September 24, 2011 09:28 PM UTC

Stephens Blows GOP Cover on Civil Unions Legislation?

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• by: Colorado Pols

An interesting few Tweets this morning from reporter John Schroyer of the Colorado Springs paper–covering a speech made by Colorado House Majority Leader Amy Stephens today at the Colorado Republican Party Central Committee meeting:

“A 33rd vote stopped gay marriage,” Rep. Stephens said, mistakenly referring to the civil unions legislation which passed the Colorado Senate before dying in the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee in March as “gay marriage.” What Rep. Stephens means is the winning of a slim GOP majority in the Colorado House, which gave Republicans leadership of the chamber, is what “stopped” the civil unions bill from becoming law. That’s more or less what she has to mean, since the 2011 civil unions bill was never voted on by the full House.

And that’s a noteworthy statement coming from Majority Leader Stephens, after House Speaker Frank McNulty reportedly assured journalists and advocates for civil unions that Republicans in the House would be allowed to “vote their conscience” on the bill. Several GOP House members did express support, but due to the Judiciary Committee’s vote they never got the chance to approve it. With poll numbers showing a sweeping generational shift away from the GOP’s traditional social conservative position against civil unions, there was as much or more hope this year that civil unions might actually become law–even in a split legislature.

Unless, of course, Republican House leadership had no intention of letting a bill so upsetting to their increasingly antsy base become law on their watch–and paid lip service to fairly considering civil unions while arranging to kill it. Which is pretty much exactly what Stephens implied today.

Anyway, we thought this little inconsistency was worth a mention, just in case the Tim Gills of the world had any residual doubts about our one seat razor-thin GOP House majority.