Senator Bill Cadman represents Colorado State Senate District 12 which includes North Eastern Colorado Springs and rural El Paso County. He...
Roberts:Special session gives way to busy interim schedule
May
23,
2012
Much has been written about the short “special” session last week that followed the adjournment of our regular 120-day session. The centerpiece of the governor’s call of the special session, the civil-unions bill, failed to pass despite appearing to have sufficient votes overall that would have passed the bill. In this case, procedural moves trumped the number of “yes” votes, which is unfortunate and many people have told me so.
The bill was about civil unions, not gay marriage, despite the rhetoric surrounding it. More disturbing than the bill’s demise for policy reasons, though, was the manner in which it went down.
As a big fan of a fair and open process of debate and voting, I find procedural shortcuts on any policy matter to get to a politician’s desired result repugnant. But that’s how things go sometimes. I’ve been to the Senate Democrats’ version of the “kill committee” enough to say that leadership on both sides of the aisle take advantage of the procedural rules to get to the results they want. Not pretty, but that’s the process we have.
To read the full article in the Durango Herald click here
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The bill was about civil unions, not gay marriage, despite the rhetoric surrounding it. More disturbing than the bill’s demise for policy reasons, though, was the manner in which it went down.
As a big fan of a fair and open process of debate and voting, I find procedural shortcuts on any policy matter to get to a politician’s desired result repugnant. But that’s how things go sometimes. I’ve been to the Senate Democrats’ version of the “kill committee” enough to say that leadership on both sides of the aisle take advantage of the procedural rules to get to the results they want. Not pretty, but that’s the process we have.
To read the full article in the Durango Herald click here
Share
Tweet
