The good, the bad and the ugly

There was good and bad. We saw highs and lows, A's and F's.

When all is added together, it probably is a typical session for the Colorado Legislature. Lawmakers tackled a few important issues and made significant gain. They failed in some big ways on other issues.

We'll give the 2008 Colorado Legislature an overall grade of B- for the action -- and lack thereof -- in its 120 days of work.

Here is a summary of our thumbs ups and thumbs downs for the recently concluded 66th General Assembly of the State of Colorado:

»Democrats declared in a session-ending press conference that "this was a really good year to be a kid in Colorado," and for the most part, we agree. One bill, for example, will provide medical insurance for 50,000 of the state's 150,000 uninsured children during the next three years. Several thousand of those children are in Weld County, so we celebrate this movement forward. Also of interest to Weld was a bill that provides more money for preschool and full-day kindergarten education. About 25,000 more children in Colorado will benefit from this early education, and again, many of them will be in Greeley and Weld schools.

»Speaking of education, relief was provided in two other important ways: Several bipartisan bills provided funding for K-12 and higher education building projects; other bills changed the state's K-12 content standards to realign them with colleges and universities in the state. The outcome will be to better prepare students for college and to improve crumbling school buildings across the state, particularly in rural areas.

»We supported the bill to allow liquor sales on Sundays in Colorado. The bill will go into effect July 1, and we believe it was time for this archaic law to hit the road.

»County clerks across the state, including Steve Moreno in Weld County, stepped up to oppose a plan that this November's general election be conducted with paper ballots. Thankfully, the paper-ballot method was shot down early in the session. Test elections conducted last week across the state didn't do a lot to improve our confidence in this fall's election, but we are convinced paper ballots would have been a huge step backward.

»Two bills regulating uranium mining -- another issue with a huge impact in Weld -- also passed. One requires water quality to be returned to pre-mining quality after uranium is extracted, and the other allows for more public access and transparency of a mining company's plans. Both are positive developments and provide a measure of safety for the proposed uranium mining operations in Weld.

»The lack of progress on transportation funding was a major failing of Democratic leadership this session. Virtually all recommendations of a blue-ribbon task force created by Gov. Bill Ritter -- and co-chaired by influential businessman Bob Tointon of Greeley -- were shot down by the legislature. Several proposals to provide funding for Interstate 70 west of Denver also failed. "It was, quite frankly, one of the big disappointments of the session," Ritter said, and we would wholeheartedly agree. This issue clearly must be the No. 1 priority of the 2009 legislative session, and it is discouraging that nothing of substance happened in '08. When will this problem finally be addressed by political leaders in our state?

»Rep. Douglas Bruce. Need we say more?

»Several attempts were made to change the budget gridlock caused by the state's constitution. A bill introduced by House Speaker Andrew Romanoff to lift TABOR restrictions and repeal Amendment 23 was blocked by Republicans, and we think that was a mistake. Romanoff now will lead a petition drive to get the measures on the November ballot, but we are disappointed in the lack of leadership on both sides of the aisle to address this massive issue.

»There was some improvement in health care for children. But in general, there was a lack of movement in health care reform for the thousands of uninsured. The governor and legislators entered the '08 session with big plans to improve health care and reduce costs, and by and large, this issue remains unsolved.