Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman’s running mate has a voting record contrary to his beliefs and the conservative GOP base he’s trying to court.
Former House Speaker Lola Spradley voted for a 2003 bill that encouraged health-care facilities to inform sexual-assault victims about emergency contraception and then voted against a bill the next year that required the disclosure of such information.
She also was on the steering committee that opposed the creation of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights years ago. And, more recently, she cast three votes supporting bills that would have allowed the state to keep up to a billion dollars in state surpluses instead of returning the money to the taxpayers as required under TABOR.
Those proposals were similar to Referendum C, which Holtzman and Spradley opposed. Passed by voters last year, the measure allows state government to keep all its revenue for the next five years instead of returning an estimated $3.7 billion to taxpayers as otherwise required by TABOR.
Spradley said Friday that the emergency contraception bill was a “who-cares statement” because it merely encouraged, not mandated, facilities to inform victims of the so-called morning after pill.
“There was no teeth in that bill,” Spradley said. “No one was even lobbying against it.”
Holtzman not bothered
Spradley also said that while she voted for the three TABOR- related bills in 2004, she didn’t actually support them – including the one she sponsored.
“I didn’t support them. We wanted to send the bills over to the Senate so we could see what they would do,” she said. “The strategy was to get something into conference committee so we could negotiate.”
Holtzman expended months of time and most of his political capital last year trying to defeat Referendum C. He also opposes emergency contraception.
But Spradley’s apparent inconsistencies with Holtzman’s positions don’t bother him, said campaign spokesman Dick Leggitt.
“Both she and Marc have the same views now. They are both against emergency contraception,” he said. As to Spradley’s votes on TABOR-related bills, Leggitt said, “Both she and Marc believed that something had to be done, but thought Referendum C was the wrong solution at the wrong time.”
Holtzman is running against U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez for the GOP nomination. The sole Democratic candidate is former Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter.
Last year, Spradley called Referendum C a “tax increase” that would siphon money from Colorado families who “can use the money better than government.”
Targeting TABOR
But 18 months earlier, she sponsored a bill that proposed letting lawmakers keep $300 million that would have otherwise gone to taxpayers under TABOR and another $150 million from education funding increases mandated by Amendment 23. The two other bills she voted for that year proposed allowing the state to keep hundreds of millions – in one case up to $1.5 billion – of revenue.
An analysis conducted by the state’s planning and budgeting office found that one of those TABOR-related bills “would have had a significant larger impact on TABOR,” according to a July 14, 2005, memo sent to Gov. Bill Owens from Henry Sobanet, head of the state’s budget department.
The memo said that the bill would have retained $1.2 billion more than allowed under TABOR and would have applied not only to state governments but local as well.
As a lobbyist for AT&T, Spradley was a member of the steering committee in 1986 that opposed the creation of TABOR. The opposition stemmed from specific language in the ballot initiative, she said. She “could not recall” whether she had been on the committee in 1988 or 1990. Voters approved TABOR in 1992.
Staff writer Karen Crummy can be reached at 303-820-1594 or kcrummy@denverpost.com.
