Same-sex adoptions bill clears first hearing
A bill to allow same-sex and other unmarried couples to adopt each other’s children sailed through its first legislative hearing Thursday on an 8-3 vote.
No opponents showed up to testify against the measure, which supporters said is about protecting children.
“We should do everything we can to create positive two-parent families, especially in this day and age when many kids grow up with unmarried parents, in grandparent-led or other nontraditional families,” Rep. Alice Madden, D-Boulder, said before the bill passed the House Health and Human Services Committee.
Current state law allows individuals to adopt a child, but not their same-sex partners.
Several women testified about the need to be able to legally protect the relationships between their children and their female partners.
“Children need the stability to know that they are not going to be ripped away from the other parent” in the event one dies, said Judy VonGaia of Denver.
One critic, Jim Pfaff, president of Colorado Family Action, said he knew the measure would be voted out of committee and focused on doing media interviews and radio appearances to speak out against the bill instead.
He said his group, one of 35 state-based public policy groups with links to Focus on the Family, would continue to oppose the bill at the state Capitol and also let its members know about the bill. He said Colorado voters elected a Democratic-led legislature and governor last fall but they also rejected Referendum I, a civil-unions proposal that would have also allowed gay couples to adopt.
Insurers would pay for cervical cancer shots
Health insurance companies would have to pay for cervical cancer vaccinations under a measure tentatively approved Thursday.
Dr. Ned Colange, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, told lawmakers a vaccine made by Merck & Co. is cost-effective and could prevent many of the 40 deaths each year in Colorado from cervical cancer.
The House Health and Human Services Committee unanimously approved House Bill 1301 and sent it to the House Appropriations Committee.
Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, said he sponsored the bill after his eldest daughter, a medical student, told him that young women she was treating were suffering from cervical cancer.
“She told me in tears most of them would not live out the summer,” Buescher said.
Mary Hendrick, a mother from Denver, told lawmakers the vaccine could have serious side effects and urged lawmakers to require education and include a warning. She said she would not give the vaccine to her 17-year-old daughter.
“It’s dangerous,” she said.
House OKs pothole for private toll roads
The House on Thursday passed a bill that would make it more difficult for private developers to build toll roads.
House Bill 1068, headed for the Senate, would require a developer to notify property owners that they live in a toll-road corridor and to notify the state Transportation Department before the developer can express any interest in people’s land.
Electoral-vote plan dies in House committee
A House committee Thursday killed a plan to have Colorado join other states in awarding its electoral votes based on national popular vote after witnesses warned it was unconstitutional and would result in chaos if a candidate demanded a recount.
Senate Bill 46 would have set up an agreement with other states in presidential election years to give all of the state’s nine electoral votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote. The law would have taken effect only if enough states joined in to make it work.
The House State Veterans & Military Affairs Committee killed it on a 10-1 vote.
Backers said the movement is aimed at preventing a repeat of 2000, when Democrat Al Gore lost despite getting more votes than George W. Bush.
Robert Hardaway, a law professor at the University of Denver, told lawmakers if someone challenged the outcome of a presidential election, every precinct would have to be recounted.
“It would be a disaster,” he said.
