A proposed state constitutional amendment creating a rainy-day fund for lawmakers to use when coffers run dry drowned in committee Friday, pushed under by its own sponsor after one lawmaker tried to append a tax increase to it and another compared it to wetting the bed.
You could say state Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican who sponsored the proposal, wasn’t amused.
“I’m not going to let one of my bills be used to play politics and increase taxes on the people of Colorado,” Gardner said, explaining why he decided to kill the measure in the House Appropriations Committee rather than continue pushing it.
But critics of the proposal, including several Democrats and one Republican, said Gardner’s proposed fund didn’t have a funding source, meaning, even if voters gave the go-ahead, the fund would sit empty until lawmakers could find a way to fill it.
“If you’re going to change the constitution with a dramatic event like a rainy-day fund, let’s fund it,” said Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland. “Otherwise, it’s never going to get funded.”
Then, in one of the more bizarre moments at the legislature this year, Marostica compared the proposal to bed-wetting.
“You lay there and you feel good, but in the morning you got to get up,” he said. “We need to get up in the state of Colorado.”
To fill the rainy-day fund, Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, proposed attaching a 0.1 percentage-point sales-tax increase to the measure, although his amendment ultimately failed.
Ferrandino did, however, succeed in getting a rainy-day-fund proposal of his own through the committee, even though a separate bill at the legislature this year could take away his designated funding source. Ferrandino’s proposal, House Bill 1269, would cap the amount of money that spills over to transportation projects in flush budget years at $100 million, with the remainder going to his fund.
“It’s important that we as a state make it a priority to save money for the next economic downturn,” Ferrandino said.
But another bill at the Capitol would eliminate that automatic spillover mechanism for transportation money, also leaving Ferrandino’s fund without a way to get filled. Ferrandino said he is working to identify another funding source, should his original one disappear.
Meanwhile, bills to abolish the death penalty in Colorado, create a universal health care system and ban talking on hand-held cellphones while driving escaped a bloodbath in the House Appropriations Committee on Friday and are one step closer to becoming law. Numerous other bills either didn’t survive or were substantially changed by the committee charged with deciding whether bills are worth their costs.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
