified at the idea of doing anything outside of their robotic old-school mantra of “lower taxes, cut spending,” but when they never came up with a budget plan of their own, Marostica did the right thing and stepped out in front to lead.

So kudos to Rep. Marostica for having the courage to do what was needed and what was necessary, even if it didn’t fit into his party’s “just say no” mantra.

RUNNER UP, BEST LEGISLATOR

Democratic Sen. John Morse

The new Senate Majority Leader has a tough district to defend in 2010 but didn’t shy away from tackling tough and important issues. Morse carried a lot of the water for SB-228 and took on other heavy issues (like expanded DNA testing and sentencing reform) that most legislators with a looming re-election campaign would avoid.

Morse, like Marostica, is the kind of legislator who does the hard work in the middle (both politically and in the trenches) to pass-or at least debate-legislation that really matters. These aren’t politicians who sit around drawing up resolutions or dreaming of new commemorative license plates. These two are the real deal.

THE “DAVE SCHULTHEIS” WORST LEGISLATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

Republican Sen. Dave Schultheis

Your honor, we need enter into evidence only one thing. From Sen. Schultheis himself:

“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, [Pols emphasis] have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” [Schultheis] said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

You have to be a pretty callous and insensitive bastard to say something like this, but not only did Schultheis say it, he later tried to wriggle his way out of the PR shitstorm it created by claiming people were “misinterpreting what I said.”

No misinterpretation here. You, sir, are an asswipe.

Now only is Schultheis is a public relations nightmare for the Republican Party, he’s also almost completely worthless as a legislator. How unpopular is Schultheis? He was the prime sponsor on three bills that went without a House sponsor entirely. Of the eight bills where he was a sponsor, only two even made it out of the Senate, and both of those bills had many other sponsors to do the work. Even many Republicans we know think that Schultheis is a genuine asshole who is nothing but harmful in every way.

Schultheis wins this award, and has it named after him, because he has a true talent for saying horrible things that reflect poorly on Republicans, on politicians, and on Coloradans in general (and this is far from the first time he has done this). Surely people around the country were wondering the same thing when they saw Schultheis named the “Second-worst Person in the World” by Keith Olberman…

How could people in Colorado re-elect this guy?

RUNNER UP, WORST LEGISLATOR OF THE YEAR

Republican Sen. Scott Renfroe

We tried to keep this bipartisan, we really did. We thought about former Rep. Ann McGihon, who lost her bid to become Speaker of the House last fall and then abruptly resigned early in the session to take a consulting job rather than finish out the term she was just re-elected to serve. But picking anyone other than Renfroe would give him an undeserved pass for his own Schultheis-esque moment.

In case you forgot, here’s Renfroe’s gem, in which he compares homosexuality with murder:

Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, [quoted] Bible verses to argue that the state should not be condoning homosexual relationships. He called such relationships a sin, equal in some sense to murder and adultery, and noted that one passage in the Bible says homosexuality is punishable by death.

“Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural creative order, and it is an offense to God,” Renfroe said. ” When we create laws that go against what biblically we are supposed to stand for, I think we are allowing to go forward a sin that should not be treated by government as something that is legal. We are taking sins and making them legally OK.”

Like Schultheis, this is also not the first time that Renfroe has said something painfully awful and stupid. And like Schulthies, these comments only hurt the image of a Republican Party that is badly in need of a new façade. But unlike Schulthies, Renfroe does manage to get co-sponsors on bills and can get things through the legislature, even if they may not be among the most pressing issues.

Coming tomorrow…the second half of our Colorado Pols Legislative Session Awards: 2009