A bill that would comprehensively realign K-12 education curriculum standards to match them up with college admissions requirements will soon be law.

Gov. Bill Ritter this week signed Senate Bill 212, known as the Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids or CAP4K, at a ceremony at Arvada High School.

The bill received support from both parties in the legislature and was hailed as one of the session’s major accomplishments.

Supporters say the bill will modernize curriculum standards and put every kid in Colorado on the path to a college education.

“The better prepared students are, the better chance they have to excel in a growing global economy,” Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, said in a statement.

The bill was one of several education-related measures the Governor signed yesterday.

“These bills represent some of the most important work the legislature did this session,” he said. “It truly was the ‘education session.’ These were bipartisan bills, because the education of our young people and the future of Colorado’s economy should not be about partisan politics"

He continued:

“But we have a 25 percent high school dropout rate,” Gov. Ritter said. “We rank 45th in the country for the percentage of native-born residents who earn college degrees. And as a nation, we are one of just two industrialized countries in the world whose college-completion rate is actually declining. We can do better. We must do better. With these new bills, we will do better.”

Hours after Gov. Bill Ritter blamed Republicans for failing to help craft a solution to state transportation woes, one of his top aides fired off an e-mail telling staffers not to chat with lawmakers about the problem, reports Jessica Fender.

"I would suggest that we not rush into conversation with legislators . . . we need to get our ducks lined up before legislators are re-approached with funding ideas," Carla Perez, a senior policy adviser, wrote in the May 7 e-mail.

Republicans say that attitude will chill summer negotiations on a roads fix.

Many political, business and community leaders agree the budget gridlock enshrined in the state constitution needs fixing, but as the continued unraveling of a plan to relax TABOR shows, now may not be the time, reports Jessica Fender.

A changed political climate has left Republicans — who are needed to sell the proposal to voters — maneuvering to take back the legislative majority and unlikely to rile their conservative base by supporting House Speaker Romanoff's initiative.

Additonally, Gov. Ritter has been hesitant to back the plan as he rolls out his own, top-priority ballot initiative that's likely to suck up available campaign funding.

And so, Fender writes, a plan carefully crafted by House Speaker Romanoff to appeal to a
Democrats and moderate Republicans continues to falter in
building the type of coalition that helped Referendum C pass.

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."