The Senate passed a Democrat measure today that would make it even harder for county clerks to purge inactive voters from the voter rolls--leaving some of the state's clerks shaking their heads. Critics say the bill is part of an ongoing push by the ruling party to rewrite Colorado’s election laws over the objections of some of the officials charged with overseeing elections.

House Bill 1329, sponsored by Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver, would require county clerks to send mail ballots to voters in 2009 even if they failed to vote in the 2008 election, if a mail-ballot election is held. 

Currently, voters who fail to vote in the previous election will not automatically be sent a ballot.  Critics contend that fraud could be committed if a ballot is mailed out to someone who didn’t ask for one and didn’t vote in the last election. 

With wildfire season rapidly approaching, a Senate committee has OK'd a Republican proposal to launch a year-long legislative review of the most effective ways to confront the fires that regularly ravage Colorado's forests and mountain communities.

Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, and Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Genesee, are championing the plan to create an interim committee investigating wildfire issues in areas where urban and wild lands collide.  They say they want the legislature to take a more active role in anticipating future wildfires and bolstering the work of community firefighting programs.

Part of their bill package to promote healthy forests, Senate Joint Resolution 25 gained the support of the Senate Committee on Local Government today with a 6-1 vote.  The healthy-forests package is one component of the GOP's legislative agenda for 2008. 

"We need more hands on deck," Kopp said.  "We need more legislators to own this as their issue to ensure it is taken more seriously in this body.  It's a critical policy area." 

They came up with the idea to create the interim committee because they say the issue hits too close to home to be ignored.  Kopp--who is a former "hot shot" forest firefighter and is also the son of a firefighter--wants to take what he says is a lifetime of education on the subject of forest fires and put it to use for his foothills constituents. They are often in harm's way due to wildfires.