By Kevin Lundberg | Guest Columnist, Rocky Mountain Voice
The Colorado legislature is more than halfway through this year’s session.
Like the past six years of the Polis administration, this session has seen radical bills roar through the legislature with many passing on party-line votes.
If the governor is consistent with what he has done in the past he will sign virtually all of these extreme bills and continue to fundamentally transform Colorado.
This is a brief overview of bad, dumb and dangerous bills that are currently moving through the Colorado legislature. For a more complete listing of the worst bills I have identified, check out the weekly Lundberg Report I publish on my website, KevinLundberg.com.
My criteria for bad bills are those that grow government programs and regulations, raise taxes (including fees), restrict personal freedoms, limit parental rights, promote abortion, prolong the global warming hysteria and endanger children.
I have already identified over 50 bad bills for this year.
There have also been a number of good bills introduced, however, their fate is very different. Of the 40+ good bills I identified, 76% have already been killed, and 78% of those bills dispatched were done so with a party-line vote.
From the bad bill list only 8% have been defeated.
For example:
At least eight bills putting more limits on our Second Amendment right to bear arms are moving through the legislative system, including the onerous SB25-003 that chokes off manufacturing, selling or owning most semi-automatic guns, puts in place strict training requirements for gun owners and sets up a system that will start registering guns and gun owners in Colorado.
SB25-045 lays the ground for a complete state government takeover of all medical payments in the state, which will essentially socialize medical care, triple the state government’s budget and choke off other choices in medical care.
SB25-081 creates a huge bonding authority in the state treasurer’s office. This rather extensive bill (29 pages) looks to me like a big end run around TABOR. It creates a bonding authority for tax free bonds (hence the federal government ends up subsidizing the interest rates for the bonds).
The authority skirts the TABOR requirement for a public vote before entering into long term debt by carefully crafting a system that seems to not obligate the state for the bond repayments yet uses the authority of the state treasurer’s office to run the operation. I am flagging this bill as a blatant violation of the Tax Payers’ Bill of Rights.
SB25-063 will make it much more difficult for parents to get rid of pornographic books in public school libraries.
SB25-129, SB25-130 and SB25-183 continue to fortify and protect the abortion industry in Colorado, which has been a priority issue for the majority party for many years.
There are still several weeks to go before this general session wraps up, but if the first half is any indication of the second half, this will be another dark chapter of how Polis and his legislative minions have made life in Colorado much more difficult.
“The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” -Dennis Prager
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