January 25, 2012 12:37 AM UTC

Brophy, Renfroe Antics Supply Primary Disclosure Bill Laugh Track

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• by: Colorado Pols

Senate Bill 12-014 clears up a small problem we’ve been talking about for, well, too long:

In conformity with the 2011 change of the primary election date from August to the last Tuesday in June, the schedule under the “Fair Campaign Practices Act” for making campaign finance disclosures in connection with the primary election is changed to the second Monday in May and on specified Mondays thereafter until the primary election.

SB12-014 fixes the glitch in primary campaign finance reporting created by a failure to change this date when the date for the primary election was moved up from August to June last year. This is the same legislative error that Secretary of State Scott Gessler tried to unsuccessfully exploit to eliminate the biweekly disclosures required immediately before the primary. When his attempt failed, Gessler published a new rule last month that would have forced these reports to begin this month–months ahead of the intention of the law, and purely as a spiteful gesture.

So it’s completely fine, and in fact necessary due to Gessler’s spiteful behavior, that the legislature move quickly to fix the dates involved, and allow these reports to serve their intended purpose of timely disclosure–without imposing an onerous and unintended burden.

Despite this, a few Republicans were determined to make a scene: maybe to run cover for Gessler, but we don’t really get that as everyone in the building understood the issue. Nonetheless, Sen. Scott Renfroe angrily Tweeted after the bill passed today:

Sad day in the Colorado Senate…First bill Democrats bring up to pass is bill to fix politicians red tape…not to help citizens or business in Colorado. Senator Brophy made great motion to lay over bill to do people’s business first…it failed.

We have to assume Sen. Renfroe simply didn’t look at the bill to see that it’s co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Ellen Roberts, making the rhetoric about this “Democrat bill” appear kind of ridiculous. But it gets even better when we turn to that motion from Sen. Greg Brophy.

Can’t see the audio player? Click here.

Thank you Madame Chair. Members, this really is an important bill to pass this legislative session because we actually have statutes that are in conflict with each other, one where we’re supposed to report something at one time and another where we’re supposed to start reporting in a different manner, at a time that’s in conflict with that. And the assistant secretary of state, Mr. Hobbs, came in and explained this to us very clearly in legislative legal services, and they had tried to draft a rule that allowed us to live within the bounds of all of the statutes, not just one particular section, subsection B as I recall in that particular part of the statutes.

But my real problem with this bill is it’s going to be the first bill that passes through the Colorado State Senate this year. And members, I think that sends the wrong message to the people of Colorado, to the hardworking men and women who are trying to run their businesses and do their jobs out in the state of Colorado: that with all the bureaucratic red tape that we can cut, the only bureaucratic red tape that we’ll actually get to work on immediately in the Colorado state senate is red rape cutting that will benefit politicians. Because those are the only people in Colorado who are gonna benefit from the immediate and rushed passage of this bill. The red tape that we’re gonna cut benefits only politicians.

So therefore Madame Chairman, I pulled out my Senate calendar, it’s on everybody’s desk, it was delivered to everybody’s desk, and I will therefore make a motion that we lay this bill over until February 28th, for second reading which will be the second to last day before bills are calendared to pass out of the Senate, so we can send a message to the people of Colorado that yeah, we care about cutting red tape, but we’re gonna cut your red tape first, and not our red tape first. I move that this bill lay over until February 28th.

Get it? Gessler’s revised rule would have required primary disclosure reports to begin this month–that’s why this bill was necessary to get passed early in the session. But it also gave Sen. Brophy this wonderful opportunity to pointlessly bash his fellow Senators, while proposing something that would defeat the sole purpose of the legislation! While it’s true that anybody even remotely paying attention to the issue will see through this shallow grandstanding, Brophy is counting on a low-information talk radio bubble in which to trumpet his silly actions.

And you know what? He’ll probably get one.