State Rep. Frank McNulty’s proposal for the coming session is ordinary enough: He intends to carry a bill similar to “Jessica’s Law” that would create a mandatory minimum prison sentence for child rape.
It’s an idea that has passed in some form in more than 40 states, but it will be a tough sell in Colorado this year. McNulty is on the wrong side of the party divide — he’s a Republican in a Democratic-controlled legislature.
But the real problem is the price tag.
When McNulty, of Highlands Ranch, introduced a similar idea in 2007, it was estimated that it would cost the state nearly $100 million over five years in increased incarceration expenses. Now, in a year in which the legislature is looking at making hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts, that cost simply doesn’t pencil out.
“Anything that requires new spending is dead on arrival,” state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, a Grand Junction Republican, bluntly predicted.
Facing a tough budget, lawmakers and advocates at the Capitol are rethinking their pitches for the coming session. Instead of pushing costly projects, some said they will advance plans that have little or no cost.
They are recasting their goals in terms of economic development or arguing the state can’t afford to cut certain services now to its most needy. And a number are gearing up to spend the session playing defense, mostly trying to protect the funding boosts of the past years from getting cut.
“It’s certainly put a different perspective on the session going into January,” Dan Daly, a lobbyist for the Colorado Education Association, said of the dire budget forecasts.
Several advocacy groups said they are still finalizing their legislative agenda for the session that is less than a week away. Lawmakers have so far been reluctant to talk about what will get bumped off the agenda because of budget concerns.
“Until we get to the nuts and bolts of the budget later in the legislative session, we won’t know,” said House Speaker-elect Terrance Carroll, D-Denver.
Denise de Percin, the executive director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, said her organization will fight to keep programs for the poor from being cut and will push for regulation changes that she said would cost the state little.
“Really it’s about making sure we don’t backslide,” she said.
Pam Kiely, legislative director of Environment Colorado, said her organization will strive to highlight the benefits of renewable energy for the economy more than its environmental pluses.
“We do want to make sure that every single proposal we’re pushing this year has a natural nexus with economic development,” she said. “That’s where the debate is going to lie.”
As for his Jessica’s Law bill, McNulty said he will work to keep the price tag as small as possible and hope the legislature makes it a funding priority.
“There’s no question about it, locking up pedophiles costs money,” McNulty said. “But to ignore it and say it’s not a problem I think puts Colorado children at risk.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
