Colorado’s legislature has reached the two-minute warning.
At midnight one week from today, ready or not, time runs out on the 2008 legislative session, and there can be no overtime. Still left to decide is the fate of 224 bills — more than a third of all the bills introduced this session — as well as several proposed ballot measures.
And despite the workload already stacked up — the Senate’s calendar of bills for Tuesday was 17 pages long — the bills keep coming. One was introduced Monday.
All of which raises the question: Are legislators the worst procrastinators ever?
“It does seem like it’s always this crazy,” said Rep. David Balmer, R-Centennial.
But other lawmakers said they think this session’s finish will be more furious than in recent years. As of Monday, there were 71 more bills still to be acted on this year than there were at the same mark of the last legislative session, according to the state’s Office of Legislative Legal Services.
Some of the remaining items are major proposals just starting on the path to becoming law — such as House Speaker Andrew Romanoff’s plan to untangle the state’s constitution and the recently introduced plan to raise car-registration fees to generate money for road projects.
Also still out there are significant bills dealing with insurance reform, health care, education, DNA preservation and federal mineral lease revenues.
“I don’t remember as many big bills being introduced in the last two weeks of the session,” said Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs.
Explanations from various lawmakers attribute the last-minute mania to the natural rhythms of the legislative process, lengthy negotiations on the most complicated bills and partisan chicanery.
“What you’re seeing here is they’re trying to sneak stuff through at the end because they think their fellow legislators are tired and won’t put up a good fight,” Balmer said of Democratic proposals.
But Rep. Terrance Carroll, D-Denver, said that is not the case. Instead, he said the late introduction of some bills reflects hard work done to make them more even-handed.
“It’s just the nature of bills sometimes,” Carroll said. “It takes the entire session to negotiate them.”
McElhany also downplayed a partisan angle.
“Sometimes a member only has a brilliant thought right at the end,” he said. “And sometimes it’s a highly controversial, divisive bill that will be introduced at the end so you don’t cause that divisiveness early in the session.”
The legislature has so far introduced 661 bills — 19 more than last year and the most since 2004.
Carroll said lawmakers will probably have to put in long days all week to finish up in time. But Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, is confident they’ll get the job done.
“We can get through it,” he said, unconcerned. “We have until Wednesday night.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
