"A few days ago, our governor gave the green light to a proposal to house international terrorists at a federal prison in Colorado," Kester says in a YouTube video released today by Senate Republicans. "...He would not say, 'not in my back yard.' "

Democrats, voting along party lines, quashed a Republican bill Wednesday that would have further curbed the misuse of public funds and resources on political campaigns.

The GOP's Sen. Dave Schultheis, of Colorado Springs, sponsored Senate Bill 83, which also would have made it easier to file complaints when public resources were being used for political campaigning.  The bill, which died in the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, was aimed at the practice by some local governments of using public employees, government letterhead and other resources to assist in passing ballot issues those entities support--or killing ones they oppose.

“Public resources that are paid for and maintained by all the taxpayers of Colorado shouldn’t be used for political advocacy,” Schultheis said.

A Democrat-controlled committee pushed through a watered-down Republican proposal today to create greater fiscal accountability in Colorado's public schools. The version of the bill adopted by the committee left its sponsor, Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, fuming over what he called "a charade."

Following a lively debate yesterday in the Senate Committee on Education, which lasted over two hours and included the testimony of over 20 people, the panel reconvened this afternoon to hear several new amendments offered by members.

Senate Bill 57 in its full-strength form would have required school districts to post their revenue and expenditures online.  Harvey said the measure mimics steps being taken by President Obama and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who have both pledged to make federal and state finances easily accessible via the internet.

However, committte Chairman Bob Bacon, D-Fort Collins, offered an amendment changing SB 57 from a bill which would have mandated the transparency, to a resolution which just "strongly encourage(s)" school districts to post finances online.

Harvey asserted the amendment gutted his bill and said he could not call for a "yes" vote on the amended bill.

"If this amendment passes, I willl ask for a 'no' vote, because this amendment essentially guts the bill," Harvey said during the hearing.

Republican efforts to extend to the workplace the same rights Colorado citizens already have to protect their homes from violent intruders were stymied by ruling Democrats today.

Senate Bill 8, sponsored by the GOP’s Sen. Ted Harvey, of Highlands Ranch, and Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, of Yuma, would have provided immunity to an owner, manager or employee who needs to use deadly force to protect himself in a workplace.  Sponsors said that the bill was intended to spare the likes of mom-and-pop shopkeepers from malicious prosecution if they defend themselves at work.

The current law protecting homeowners' use of deadly force is referred to as the "Make my day" law--after the old Clint Eastwood movie line--prompting advocates of the law's expansion to dub their proposal, "Make my day better."

“They barely asked any questions of the witnesses today before unanimously voting against the bill,” Harvey said after the party-line vote in committee. “I wish they would have at least given an explanation about why they voted the way they did.”

Gardner feared the potential chilling effect of today’s vote.

Ruling Democrats refused today to delay sweeping new regulations on energy exploration that Republicans say will smother the only economic sector currently creating jobs in Colorado.

Senate Bill 4, sponsored by Assistant Senate GOP leader Greg Brophy and Republican Rep. Laura Bradford, of Colbran, would have postponed the new rules until next year to give lawmakers more time to assess their potential impact--and to give the state's reeling economy a breather from the nation's deepening recession. The sponsors say energy exploration already is feeling the impact.

"Colorado is down 50 percent and it's rapidly getting worse," Brophy told members of the Senate Local Government and Energy Committee shortly before it voted along party lines to kill his and Bradford's proposal.

Brophy, of Wray, has been among the legislature's most vocal Republican critics of the new regulations, which members of his party say are being ramrodded through by the administration of Gov. Bill Ritter.

The Republicans say the new rules, which govern wide-ranging environmental and other factors involved in  energy exploration, include some sound provisions but also some flawed ones that overreach. They say the regulations, taken together with the nation's floundering economy, are putting the chill on development of Colorado's vast natural-gas reserves. 

A Republican effort that would have reinforced Coloradans' ability to defend their families against home intruders hit a dead end today in a Senate committee.

Assistant Senate GOP leader Greg Brophy, R-Wray, presented Senate Bill 74 before the Senate Committee on State, Veterans, and Military Affairs, calling it a matter of "statewide concern."

SB 74 would prohibit local governments from passing any law or regulation that requires a person to store their lawfully-owned firearms in a way that renders them inoperable. The Democrat-controlled committee voted to postpone the bill indefinitely, effectively killing it.

Brophy said the bill addresses and recognizes the landmark United States Supreme Court decision made last summer in the District of Columbia v. Heller case.  The Heller decision held that gun ownership is an individual right and that any government in the U.S. cannot put individuals in the position where they would be inadequately prepared to defend themselves against home invasion.

"We need to pass the ban on safe-storage laws in Colorado," Brophy said in the committee. "I think the Heller case raised this issue to the national spotlight and brought it forward so that everybody is aware of it."

Senators agreed today to create a think tank that would serve as a laboratory for a new wave of cutting-edge innovations in Colorado's public schools.

The bipartisan effort sets up the Education Innovation Institute at the University of Northern Colorado, which is one of the state's principal teacher-training institutions. Senate Bill 32 is sponsored by leading education-reform advocates in both parties, including Democrat Senate President Peter Groff of Denver and Republican Senate Whip Nancy Spence, of Centennial, as well as Democrat House Speaker Terrance Carroll of Denver.

The proposal, which still needs a final, formal vote in the Senate before moving to the House of Representatives, hands the new institute a sweeping mandate; it includes empower the novel entity to, "...discover and study innovations in teaching and learning" as well as to "create, pilot, and advocate for innovations in educational delivery methods."

"It is going to provide an opportunity to think about the billions of dollars taxpayers put into education in our state," Spence said. "We don't know if we're educating kids in the most effective way."

Furious at news that Gov. Bill Ritter supports bringing Guantanamo Bay's suspected foreign terrorists to a federal lockup in Colorado, Republican lawmakers pushed back at the governor, petitioning him to change his tune.

Led by the GOP's Sen. Ken Kester, of Las Animas, and Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, the legislators gathered signatures on a petition circulated among colleagues in the General Assembly --both Democrats and Republicans--to protest Ritter's willingness to offer Colorado's Supermax prison as a place to house some of the world's most hardened terrorists. 

Kester, whose vast, southeastern Colorado district contains more prisons than any other legislative district in the nation, said he's not only concerned about the dangers to Colorado's public safety the Gitmo detainees would present, but also the economic strains they would put on the beleaguered Department of Corrections.

"I don't really think it would be appropriate to mix these terrorists with the current prison population. They're going to be in our prisons recruiting inmates to kill American servicemen and civilians," Kester said. "Besides, there simply isn't enough room.  We don't have the beds or staffing to accommodate that many new prisoners."

In a letter circulated to the full General Assembly today , Senate GOP leader Josh Penry urges members not to place too much faith in federal dollars to bail out the state's busted budget. Pointing to a couple of recent analyses that received little notice at the State Capitol, Penry says only a fraction of the promised windfall actually will become available to Colorado--and it will have at best a modest effect in stimulating the economy.

The letter by the Grand Junction Republican references an analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office in Washingtion, which says less than one half of the $355 billion that Congressional Democrats and President Obama plan to spend on road and infrastructure projects can be spent before the end of fiscal year 2010. The bulk of the money wouldn’t be obligated until after the recession is projected to have ended, according to that report.

According to the other report, by the Colorado General Assembly's own Legislative Council office, the one-time-only federal dollars in the federal stimulus package would create about half the number of jobs that Gov. Bill Ritter promised in his State of the State speech. Moreover, the new federal spending only would generate nominal increases in state sales and income tax revenue.

A leading legislative critic of the Ritter administration's sweeping restraints on energy exploration says Coloradans shouldn't have to choose between jobs and the environment.

In this week's Capitol Update, posted by Senate Republicans on YouTube, Assistant Senate Republican leader Greg Brophy, of Wray, says that, " Colorado’s energy economy is taking a major hit from the administration" and that "the new regulations will hit our energy sector hard – and at the worst possible time – killing jobs, and making energy companies think twice about future investments in our state."

Brophy also offers a ray of hope, noting that lawmakers will have a chance " to restore some balance" to what he called "Draconian rules" that are forcing high-paying jobs out of the state.

The Senate GOP's Nancy Spence got a thumbs-up in committee today on two bills improving access to health care-- for wounded members of the military as well as heart-attack victims.

The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services heard testimony on legislation offered by Spence--a veteran Centennial lawmaker who is the Senate Republican whip--and ultimately gave its full support to the measures.

The first of the two proposals before the committee, Senate Bill 5, makes changes to the Colorado Traumatic Brain Injury Program, or TBI. The bill expands the definition of TBI to include injuries to the brain caused by blasts, extending help to many service personnel returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Colorado Traumatic Brain Injury Program was created to improve the lives of Coloradans who have survived traumatic brain injury," Spence said. "We just need to clean it up a bit to improve and expand its accessibilty to victims--inlcluding members of the military--and this bill does just that."

Some Senate Republicans were left shaking their heads this week over continued calls for rolling back the state's constitutional taxing and spending limits--only months after Colorado voters resoundingly defeated a ballot proposal that would have done just that.

As reported in Monday's Denver Post, newly elected Boulder Democrat Sen. Rollie Heath, among some others, is pushing to revisit key provisions of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR, enacted into the state constitution by voters in 1992. Although voters agreed in 2005 to a five-year timeout from TABOR's limits on growth in government spending, last fall they flat out rejected an attempt--championed by former Democrat House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, of Denver--to permanently remove TABOR's caps on year-to-year spending growth.

"At this point you have to ask, what part of 'no' don't some people understand?" said the GOP's Sen. Keith King, of Colorado Springs.

A new study funded partly by the Ritter administration--claiming that renewable energy created more than 91,000 jobs and generated $10.2 billion for the state's economy in 2007--encountered a big dose of skepticism along with a few chuckles from some Senate Republicans today.

The GOP lawmakers say the study stretches anyone's definition of "green jobs" by including, as the Rocky Mountain News noted, the likes of "...a furnace repairman or an auto-dealer who sells fuel-efficient vehicles..."

Even the Senate GOP's self-described "eco-freak," Assistant Republican leader Greg Brophy--a corn and melon farmer from Wray who drives a hybrid car and logs 6,000 miles a year as a competitve bicyclist--waved off the state-funded study as an apparent attempt by the administration to oversell its own efforts at promoting renewable energy.

"It doesn't pass the laugh test," Brophy said. "Still, I guess the Ritter administration got what it paid for."

In the wake of recent wildfires that scorched over 3,000 acres and endangered the residents of Boulder and Longmont, two GOP lawmakers are taking steps to better protect those and all Front Range and mountain communities from the threat of forest fires.

Flanked by firefighters and firetrucks from the Indian Hills Fire Protection District and the Evergreen Fire Department, Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, and Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, unveiled a slate of bills today in an effort to anticipate future fires and bolster the efforts of community firefighters.

"The wildfires last week were a shocking reminder of how quickly wildfires can strike and how good firefighting and mitigation makes all the difference," Kopp said.

Kopp and Gerou said their plans have bipartisan support.  Several of the bills are cosponsored by Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, and Sen. Dan Gibbs, D-Silverthorne.

"We need to step up the help for these communities down here under the Gold Dome," Kopp said. "They are ready and willing to protect their communities, and all they need is the support of their state and federal government. We're here today to offer that help."

Following their release last week of an "alternative State of the State address" via YouTube, legislative Republicans today launched the first installment of a new weekly series on the popular video-sharing site to advance GOP views on a range of legislative issues. The Capitol Update videos will offer quick takes that will be posted on YouTube and touted on ColoradoSenateNews.com.

This week's debut features GOP Senate Whip Nancy Spence, of Centennial, urging the General Assembly not to cut the state's property tax homestead exemption for senior citizens. Spence tells viewers that the exemption, which can offer substantial property-tax savings to seniors who have lived in their current homes at least 10 years, "is one way Colorado recognizes the contributions of its many senior citizens over the years."

Republican Sen. Shawn Mitchell said Wednesday he welcomes the Ritter administration's renewed focus on solar-energy development, but he cautioned policy makers against relying on new mandates--rather than removing regulatory barriers--to boost renewable-energy development.

Mitchell made headlines last year with a bill he carried into law capping the fees local governments are allowed to charge homeowners and business owners before they can install solar systems.

Prompted by Gov. Bill Ritter's plan--announced in his State of the State speech last week--to force homebuilders to either install solar panels on homes or pre-wire them for the panels, Mitchell said there are better ways to bolster renewable energy development. For starters, Mitchell said, policy makers should strive to incentivize private businesses through tax and fee rebates or rollbacks.

"Whether it is sun, wind, nuclear or any other source of renewable energy--not to mention a clean, efficient power source such as natural gas--we need to look at removing government barriers rather than imposing mandates to encourage  responsible energy development," Mitchell said.

Immediately following Gov. Bill Ritter's annual State of State speech this morning, Republicans released a YouTube video offering a Republican vision on key issues raised by the governor.

Senate and House GOP leadership said their decision to present the alternative view via the popular video-sharing Web site was inevitable given the public's growing appetite for following public affairs over the Internet. 

The Republicans said they hope their realistic approach to creating jobs and fixing the state's roads and bridges will resonate with a far broader audience on the Web than it would through a traditional press release.

Senate Republican Caucus Chair Mike Kopp, of Littleton, appeared with his counterpart from the other chamber, House GOP Caucus Chair Amy Stephens, of Monument, to talk frankly about how the Republicans view the state of the state.  

"We are making use of relatively inexpensive technology to reach out to Coloradans in way that is still in its infancy here at the the General Assembly," Kopp said afterward. "We want to let people know that we understand the problems that many of them are facing and that we have a plan to help. YouTube seemed like the best way to get that message to as many people as possible."

The Senate's new Republican leader called on his colleagues today to move fast in adopting a plan touted by Republicans to leverage state government assets so they can shore up the state's ailing transportation network.

Senate GOP chief Josh Penry, of Grand Junction, in remarks to senators on the 67th General Assembly's opening day, also called on peers in both parties to undertake a thorough review of "onerous and overreaching" new regulations on energy exploration that he said will kill jobs and undercut production.

In his first address to the Senate as Republican caucus chief, Penry urged lawmakers to put partisan differences aside and focus their efforts on fixing the state's roads and bridges.  Penry said transportation funding should be the legislature's "first order of business." 

A day earlier, Penry had joined House GOP leader Mike May, of Parker, in announcing a proposal to fund Colorado's critical transportation infrastructure needs without new taxes or onerous fees.  The plan would make use of existing equity in government assests, such as buildings, to borrow the much-needed cash to repair and maintain Colorado's roads and bridges.  Penry and May pointed to many other state and local governments who used the same to fund large capital construction projects.

"Under the arcane rules of our budget, our roads and bridges receive the last dollar of General Fund when times are good, and they are the first funding victim when times turn bad," Penry said. "Let’s not use a bad economy as an excuse for continuing to treat our roads and bridges as a second-class budget priority."

In an effort to jump-start long-idled transportation funding amid plummeting state revenue, Republican legislative leaders today proposed leveraging the state's considerable assets to fund backlogged upgrades to Colorado's highways. The plan's advocates say it could be used immediately to address the most pressing repairs to roads and bridges--amounting to an estimated $500 million--but also could be used to raise even more revenue to expand the state's bottlenecked transportation grid.

Senate GOP leader Josh Penry, of Grand Junction, and House Republican chief Mike May, of Parker, called the plan the only viable and "realistic" approach to funding urgent transportation needs, given a recession in which voters rejected assorted tax proposals last November and are unlikely to support a tax hike for transportation now.

"Conventional funding sources for transportation have dried up as state revenue has taken a nosedive," Penry said in remarks before a media briefing on the proposal. "Yet we cannot afford to wait. We have to try a different approach--one that's innovative, realistic and gets the job started immediately."