April 17, 2024 02:51 PM UTC
0 Feedback- by: Colorado Pols
Republicans within the state legislature are usually not severe folks.
They’ve demonstrated this time and time once more over the last two legislative cycles (and effectively earlier than then). Republicans spend effectively greater than their fair proportion of time yammering about one factor or one other with a purpose to grind legislative happenings to a halt. When that technique fails and they’re pressured to solid precise votes on essential laws, they make a dramatic displaying of claiming “NO” to issues that ought to be fairly non-controversial.
Within the final 24 hours, Republicans have voted “NO” on laws to assist army veterans and “NO” on a proposal to ask voters to permit victims of kid intercourse abuse to sue their abusers.
We’ll begin on the finish. As Seth Klamann and Nick Coltrain report for The Denver Put up:
The Colorado Senate on Wednesday morning didn’t cross a proposed little one sexual abuse constitutional modification. If in the end accredited by voters, the measure would have allowed the legislature to take away the statute of limitations on instances of kid sexual abuse from years in the past, permitting these victims to sue. The 23-12 vote fell alongside occasion traces and was one vote wanting the two-thirds threshold wanted to refer a constitutional modification to the poll.
The measure won’t transfer on to the Home.
In an announcement after the vote, Senate Republican leaders stated they have been united in opposition to those that commit crimes in opposition to kids however couldn’t overcome their considerations with the modification as drafted. If it handed, they stated, the retroactive lifting of the statute of limitations for older crimes “would have upended quite a few constitutional and legally settled rights all of us rely upon, together with the rules of authorized certainty and reliance, the precept of finality of litigation, and due course of.” [Pols emphasis]
The brief model, as we defined on Tuesday, is that Senate Republicans sided with huge insurance coverage firms and The Colorado Catholic Convention as an alternative of victims of kid intercourse abuse. The decision — SCR24-001 — would have requested Colorado voters to approve a Constitutional modification that might enable lawmakers to take away the statute of limitations on lawsuits over sexual abuse that came about years earlier. Resolutions like this require a two-thirds majority within the State Senate, that means that Democrats wanted simply ONE REPUBLICAN to vote “YES” with a purpose to transfer this decision to the Home of Representatives, the place it might seemingly have handed simply.
However Republicans stated, “NOPE” to victims of intercourse assault and “YEP” to preserving “authorized certainty” and “the precept of finality of litigation.” The Republican Celebration that after claimed the mantle because the occasion of “regulation and order” is now simply the occasion of legalese.
This vote within the Senate got here a day after Republicans within the State Home voted “NO” on laws to proceed a grant program for veterans as a result of they have been salty about language added in an modification to prioritize veterans who’re “underserved.” As a result of Republicans maintain such a micro-minority within the Home, these “NO” votes couldn’t stop passage of HB-1273 within the Home…however Home Republicans have been in a position to ensure to appear like petty assholes.
Home Republicans in the end voted “NO” on your complete invoice (Persevering with a Veterans Help Grant Program) as a result of they took situation with a selected modification provided by Democratic Rep. Jennifer Parenti. This modification so incensed Republicans that they rushed to the effectively of the Home Ground to take away their names as co-sponsors:
And what was SO TERRIBLE that Republicans couldn’t vote for remaining passage of the laws? This single paragraph from Parenti’s modification:
CRITERIA AND PROCEDURES FOR ALLOCATING PROGRAM MONEY, WITH THE INTENT THAT AT LEAST FIFTY PERCENT OF MONEY APPROPRIATED FROM THE FUND EACH YEAR FOR THE PROGRAM IS USED TO PROVIDE SERVICES TO UNDERSERVED VETERANS.THE ADJUTANT GENERAL SHALL DEFINE “UNDERSERVED VETERANS” IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS’ GUIDELINES AND TO MEET EMERGING STATE AND LOCAL NEEDS AND PRIORITIES, WITH A FOCUS ON INCLUSIVE CRITERIA THAT ENCOMPASSES DIVERSE GROUPS, INCLUDING WOMEN VETERANS.
The objection from Home Republicans was primarily that veterans advantages shouldn’t be prioritized — type of a bastardized model of the “all lives matter” retort throughout the “Black Lives Matter” motion. Nevermind that it’s the place of the VFW (Veterans of International Wars), the IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America), and the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) that these type of advantages be prioritized for underserved veterans — specifically, ladies. Home Republicans know higher than these organizations!
When Colorado Republicans are as soon as once more getting hammered on the polls in November, maybe somebody will remind them that voters usually discover it unpleasant when lawmakers refuse to face up for intercourse abuse victims and veterans.
This ain’t rocket surgical procedure…even for Ken DeGraaf.