After listening to the Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform give its report at the Capitol today, Republican legislators urged the governor and the Democrat-controlled legislature to turn to the GOP's health-care package as the only viable alternative.

Presenting their recommendations to a packed house in the Old Supreme Court Chambers, members of the "208 commission" elaborated on the five proposals they developed to address health-care reform in Colorado.  Republican and Democrat members from the House and Senate were on hand to listen to the panel's findings.

"A number of the people on the commission are at the top of their game on health-care issues, and they have put in a lot of hard work.  I appreciate that," Senate Republican Leader Andy McElhany said.  "Yet, I know of no one on either side of the aisle who believes that any of the commission's grand plans are going  to take root in Colorado anytime soon.  We simply do not have the money."

A Democrat bill denounced by Republicans as soft on crime drew a hail of fire Wednesday from prosecutors, who said the measure would make it harder to prosecute teens who participate in brutal killings.

As a result, the Democrat majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee decided to delay action pending revisions to Senate Bill 66, authored by fellow Democrat Sen. Suzanne Williams, of Aurora.

SB 66, also sponsored by Democrat Rep. Rosemary Marshall, of Denver, would treat murder in the first degree as a less serious, class 2 felony if the defendant was under 18 years old at the time of the offense, was convicted as an adult, and did not commit or assist in committing the murder.  The controversial measure throws a curve at the state’s “felony-murder” statute, used to prosecute criminal cohorts in homicide cases.

“We're taking a tool away from law enforcement and prosecutors at a time when it's needed the most,” said Republican Sen. Josh Penry, of Grand Junction, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a vocal critic of the bill.

Senate Republicans were flabbergasted today after Gov. Bill Ritter said he remains unsure how he will fund Colorado's most critical transportation needs--weeks into the 2008 legislative session and almost a year after he set up a panel to study the issue.

Republicans also voiced concern over which way the governor said he was leaning--toward a big hike in vehicle registration fees--to help pay for a $500 million, "Fix it Now" short list of transportation projects. That funding option would represent an end-run on voters because fee increases don't have to go onto the ballot. 

"The governor was unbelievable. Instead  of a practical solution, all he wants to do is talk some more," said Senate GOP leader Andy McElhany, of Colorado Springs. "And all he wants to talk about is another de facto tax imposed on the people of this state."

Added McElhany, "If the governor wants to talk, let's put any revenue increase, including his car tax, on the ballot so voters can be part of the conversation."

Democrat legislation that Capitol quipsters are calling the “Leave No Trial Lawyer Behind” bill passed a Senate committee today—setting the stage for what critics charge is yet another legislative session that places the interests of lawyers above business.

House Bill 1020, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line vote of 4-2, would make sweeping changes to the litigation system in Colorado that, Republicans charge, would favor plaintiffs in lawsuits.  The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association has been lobbying for the bill and testified in support of it. 

An annual budget resolution usually regarded as a formality among lawmakers became a potent reminder today that the state faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over a sweeping property-tax hike--and could wind up having to pay back the money.

Republican Sen. Greg Brophy, of Wray, a budget hawk who fought the tax increase when it was pushed through the General Assembly last year by Gov. Bill Ritter, urged colleagues in the Senate to set aside $117.4 million that the state would owe taxpayers if it loses the lawsuit. That sum--representing revenue that will be collected shortly in property-tax bills that are now arriving in the mail statewide--is just the first year's take on a tax hike expected to cost the public an additional $3.8 billion over the next 10 years.

"The probability of us losing that lawsuit is fairly high," Brophy told the Senate. "It is incumbent on us to be careful with our money."

Brophy had sought to attach his proposal to Senate Joint Resolution 4, and his Republican colleagues largely backed his effort to refrain from spending the extra funds pending the lawsuit's outcome. Ruling Democrats, however, defeated the proposal.

A Republican effort to synch state and federal immigration laws in Colorado was killed by ruling Democrats in a Senate committee Wednesday.

Senate Bill 74, sponsored by Republican Sen. Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs, would have reconciled Colorado statute with a federal law that makes it illegal for someone to be present in this country if they have entered illegally. At present, there is no corresponding Colorado law.

The Senate State Affairs Committee’s Democrats rejected the bill on a party-line vote.

“How can we address the problem of illegal immigration if it’s not even illegal?” Cadman said, moments before the bill was killed.

Ignoring pleas to safeguard the public from the next walkout by transit workers or schoolteachers, Democrats on a House committee Thursday voted down a Republican bill that would have barred strikes by all government workers.

House Bill 1187, introduced in the House by Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, and sponsored in the Senate by assistant Senate GOP leader Nancy Spence, of Centennial, would have established firm penalties for employees or unions that struck or incited strikes. In presenting the bill before the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee, Gardner pointed to numerous strikes around the state by public schoolteachers over the years as well as a strike in 2006 by bus and light-rail drivers that hobbled the Denver area's Regional Transportation District.

"Our bill's defeat sends a troubling message to the public: that the General Assembly isn't willing to protect basic public services from labor unrest," Spence said after the hearing.

The full Senate approved the appointment of an environmental activist to help regulate the state's public utilities today despite the heated objections of Republicans who say the nominee's approval will place ideology above consumer protection.

The governor's selection of Matt Baker to serve on the three-member Public Utilities Commission will lead to higher utility bills because of his dogmatic opposition to the use of coal in generating power, Republican senators charged. They note 80 percent of Colorado's electricity is coal-fired because it is by far the most cost-effective resource.

The commission is charged with regulating the rates and quality of service of telephone, gas, electric and water utilities. The administration of Gov. Bill Ritter already has named the panel's two other members.

"The PUC's job is to protect the consumer and not to advance a narrow ideological agenda," said the GOP's Sen. Greg Brophy, of Wray. Republican Sen. Shawn Mitchell, of Broomfield, said the move ultimately will mean higher heating and power bills for "struggling families" and added that Baker's approval by the majority amounted to, "waving the white flag on energy independence."

An environmental activist nominated to serve on Colorado's powerful Public Utilities Commission is drawing fire for his record of attacks on a key sector of the state's energy economy. Lawmakers are challenging Environment Colorado Executive Director  Matt Baker's fitness for his new post given his lengthy history of fighting coal-fired power plants--which generate fully 80 percent of Colorado's electricity.

Baker's nomination by Gov. Bill Ritter must get Senate approval and goes before the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee today.

"Mr. Baker's record is very troubling to me and many of my colleagues," said Senate Republican leader Andy McElhany of Colorado Springs.

"Appointments to the commission are in some ways supposed to be like appointments to the judiciary," McElhany said. "You want experience in areas like energy, the environment and consumer protection, but you do not want someone on board who is driven by an overarching political agenda."

News this week that the Denver area's Regional Transportation District is now an all-union shop has given renewed urgency to a Republican bill prohibiting public employees from striking, its authors say.

They say their measure, soon to be introduced in the Colorado House, is crucial to keeping key sectors of the state's economy from "grinding to a halt" in the event of another RTD strike like the one that hit the state's biggest metro area two years ago.

About half of RTD's transit routes have been run by private contractors, but employees at the last holdout of the agency's three contractors recently succumbed to a campaign by the Amalgamated Transit Union and joined the union.

The pending Republican measure, sponsored by Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs, and assistant Senate GOP leader Nancy Spence, of Centennial, is a response to Gov. Bill Ritter's controversial executive order last fall allowing unions to collectively bargain for state employees. That move, say Gardner and Spence, actually made it more likely that state employees would go on strike.

"Without our proposal," Gardner said, "the only way for RTD to end the next strike would be to surrender its budget to the unions." 

Senate Republicans lauded Gov. Bill Ritter's support for a major education reform in the GOP's 2008 legislative agenda--standards-based education--which the governor included in his annual State of the State speech today.

The Republicans also expressed cautious optimism after Ritter seemed to take a step back from some overly ambitious and costly proposals that his party embraced last year.

The GOP lawmakers warned, however, that any effort by the administration to push through meaningful school reform would face its highest hurdles in the governor's own party.

"The governor's announcement represents a real boon to the Republican priority for education reform," said the GOP's Sen. Mike Kopp, of Littleton.

"My concern is with the foes of such reforms who run the pivotal education committees in the two chambers," Kopp said. "I hope the governor can shepherd this effort through the General Assembly, and we will be glad to help however we can."

The Senate's Republican leader helped kick off the 2008 session Wednesday by urging fellow lawmakers to embrace a GOP plan of action on issues like health care and education--and by calling on the governor to sign two Republican bills he has said he supported.

In remarks made on opening day of the 2008 legislative session, Republican Senate leader Andy McElhany of Colorado Springs stressed the need for "practical solutions to our most pressing problems," but without burdening taxpayers or relying on the government as a cure-all. 

A hotly debated, statewide property-tax hike that Gov. Bill Ritter pushed through the legislature last year is now projected to take $3.8 billion from home- and business owners over the next 10 years. That is more than double the $1.7 billion in revenue that was estimated when legislative Democrats approved the measure at the Ritter administration's behest in the 2007 session.

The change reflects an updated economic forecast by the nonpartisan state Legislative Council, as reported in a front-page story in today's Denver Post. 

Republican Senate and House members, who almost unanimously had opposed the tax hike from the outset, issued a told-ya-so to the administration. 

"It's modern-day bank robbery," Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican who requested the new estimate, told the Post. "The fraudulent part of this is it's done without a vote of the people."

Added Republican Sen. Mike Kopp, "We believe it was a reckless overreach last year, and the new numbers bear that out more than ever." Kopp, of Littleton, is carrying a measure with Gardner to let voters reconsider the Ritter tax hike.

The GOP put the finishing touches on its 2008 legislative agenda Tuesday, presenting the press and public with a wide-ranging plan of action on issues like health care and education--amid an absence of competing proposals.

“Right now, our legislative agenda seems to be the only plan out there, and that comes as something of a surprise,” said Senate GOP chief Andy McElhany, of Colorado Springs.

“We have maintained all along that we are the only ones offering practical, realistic solutions to voters’ biggest concerns, and we are the only ones who aren’t demanding higher taxes and fees," McElhany said. "What we probably did not anticipate was the fact that, here we are a day before the 2008 session, and we’re the only ones offering any kind of solutions at all.”

Senate GOP Caucus Chairman Mike Kopp, of Littleton, added, "While Democrats have put their efforts into study groups, we’ve invested sweat equity in this plan of action."