In recent years, a lot has been made about supposed partisan hostility toward rural areas of the state.
It goes something like this: Democrats, in pursuit of a number of goals, including renewable energy standards, don’t understand the financial pressures on those parts of the state.
How strange, then, that a bill that would offer modest financial support to rural communities rocked by economic losses has been sent to what in the past has often functioned as a kill committee for minority party bills.
By Republicans.
Would that have anything to do with the fact that it’s being pitched by a newly elected Democrat — who beat a Republican in a tight race — and was introduced in the GOP-controlled Senate?
Leaders from both sides of the aisle have pledged to work together for Colorado. So it’s disappointing that this modest measure, proposed by freshman state Sen. Kerry Donovan, could be headed for the circular file.
Senate Bill 36 would create the Rural Economic Emergency Assistance Grant program, and would be funded with $2 million of state money. It would direct grants to small communities that face significant economic hardship when large employers — at least, large for their communities — lay off workers or go out of business.
Donovan, a former Vail City Council member, told The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction that her bill was a response to the loss of hundreds of jobs in Delta County after a fire at a mine.
The bill would offer small, flexible emergency grants designed to get people back to work and perhaps keep families from leaving remote communities.
One of the goals shared by statehouse Republicans and Democrats is bringing relief and eventual prosperity to areas left behind by the economic recovery. This measure proposes one small way of doing that, and it’s worth more than perfunctory consideration.
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