House Speaker Frank McNulty steamrolled majority opinion Monday and saw to it that a bill legalizing civil unions was killed on the first day of a special legislative session.
McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, showed a complete disdain for honesty, spinning a fairy tale whereby Democrats brought the legislature “to a grinding halt” and demanded “that a bill creating same-sex marriage in Colorado be prioritized and forced to the front of the line.”
The truth:
• The bill in question would have recognized a civil union between same-sex couples, which is a far cry from same-sex marriage.
• A majority of lawmakers — at least 58 of 100 — supported the measure, including three Republicans whose votes led to the bill passing three House committees after clearing the Senate.
• After , but faced with the reality that he would be on the losing side, McNulty threw his wrench in the gears of governance and let the civil unions bill — and many others — die on the second-to-last day of the regular session.
As if the anti-democratic shenanigans last week weren’t bad enough, McNulty went all-in Monday.
Rather than send the bill to the House Judiciary Committee as he had each of the last two years, he instead stacked with Republicans whom he knew would vote against it.
Unable to offer a straightforward defense, McNulty conjured a laughable explanation that tried to shift the blame to the Democratic governor and a “divisive social agenda.”
“This is Gov. Hickenlooper’s special session that he called for the purpose of passing same-sex marriage,” McNulty said. “From our perspective, our side is focused on job creation and economic recovery.”
That argument conveniently forgets the divisive issues raised by his party. The first debate of this year’s session was on a hopeless resolution — the last one was held in 1787 — to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.” Then there were debates on ; a bill that called for ; a measure calling for the ; and the centerpiece of job creation: criminalizing “ of a pregnancy.”
As much as McNulty the fabulist would deny it, both sides spent time on messaging bills this year.
But only McNulty and Republicans resorted to a to kill a popular bill that would acknowledge a basic civil right.
Democrats and their allies will spend plenty of energy pointing that out between now and November; while McNulty and his troops continue peddling their fiction.
The truth is that Colorado voters are smart enough to figure it out for themselves. Once they do, we expect a civil unions bill to pass in the next General Assembly through an honest process.
