My September finished with another round of interim committee hearings, including on data collection of police-initiated contacts, considering possible ways to improve statewide racial profiling data, and the final series of the water committee’s public meetings in Walden, Greeley and Aurora on the proposed state water plan.
As chairwoman of the Colorado health insurance exchange oversight committee and as a member of the wildfire matters committee, I’ve also attended numerous hearings on these issues as well this interim. All of these interim committees will pick up again at the end of October to consider what, if any, new legislation will be proposed in the next session as committee-sponsored bills.
With the interim committee workload on a temporary pause, in early October, I joined a two-member, bipartisan legislator team to India, for a program with Indian legislators and academics, organized by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and the U.S. State Department in India. Our focus in working with the largest democracy in the world was to share best practices and field questions on how U.S. state legislatures deal with the many challenges encountered in our positions.
I particularly enjoyed the amount of time we spent with young Indians, some studying at the universities in political science, foreign relations and law and others already elected in the provinces in state government. I shared what we’ve been doing in Colorado with our legislative youth advisory council, known as COYAC, which nicely provided a springboard of U.S. youth-identified policy issues to discuss with their counterparts, halfway around the globe.
We also met with young U.S. foreign service personnel and I was reminded of the valuable work they are doing on behalf of our country, serving in faraway places and, sometimes, in as dangerous locations as those serving in our military.
State-level legislators that we met with were interested in discussing logistics of getting into office and responding to constituent concerns and requests. Our agenda also included meeting with faculty in several universities and those working in non-governmental organizations, also referred to as the Indian “civil society,” to discuss states’ efforts in civic engagement, electoral reforms and transparency in governance.
India has the second largest population in the world with 1.2 billion people. Geographically expansive with a very diverse citizenry, it has a parliamentarian form of democracy and face many governance challenges shared in the U.S. There was keen interest in the U.S. national political scene, the upcoming 2016 presidential election and how that will impact the work at the state legislative level.
I’ve worked with legislators in Algeria, South Africa, Mozambique, and now India. In this global economy enhanced by technological advancements, each U.S. state, including Colorado, finds competition and business opportunities around the world. Our academic institutions share students and faculty as well as the knowledge and skills that those institutions foster. We crammed much into the week of meetings and it was a great experience.
I always bring home new thoughts and energy to what I work on at the Colorado Legislature, especially in the areas of natural resources, the challenges of water scarcity and delivery and access to adequate rural healthcare. That Colorado chooses to have a part-time Legislature enables me to volunteer my time in these efforts and I learn at least as much as I share.
Ellen Roberts represents Senate District 6 in Colorado’s General Assembly. The district encompasses Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata, Archuleta, Montrose, San Miguel, San Juan and Ouray counties. Contact Sen. Roberts by phone at (303) 866-4884, or by e-mail at ellen.roberts.senate@state.co.us