March 21, 2022 01:25 PM UTC

Juneteenth Cruising To Be Colorado's 11th Holiday

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• by: Colorado Pols

Earlier today in the Colorado Senate, Senate Bill 22-139 passed by a nearly-unanimous 32-1 vote. This bill establishes the 19th of June as Colorado eleventh holiday, Juneteenth, commemorating the belated notification of slaves in Texas by occupying Union troops that they had been set free by the Emancipation Proclamation two years before.

The bill to make Juneteenth a state holiday passed in the Senate! Now it’s heading over to me in the House!

Thanks to @SenJanetBuckner and @ColemanforCO for a near unanimous vote in the Senate. Let’s get this across the finish line! pic.twitter.com/GTj5j0VI5p

— Leslie Herod (@leslieherod) March 21, 2022

Who was the lone vote in opposition to establishing Juneteenth as a state holiday in the Colorado Senate, you ask? That would be Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, representing a vast swath of dirt and cows and eventually enough people to make up a whole state senate district in northeastern Colorado.

Sen. Sonnenberg has been “owning the libs” with self-immolating bad behavior in the Colorado General Assembly for years before a new generation of far-right politicians made it routine. Sonnenberg, who joked about oiling his assault weapons with tears shed by Barack Obama over school shootings and referred to the female co-sponsor presenting legislation to a committee the bill’s “eye candy,” has been such a uplifting experience in his sixteen years of service that he makes a rare compelling argument for term limits.

Also, we do believe the last time the Colorado Senate passed legislation by a vote of 32- Jerry Sonnenberg was Senate Bill 20-217–the landmark police accountability reform legislation passed in the immediate wake of the killing of George Floyd.

It has been suggested that we allow readers to infer from these facts what they will.