Heading into the final weeks of the legislative session, two of Gov. Bill Ritter’s key agenda items remain unresolved – increased funding for public schools and an overhaul of the commission that regulates the oil-and-gas industry.
Both were unveiled at midsession, and the next 20 or so days will show whether Ritter can overcome what some perceive to have been early missteps and political protocol violations to build the consensus he needs.
While Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald stepped in to help broker a tentative deal on the oil- and-gas commission overhaul, she seems to have left her fellow Democrat on his own to gain support for a politically sensitive property-tax freeze that would keep tax rates from going down in 145 of the state’s 178 districts.
“From a global-picture standpoint, something has to be done to stop the bleeding from state coffers,” she said of the plan to save the state $55 million next year by tapping local taxes for education. “Whether or not this is the right approach is still up in the air.”
Fitz-Gerald said some members worry that a vote for the plan will be portrayed as support for a tax hike.
“I’m not hearing one hopeful word from the other side of the aisle on this,” she said of the Republican minority. “I am hearing a very political debate and not a policy debate, and that doesn’t give me the feeling that we would have policy-grounded decision-making. If it’s political posturing, that’s bad for all of us.”
The property-tax plan is the second controversial education- funding proposal Ritter has floated since taking office in January. His first idea – to tap into oil-and-gas royalties – was sidelined after an outcry from Western Slope leaders who claimed Ritter was reneging on promises to keep such money flowing to energy-affected areas.
Ritter then raised eyebrows in the Capitol by floating the property-tax freeze at a news conference with the head of the Senate education committee but no legislative leaders.
“I view this as one of those deals where the people of the state elected us to try and fix problems. And I consider this one of the biggest problems,” Ritter said, brushing aside criticism of his handling of the issue. “There’s a lot of politics involved in this, but at its core it’s a really important policy decision for us to make, and we’ll see at the end of the day if good policy can trump politics.”
After a Republican-forced vote showed little support in the Senate for his initial property- tax freeze, Ritter last week tweaked the proposal in hopes of gaining broader bipartisan support by exempting 33 districts with the highest tax rates.
Critics remain skeptical.
“The plan changes day to day,” said Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction. “… Making tax and education-funding policy on the back of a napkin isn’t a great way to do business.
“When you’re talking about raising property taxes on Grandma and Grandpa and small-business owners – that’s volatile politics.”
The outlook for Ritter’s plan to dilute the oil-and-gas industry’s dominance of the board that regulates it, however, is brighter. The bill, which would add environmental and public-health voices to the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, passed the House on straight party lines but had a less certain future in the Senate.
Much of the skepticism centered on not only the plan itself but the way it was thrown out to lawmakers at midsession, after a number of other competing and overlapping bills on oil-and-gas issues were already moving.
Ritter said he and new natural-resources director Harris Sherman got the plan to lawmakers as quickly as possible.
“While it might be preferable to have had the language ready for legislators to consider Jan. 9, it is not realistic,” he said. “On the other hand, it was too important in terms of public policy for us to not act upon this year.
“We have had twice the number of (drilling) permits granted in 2006 than 2004, and it really seemed to me given the time it would take to do the rulemaking (for the new commission) … that it wasn’t a matter that should be delayed.”
Ritter and others working on the bill credit Fitz-Gerald with bringing affected groups back to the table to hammer out industry concerns that the changes could slow one of the state’s biggest economic drivers.
The Senate state affairs committee is expected to consider changes to the plan today. While Ritter has refused to compromise on the the makeup of the oversight board, some changes are expected on language that opponents feared would give the commission more authority to deny energy companies access to mineral rights beneath property they don’t own.
How the oil-and-gas and education-funding plans play out will prove to be an important test of Ritter’s ability to craft compromise, said Floyd Ciruli, a Denver political pollster.
He also sees the next few weeks as a test for Democrats, who this year took control of the governor’s office and the legislature for the first time in nearly half a century.
“On high-profile items, they need to work together or get attacked, lose the unanimity and momentum that comes from a very successful session where they work together,” he said.
Because when the legislative session ends May 9, “they want to come together, very united, and be able to say this was a big one,” he said.
Capitol bureau chief Jeri Clausing can be reached at 303-954-1555 or jclausing@denverpost.com.
