May 04, 2023 11:18 AM UTC

House Dems Lay The Hammer Down To Halt GOP Obstruction

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• by: Colorado Pols

Down to the final few days of the 2023 session of the Colorado General Assembly, which has been a story of a small Republican minority doing its utmost to grind the people’s business to a halt, Democrats are once again invoking the parliamentary power at their disposal to limit what the rules call “debate” over key pieces of pending legislation:

The problem this year has very certainly NOT been a shortage of debate over legislation, in which Democratic leadership has been patient to the point of criticism with the obstructive antics of the GOP minority. Republican filibustering of legislation with lengthy diatribes in many cases only tenuously related to the bill in question has taken up far too much time this session already–leading directly to the large pile-up of pending bills in the final few days. What’s worse, the lack of effective leadership in the GOP House minority has meant that brokered deals were unenforceable.

At this point, the biggest political risk for Democrats is allowing GOP obstruction to derail the final days of the session. Nobody’s going to care in the long run about majority Democrats using their majority power — awarded to them by Colorado voters — to overcome minority obstruction, so it’s time to do so aggressively (just like Republicans would under reverse circumstances). All that will matter in the final analysis is doing what Democrats promised voters and moving legislation through the process and on to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

There is neither the need nor the time to play nice.