The Colorado General Assembly is three-quarters of the way through. The past couple of weeks have been budget time. The budget started in the Senate this year. The budget process alternates from House to Senate. Even years in the House and odd years in the Senate. The Senate is controlled by the Republicans and, as the majority, they determine what passes for the House to consider. All opposition to the Senate budget came from the Democratic minority.
Now this is where it gets interesting. Even though the budget is crafted by the Joint Budget Committee made up of six members — three from each body: two Republican one Democratic senator, and two Democratic and one Republican House members — it seemed very unusual that House opposition came from Republicans. A strange alliance of Senate Republicans and House Democrats passed this budget.
Each senator had the opportunity to propose amendments to the JBC Budget. Of the 51 offered, only three passed. Those amendments were stripped out when the budget got to the House. Thirty-nine amendments were offered in the House. Only one more than had passed in the Senate was also passed in the House. Now the budget will go back to a conference committee made up by the JBC to see which amendments survived the process, after which the bill will come back to the full Legislature for final passage.
I did not support the budget. This was the second time in five years that I did not vote for the budget. This budget is an almost 7 percent increase over the 2014-2015 budget. With the increases in spending, we still failed to address the needs of education and transportation. Also I felt it disturbing that we would raid $20 million from severance tax funds to start new programs. This takes funds away from more than 200 communities and county governments that depend on those funds for local needs. It seemed like looking through the couch cushions. Granted, severance tax has been raided before to the tune of $208 million, but that was done during a declining economy. It has never before happened in a growing economy.
The water battles have continued since our last communication. Senate Bill 183 has passed the Senate and is now in the House.
This bill, in my mind, is intervening in a case that will be heard in the Colorado Supreme Court later this summer.
This suit was brought because Aurora had bought water rights and did not go through the change-of-se process that is required in Colorado water law. This bill would circumvent the court and create a major change in water policy and reward those who do not follow the process. It would also affect other pending cases and would be devastating to Western Colorado.
This bill has no support from Western Colorado water interests and not one single Western Slope legislator has supported the bill. Rep. Ed Vigil from the San Luis Valley and Diane Mitch Bush from Steamboat, both Democrats, and I have been working with the governor’s staff to try to at least strip the case pending in the Supreme Court from the measure. That would make it more palatable, but still would not be enough for me to support the bill.
This bill is truly an example of Front Range bullying of the Western Slope and getting the cart before the horse in regards to pending court rulings and the Colorado water plan.
Don Coram represents House District 58 in Colorado’s General Assembly. Contact Rep. Coram by phone at (303) 866-2955 or by e-mail at don.coram.house@state.co.us.