The Democratic majority this winter will adhere to the spending areas spelled out in Tuesday’s Referendum C, which authorized a $3.7 billion spending increase over the next five years, party leaders said Thursday.
Republicans say they don’t trust Democrats to restrict themselves to spending on K-12 education, higher education and health care. But they will, Democratic Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff said.
“I think if folks are expecting anything other than a very frugal and disciplined approach, then both our friends and our enemies will be disappointed,” Romanoff said Thursday. “It may be a tough-love lesson. But this should not be news. It should not be news, what we’re talking about right now.”
Referendum C will not generate enough money for anything else, he and other Democrats say.
“We’re not likely to see any new programs,” said Rep. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora. “We’re not likely to see a lot of regulation.”
But Republican House Minority Leader Joe Stengel, who campaigned against the referendums, said Democrats will not be able to help themselves.
After killing many of their own bills last year for the sake of the budget fix – bills cherished by labor unions and environmental and consumer groups – Democrats will cave to those friends’ demands, he said.
“Last session, they were talking out of both sides of their mouth,” Stengel said. “They made promises to the special- interest groups that got them elected, and didn’t deliver. This year, it’s an election year, and Big Labor is going to be knocking on the door.”
Carroll said she hoped some bills that were killed last year will fare better in the second half of the legislative session. Because they were pursuing partnerships in the business community for the sake of C and D , Democrats did not get behind bills that Republicans – led by Stengel – portrayed as bad for business, she said.
But because bills regarding parental leave for children’s school events and the right for workers to choose their own doctors in worker’s compensation cases require no government investment, they might live again, she said.
Stengel believes Democrats will try to shoehorn pet projects into the designated Referendum C spending areas, he said. Republicans will be there to prove that theirs is the party of fiscal responsibility, he said.
Already, an interim legislative committee has resuscitated a $15 million “healthy business, healthy people” Senate bill that would subsidize health insurance for small employers, Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, said. Defenders of the Democratic- sponsored proposal say it will save the state money, but McElhany says the “huge new program” makes him skeptical.
Joan Fitz-Gerald, the Democratic president of the Senate, said Republicans risk irrelevance if they choose sniping over solutions.
“If they want to play that role and not be an active part of putting together a very conservative, tight budget that fulfills exactly what we told the voters with Referendum C, they can back-bench and criticize,” she said. “But I think there’s work to be done, and we intend to do it.”
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
