Henrietta Hay's Column

The Colorado Lege has folded its tents and ridden off into the sunset - if I may mix a couple of metaphors and borrow Molly Ivins' somewhat irreverent word for Legislature. Actually, the tent folding is prophetic, since the state is talking of closing the capitol building for refurbishing, and the legislators may be meeting in tents next year.

The Denver Post has been running a daily column called "Under the Dome," in which it has recorded some of the weird antics of the Colorado Lege. I have saved all of these columns for material for this, My First Annual Colorado Lege Report. Trouble is, there is enough funny stuff to run columns on this subject for a whole month and it is hard to choose.

Our three local legislators serve us very well, but even they have their funny moments. It seems to me that being a legislator involves far more aggravation than it's worth, but they seem to like it. Otherwise why would they upset their personal lives, get paid the magnificent sum of $17,500 a year (plus expenses), fly the baby planes over the Rockies every week-end and have to raise at least $75,000 to campaign every two or four years?

For the First Most Ridiculous Piece of Legislation Award, the Trout Bill and the Flag Bill have ended up in a tie. The Son of Veggie Bill was a close second.

The Trout Bill, sponsored, I hate to say, by Tim Foster, blew the traditional rainbow out of the water and made the Greenback Cutthroat Trout the state fish. Quoting the Post, "After floundering in the House for a week, the bill...will continue its upstream battle in the Senate." The Senate caught it, reeled it in and the Greenback is our official fish. They do have fun now and then in the Lege.

The Flag Bill is scary because they apparently took it seriously. A Denver judge had a flag removed temporarily from her courtroom in order to expedite an unusual case. Immediately the Lege rose up in patriotic wrath and passed a bill requiring that a flag be on display at all times in all 33,000 classrooms and courtrooms in our fair state. I honor and respect the flag, but this kind of silliness demeans it.

The Son of Veggie bill needs no further comment.

The Colorado Business magazine conducted a survey of lobbyists, state government officials, the Statehouse press corps and all 100 lawmakers to rate the effectiveness of our state legislators. I am happy to report that Speaker of the House, Tim Foster is one of the top ten.

I am also happy to report that numbers one and two are women, Dottie Wham and Norma Anderson, both (sob) Republicans. Proving that Liberal Democrats are open-minded, I think that Dottie Wham is eminently qualified for the honor of outstanding legislator. She is, according to the survey, ".... bright, approachable, studies and understands the issues...a gutsy Republican who challenges the religious right."

Here are some random quotes from this session that Coloradoans might want to keep in mind.

"A fish called the cut-throat probably got through the House on professional courtesy," Sen. Gallagher on the fish bill.

"I'm not very knowledgeable about this issue, but I'm going to speak anyway. That doesn't seem to be an impediment." Rep Ken Gordon.

If you are having trouble understanding your property tax assessment, don't call the Assessor. Call Senate President Tom Norton, an engineer, who said in a speech that some thought might have been written by a slide rule, "The issue of eliminating revaluation of real property in the intervening year of the property tax assessment cycle due to an unusual condition which causes a variation from the correct level of value of more than 10 percent should be resolved in tandem with other major fiscal issues." I'll buy that.

"Anybody who understood my explanation can have my job." Sen. Jeff Wells.

And what may be the last word. "It doesn't make sense because I don't understand it...And then if I did understand it, I would probably feel that it didn't make sense," Rep. Dorothy Rupert.