Hello everyone,
Only a little over a week left! I feel like my last few updates have been about the same…a lot of late nights. Every night this past week either a committee, the House or the Senate has worked late. On Monday, House Agriculture met until after 3 am. On both Tuesday and Wednesday, the House was on the floor until after 8 pm. On Thursday, House Judiciary met until about 1 am. On Friday, the Senate worked until a little after 9:30 pm and the House until about 10:30 pm. On Saturday, the House met from 8 am until 8:45 pm. Needless to say, everyone is sleep deprived and tempers are short.
However, everyone seems to be getting a tutorial on the rules this year, particularly the House Rules. Last month, I mentioned how House Democrats invoked House Rule 14 for the first time in recent memory to limit debate. On Friday, House Democrats invoked House Rule 16 which asks: “shall the main question now be put?” What is interesting is whether they invoked Rule 16 to prevent the Republicans from filibustering or a member of their own caucus who talked for over four hours on a bill earlier in the day. I guess we will never know. Invoking House Rule 16 doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. On Saturday, House Republicans invoked House Rule 24 to protest the actions of the House for failing to fix the technical error in the conference committee report on the Long Bill that I mentioned last week. This is the only time I have ever seen House Rule 24 used.
There was at least one highlight from the week. On Friday, the Senate took time to discuss and pass Senate Joint Resolution 008 declaring the week of May 12-16 as Police Week and in connection therewith, declaring May 15th as Peace Officer’s Memorial Day. The resolution includes the names of each of the 377 peace officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice in our state’s history. Lt. Colonel Barry Bratt and officers from Aurora, Arvada, Boulder, and El Paso County were present on the floor.
So far, there have been 612 bills introduced – 310 in the House and 302 in the Senate. Only 7 days until the General Assembly is required to adjourn sine die.
Bill Skewes
Lobbyist