Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday that concern over Democratic lawmakers' re-election chances was partly to blame for legislative failure to approve proposals to fix Colorado roads and bridges, according to a report by Tim Hoover.

Ritter's comments came at a news conference to talk about the 2008 legislative session. "I feel like this conversation broke down around politics, that we tried to get the Republicans interested in looking at how we would put together different pots of money," Ritter said. "We began our conversation very early in the session and could not get the Republican leadership to act on it at all."

Republican lawmakers were surprised by the comments.

"They outnumber us by 15 people in the House," said Rep. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican. "They have nearly enough to pass a constitutional amendment in their own caucus, and to try to say they can't pass their agenda because they lack Republican votes. That shows a complete lack of leadership and a vacuum within their own party."

This morning a coalition of environmental advocates touted their near-perfect record on bills during the legislative session that just ended, a string of victories that made them perhaps the most successful interest group beneath the dome this year.

The groups pointed to bills boosting the renewable energy industry, making at-home solar panels more available to average homeowners, promoting water conservation and encouraging sound development planning.

Elise Jones, the executive director of the Colorado Environmental Coalition, proclaimed the bills “green-green” successes because she said they would not only help the environment but also help the economy.

“The policies we’re putting into effect in this building,” said Pam Kiely with Environment Colorado, “are really having tangible effects.”

Among the bills most heavily lauded were:

• House Bill 1160, which creates a uniform standard by which solar panel-owning homeowners can sell excess power back to the energy grid.

• House Bill 1164, which encourages the state’s Public Utilities Commission to consider adding large-scale solar power plants to the state’s energy portfolio and also look at carbon emissions as a factor when approving energy plans.

• House Bill 1350, which sets up a program for homeowners to get low-interest loans to buy solar panels or other green energy products.

• House Bill 1141, which requires homebuilders to show where they intend to get the water for their developments before they are allowed to build.

• House Bill 1280, which allows water rights holders to leave water in the river without losing their rights.

The Colorado Environmental Coalition’s Stephanie Thomas called HB 1141, “historic.” Jim Welch, the president of Bella Energy, said the renewable energy industry in Colorado has seen a 2,000-jobs jump in the last three years, something he said the bills passed this year will help perpetuate.

And Jonathan Kahn, said HB 1280 will boost Colorado’s rafting and fishing economy.

“The economic benefits trickle down to many small towns that depend on non-ski-related tourism,” he said.

The green groups did admit to two losses this year: one on a bill that would have tied transportation funding to environmentally-friendly planning and another that would have required power providers to invest in energy efficiency.

“We have a lot more work to do,” Jones said.

But Carrie Doyle, the executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters, said this session will likely go down as one of the most successful for the environmental movement. She said more and more lawmakers are receptive to green ideas as voters make those ideals higher priorities, and she said, in additional to the usual conservation groups, environmental advocates have added businesses, water providers and agricultural groups to their now mighty coalition.

Some Republicans this session have expressed concern about the growing environmental clout at the Capitol, arguing specifically that the push to move the state toward renewable energy could come at the cost of less reliability and higher prices. But Sen. Dan Gibbs, D-Silverthorne, said many votes on pro-environment bills this year bridged party lines.

“I think more legislators are really supporting conservation policies,” Gibbs said. “And it’s not partisan at all. I think more people are realizing that when conservation wins Colorado wins.”

All the air went out of the state Capitol this morning, like steam leaving a pressure cooker.

By 9 a.m. – the normal start time for morning floor meetings and less than 12 hours after the legislative session ended Tuesday night – the halls and offices of the building were nearly empty.

A group of environmental advocates held a small press conference, touting their successes, as a couple early-rising lawmakers stood off to the side. Gov. Bill Ritter ducked into his office by the side door, almost without notice. Voices echoed off the marble walls of the rotunda.

In the basement, the cashier at the normally bustling café looked bored.

“It’s like something came in and blew everybody away,” she said. “It’s instant calm.”

A handful of tourists snapped photos of the building, but it was like visiting the zoo without the animals. A slow trickle of lawmakers, some in shirt sleeves and blue jeans, flowed in and out of the Capitol, packing up desks or catching up on e-mails.

“Just because the session ends,” said Sen. Dan Gibbs, a Silverthorne Democrat who came to the Capitol for the first time in months wearing an open-collared shirt, “doesn’t mean the work ends.”

One of the more remarkable things about the lifecycle of the legislative session is how quickly the Capitol comes to life on Day 1 and how fast it all goes away when the session ends on Day 120. Overnight the building seems to bustle with fast-moving lawmakers and sharp-elbowed lobbyists. The entryways to the two chambers clog with advocates trying to get their business cards into the right hands inside.

It all came to an end late Tuesday with a flurry of last-minute activity and a bipartisan bash of lawmakers and schmoozing lobbyists at a bar a few blocks away that lasted until the small hours.

And this morning all the sweat and ambition that grease the Capitol during the session seemed to have evaporated. The entryways for the chambers were empty and clean. Just inside the front door to the Senate was a sign saying, “The Senate is now adjourned.”

And, after four months of policy forging and political jockeying, of passionate speeches and pointless diatribes, it all raised a surprisingly unsettling question: What is the sound of no yaps flapping?

State lawmakers ended the 2008 legislative session Tuesday by passing a ballot measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 3, that will ask voters in November to make it harder to amend the constitution but easier to change state law.

Most lawmakers agreed there have been too many initiatives changing the state constitution, sometimes at odds with each other, writes Denver Post reporter Tim Hoover.

Currently, to change either the constitution or state law, petition organizers must gather signatures of registered voters equal to 5 percent of the votes cast for secretary of state in the last election. Unlike a number of other states, Colorado does not require that the signatures be collected by geographical areas, such as congressional districts.

If approved by voters, the measure lawmakers passed would require that petition organizers gather signatures equal to 6 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election. Changes to state law would require signatures equal to 4 percent of the votes cast for governor in the last election.

Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, finished his last term in office today. But he left a list of do's and don'ts for his fellow lawmakers before he turned out the lights.

Gordon's Rules of Legislative Conduct
(Suggestions for future legislators)

1.  Think for yourself. If you don't have any internal values that inform your conduct here, find another occupation.

2.  Leadership: You can't always be liked and always do the right thing. If you don't have the courage to sometimes do the right thing even though it will anger some person or support group, you should find another occupation. If you don't have courage, you may be an elected official, but you are not a leader.

3.  If you are in the majority and you can't pass a bill that you want to pass without abusing the process, then you shouldn't pass the bill.  If you can't kill a bill that you want to kill without abusing the process, then you shouldn't kill the bill.

4.  If you abuse the process in order to prevent minority party members from accomplishing anything that reflects the values of their constituents, then you create a deep and bitter resentment. This resentment will come back to haunt you in myriad ways. Abuse of the process does not show strength. It shows weakness.

5.  Respect the minority party members. There are a large number of people who voted for them. When you disrespect the minority party members you disrespect many of the people of Colorado. And their ideas are not always wrong.

6.  Think of the other members of the Senate as team members _ even members of the other party. The goal is not to be in the majority.  If that were the goal, then the other party would be the enemy. The goal is to make Colorado the best state in the country, or in any country for that matter. To do this we need everyone's help. If we don't do this we will be at a competitive disadvantage with states or countries that learn how to work better together.

7.  Some people think there is a distinction between how you act in a campaign and how you act at the legislature. If you lie during a political campaign, that makes you a liar, and you will be treated that way in the legislature as well.

8.  Respect the people who put you in office. You might think that you do that, but every time you commit your vote to a lobbyist or even another member before you have heard committee testimony or debate, you have disrespected the people who wish to voice their opinion.  

9.  Don't let conflict escalate. Be the one who de-escalates. Be the bigger person. Be the person who acknowledges error. If you have to, go outside and take a walk.

10.  Have pride in what you are doing. You stand on the shoulders of many thousands who have worked or shed blood for our rights and our democracy. Fewer than 2 percent of the people who have ever lived have lived in a democracy. Don't take it for granted. By your conduct here, honor those people who fought for this democracy.

The rough political road for a proposed state-budget fix got even rougher Monday as Gov. Bill Ritter stopped short of endorsing it and the group expected to propel it to November's ballot expressed concern about funding, timing and other issues, reports Jessica Fender.

"I don't know ultimately . . . if we're going to have the coalition together to put that on the ballot," Ritter said Monday of House Speaker Andrew Romanoff's plan in his monthly appearance on the Mike Rosen Show on KOA 850.

House Bill 1325, aimed at making it easier for farmers to recruit workers from Mexico, is on its way to Gov. Bill Ritter after the House voted 47-17 for its final passage, reports Tim Hoover.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, and Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, would allow the state to work with recruiters to speed up the process for obtaining agricultural visas. Recruiters in Mexico could find workers, help them fill out applications for the visa and set up medical screenings for the laborers.

Ritter's office did not immediately return calls seeking comment, but Looper was optimistic Ritter would sign the bill and said the bill means Colorado is leading the nation on the issue of legal immigration.

Two weeks ago, the bill received considerable attention when State Rep. Douglas Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, speaking against the bill, said "We don't need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in the state of Colorado."

There was a filibuster, sort of.

There were mock threats by lawmakers to jump out the window. There were jeers and cheers and jokes and flung rubber bands and even a not-so-serious challenge to fight.

Monday night, this is how laws were made in Colorado’s state Senate.

Long after all but the most ardent lobbyists and Capitol staffers called it a night – when the coats came off and the ties hung slack – things got a little slappy in the Senate.

Sen. Bill Cadman, a Colorado Springs Republican who was miffed that Senate Democrats were trying to bury his resolution asking for a fiscal analysis of the new oil and gas rulemaking, kicked off the night session by asking that bills be read in-full.

It wasn’t until the hoarse Senate reader was mostly through a 6-page bill on the child welfare system that the two parties called off their stalemate and Cadman was eventually allowed to run his resolution. (It failed on a party-line vote.)

Things got rowdier from there.

Senators playfully jeered each other from their seats. The aides lining the side of the chamber snickered with the jokes.

The Democrats running the session began to intentionally overlook Republicans – raising their hands urgently in the air like school kids and trying to vote no on a bill – only to recognize them just as the blood drained from their fingertips. A few Republicans responded by trying, unsuccessfully, to vote twice. Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins, began casting his no votes with a ghostly mechanical toy hand that twitched its fingers.

In between the merriment, there were serious debates on issues as diverse as cancer screenings and health insurance regulation and election policies. These were, after all, still lawmakers, and there’s only so much fun you can have inside the bounds of parliamentary procedure.

At the end of the night, the Senate had passed and sent 31 bills to the governor for his signature, cutting its lengthy calendar by more than half and making the Wednesday deadline for the legislature’s adjournment suddenly seem achievable.

But perhaps the best moment of the night came around 9:45 p.m. when Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, moved that the Senate finally break for the day and come back at 10 a.m. on Tuesday – an hour later than normal.

The entire chamber burst into applause.

In a spat with the Senate, the House today shot down the annual bill funding Colorado's public schools, legislation that included expanding full-day kindergarten.

It's a quarrel everyone agrees will be resolved before lawmakers adjourn Wednesday, but the rejection of House Bill 1388 showed the tension that can come in the final days of the session.

"Part of it is that there's a feeling the Senate has gotten everything it wants and the House hasn't," said Rep. Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, who led the opposition to the school finance bill.

Lawmakers have to approve a school finance bill every year, and there typically are attempts to fund new programs. The House earlier this year had rejected separate Senate legislation creating a $2 million program related to teacher incentive programs.

The Senate stuck that language into the school finance bill along with a provision allowing high school seniors to take just one class, if that's all they need to graduate. Currently, they must take at least four, Weissmann said, regardless of whether they need all of the classes to graduate.

Weissmann said the amendments were unacceptable. The House rejected the conference committee version of the bill on a 30-35 vote, with 12 Republicans and 23 Democrats voting against the bill.

The move was mostly a message to the Senate that the House wanted more concessions on the bill. House leaders quickly moved to set up another conference committee with the Senate, expected to meet Tuesday. 

A bill aimed at making it easier for Colorado farmers to recruit workers from Mexico is on its way to Gov. Bill Ritter.

With a 47-17 vote, the House today gave final passage to the measure, House Bill 1325, sending it to the governor.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, and Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, would allow the state to work with foreign recruiters to help speed up the process for obtaining a federal H-2a visa. Recruiters in Mexico could find workers, help them fill out applications for the visa and set up medical screenings for the laborers.

Colorado farmers have complained that tougher immigration laws and enforcement have resulted in a shortage of workers. Crops have been rotting in the fields as farmers try to find enough workers to harvest them, farmers have said.

Ritter's office did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the bill.

Looper, who was optimistic Ritter would sign the legislation, said Colorado was leading the nation on the issue of legal immigration with the passage of the bill.

"I'm already getting phone calls from farmers who want to get in the program," Looper said.

Under the bill, employers would have to pay for the workers' travel, housing and meals for the workers and the costs of obtaining the visas and workers' compensation insurance.

Workers would be issued special ID cards by the state.

The bill originally had called for employers to withhold up to 20 percent of workers' pay, refunding it only when the laborers return to their home countries. That provision was left out of the final version.

Looper said she and Tapia were planning to make a trip later this year to Chihuahua State in Mexico to meet with local officials about the program.