December 04, 2006 07:41 PM UTC

Mmmm...Feet

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• by: Colorado Pols

The 2007 legislative session doesn’t begin for another month, but we already have our first case of foot-in-mouth disease. Republican Rep. Ray Rose told the Grand Junction Sentinel that HIV is a “lifestyle disease.”

House Bill 1023, the centerpiece legislation of the summer special session, requires Colorado’s adult residents to prove they are legally present in the state to receive non-emergency state services, such as driver’s licenses or food stamps.

The bill does not apply to vaccinations, emergency medical care and federally mandated state expenses, such as K-12 education.

That said, Rose stressed he hopes the Democrat-controlled General Assembly will be receptive to allowing “clarifying legislation” to clear up the various problems that have cropped up after House Bill 1023’s implementation.

Key among those clarifications, Rose said, should be language that bars illegal immigrants from receiving treatment for “lifestyle diseases,” such as HIV, that illegal immigrants could be granted under the special session legislation.