April 06, 2016 02:12 PM UTC

Senate GOP Spox Thwarted By Senate GOP (Again)

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• by: Colorado Pols

Over the past week or so the Colorado Senate GOP Majority Office has loudly promoted Senate Bill 16-148, legislation that would have required high school students to pass an exam on civics patterned on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Naturalization Test. This bill had bipartisan co-sponsors in the House and Senate, but was primarily the brainchild of principal Senate sponsor GOP Sen. Owen Hill.

On Twitter, Senate Americans For Prosperity GOP spokesman Sean Paige leaned hard on this bill to attack legislative Democrats–despite the bill’s Democratic cosponsors in both chambers:

“Sexual diversity” is preached 2 preschoolers https://t.co/8oZgv70Rt0 but testing on civics is a no-no? https://t.co/28xlnMIKWx #copolitics

— Colorado Senate GOP (@ColoSenGOP) March 31, 2016

Imagine that the proposed test was on “climate change awareness,” rather than civics. Would Dems B raising the same objections? #copolitics

— Colorado Senate GOP (@ColoSenGOP) April 5, 2016

It’s not an insinuation, it’s a fact, as anyone following the civics test debate can see #copolitics #coleg https://t.co/B6X9SzXyqy

— Colorado Senate GOP (@ColoSenGOP) April 5, 2016

As you can see, the Senate GOP’s press office was dead-set on making the debate over Senate Bill 148 a partisan issue, regardless of how many Democrats signed on as cosponsors. But today on the Senate floor, something else entirely happened:

We require Civic’s class to graduate. If we need to tweek standards, fine. I can’t support another mandated test https://t.co/clbpHVIfi3

— Jerry Sonnenberg (@JerrySonnenberg) April 6, 2016

That’s right! Senate Bill 148 died today after two Republican Senators, Jerry Sonnenberg and Ray Scott, cited existing burdens on school districts–especially rural districts they represent in the General Assembly–as a reason to reject another “mandate.”

To be clear, our purpose today is not to debate the merits of this defeated bill. We’ve heard good arguments for and against it, and as we noted the bill had bipartisan support and sponsorship. But folks, what the hell is Senate President Bill Cadman’s spokesman doing attacking Democrats on a bill for which he obviously should have done a whip count of his own caucus before popping off?

In any other situation, we’d call this very bad spokesmanship. But the truth, as has been the inside scoop at the Capitol all year, is that Americans For Prosperity’s former spox Sean Paige doesn’t have this job to represent the Senate GOP majority.

All he did here was prove that again.