Every year at about this time, we find ourselves asking: Do Colorado lawmakers have too much time on their hands?
Maybe it’s just that after months of reporting on and analyzing the deluge of bills floated under the Gold Dome each year, we get cranky. But we would rather think it is because it’s a legitimate question.
Even though lawmakers are now buzzing around the Capitol trying to tie up loose ends, it’s not implausible to think they could get all that work done in, say, 100 days instead of the current 120-day session.
We’re pleased to see a bipartisan group of legislators pushing Senate Concurrent Resolution 009, which would ask voters in November to amend the state constitution and shorten the session to 100 days.
The theory is, if you have only 100 days, you won’t dawdle with superfluous bills.
The move could save the state nearly half a million dollars in administrative costs, but the greater benefit to Colorado would be the tighter focus of lawmakers who are forced to set priorities.
When voters took away the legislature’s ability to raise taxes in 1992, they greatly reduced the body’s power but the length of the session never changed. Sure, lawmakers still must deal with the critical tasks of approving a budget for state government and tackling other core policy issues, but they’re also left to consider myriad other bills of debatable merit.
Meanwhile, many larger states hold their legislators to far less time. Texas, for example, convenes its legislature every other year.
SCR 009 could be better still. It would continue to reserve the calendar for 120 days starting in January and ending in May, but it would give lawmakers the ability to create 20 so-called “district days.” The notion is that elected officials could return home in mini-breaks to be more available to constituents and to catch up on work obligations.
The breaks would mean a hardship for staffers who would go unpaid — because if they were paid, any savings to the state under the plan would be cut in half — and it could dilute the discipline that would come with a straight 100-day session.
Given today’s technology, it should be much easier for rural lawmakers, and others, to keep in touch with their constituents.
We urge lawmakers to rally behind the 100-day session and let Colorado voters decide come November.
