A Democrat resolution against reinforcements for the U.S. military in Iraq passed the state Senate today on a party-line vote despite warnings that such a political statement will undermine U.S. troop morale. The vote came after Democrat Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald stopped debate on a Republican amendment softening the resolution, ruling the GOP proposal did not fit under the resolution’s title.

A short time later, however, Fitz-Gerald allowed part of an amendment by Democrat freshman Sen. John Morse, of Colorado Springs, pumping up the resolution’s rhetoric against the Bush administration. That amendment also was adopted by Democrats.

Listen to Sen. Mike Kopp's comments:Clip 1;Clip 2; Full Comments

The resolution, Senate Joint Memorial 2, by Democrat Senators Ron Tupa, of Boulder, and Ken Gordon, of Denver, opposes President Bush’s troop surge to bolster the U.S.Iraq mission. The measure was hotly debated in committee earlier this month and drew impassioned testimony from U.S. service members and their families who pleaded with the Democrats not to proceed.

Today’s debate was more subdued but left Senate Republicans, led by freshman Sen. and Gulf War veteran Mike Kopp, of Littleton, disappointed after they were denied a chance to offer the GOP amendment. It referenced “cowardly random acts of violence” by Iraqi terrorists and called on “the president and Congress to set aside partisan rhetoric.” The omitted amendment also expressed support for efforts, “to establish a sustained government of Iraq that does not give comfort and aid to … Islamic terrorists.”

“We can choose the politics of abandonment or loyalty to our troops,” Kopp told fellow senators. “Can we as elected leaders rise to our troops’ level of courage as we sit in a warm building debating policy?”

He added, “We need guts right now to stand behind our soldiers. Let’s not … allow our troops’ spirit to be broken.”

Tupa and Gordon argued their resolution does not betray U.S. troops but only

challenges U.S. policy. Said Tupa, “We don’t support the president’s go-it-alone strategy in Iraq.”

Yet, Kopp and fellow Republicans said today, as they did in committee, that foreign policy is not and should not be at issue in the state General Assembly. That, they said, is for Congress to debate. State lawmakers’ concern should be for troops’ morale, they said.

“I have a brother there,” said the GOP’s Sen. Ted Harvey, of Highlands Ranch. “He’s in the Green Zone. He’s under fire.”

Kopp reflected on his own service in the Army during the Gulf War.

“As a soldier, … I can tell you that what we say here does matter to them,” he said. Kopp said a resolution denouncing efforts to boost forces now deployed in Iraq will come across as a slap in the face to the troops there.

While Democrat Sen. Brandon Shaffer, of Longmont, a Navy veteran, said he supported the resolution because Iraq is now “a mess,” Republicans said the situation is improving dramatically precisely because of the Bush admininstration surge.

GOP members also bristled at the resolution’s insinuation that American forces are killing innocent Iraqi civilians. Gordon incensed Republicans last month by claiming, “It’s very difficult to bring democracy to a country while you are killing, even inadvertently, many of the civilians that live there.”

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, noted that there’s no acknowledgment in the resolution of who really is at root of the violence in Iraq.

“Most of the loss of life…is caused by terrorists,” Brophy said.