Colorado Legislative Roundup

With a new Governor, progressive legislative leaders in Colorado marked a new day by enacting a range of legislation benefiting working families in the state.

• On Education, the legislature modified a 1994 law that had restricted local property tax funds, boosting long-term funding for public education in the state.  The legislature also increased funding for higher education, including financial aid assistance to lower-income families.
• On Health Care, Colorado's SB 001 established the “Colorado Cares” program, which enables low-income residents to purchase discounted prescription drugs. The state also increased health coverage for children with the goal of covering all kids by 2010-- and established a commission to prepare plans for expanding affordable health care for all families.
• On Workers Rights, a new law requires that construction contractors assure that all employees are covered by workers’ compensation, a way to prevent companies from exploiting undocumented immigrants and others through substandard conditions.
• On Consumer Rights, five bills were enacted to deal with mortgage and appraisal fraud, a critical issue in a state that has had the highest foreclosure rate in the country.
• On Electoral Reform, the state made voting easier for working families by allowing voters to register as permanent mail-in voters. 

2007 will also be remembered for the dramatic Clean Energy bills enacted:

• HB 1281 doubled renewable energy standards for the state, from 10 percent to 20 percent renewable by 2020.
• HB 1037 requires utilities to launch energy-saving programs, including rebates for customers who install energy efficient lights, appliances and insulation.
• HB 1341 added environmental and public-health representatives to the historically industry-dominated Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
• HB 1298 requires state regulators to minimize the impact of oil and gas drilling on wildlife resources, while another bill requires gas companies to respect surface property rights when drilling.
• SB 100 strengthened energy transmission capacity with new incentives for utilities to invest in it.

Colorado also expanded social equality in the state by:

• Enacting a historic law, SB 025, to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.  
• Allowing "second parent" adoption via HB 1330, a particular boon to gay couples.
• Approving HB 1292, which requires public schools to maintain human sexuality curriculum standards based on scientific research.
• Requiring hospitals under the new SB 060 to inform victims of sexual assault of the availability of emergency contraception.

Both the Colorado House and Senate passed resolutions denouncing the escalation in Iraq and calling for more federal attention to domestic priorities.

The greatest lost opportunity of the year was Gov. Ritter's veto of a bill which would have increased the freedom of workers to form unions in the state, but, overall, the year marked a strongly progressive turn for Colorado.

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Increasing Democracy

Minnesota Legislative Roundup

Conversely, Minnesota showed how a governor in the pocket of monied interests can undermine a bold, progressive vision by state legislative leaders. 

As we highlighted a few weeks ago, Minnesota legislators passed a bold tax reform plan that would have funded crucial social services and cut property taxes for 90% of the state residents, paid for by raising income taxes on the wealthiest 28,000 taxpayers in the state, only to see it vetoed by Minnesota's Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Similarly, in a state that has seen no increase in money for transit since 1988, a plan for new investments in state transportation funded by a gas tax increase and new vehicle fees was also vetoed by the Governor.

This left the legislature to enact a more bare-bones budget for the state's needs. Despite the budgetary constraints, the legislature enacted a few key initiatives:

• School spending was expanded, particularly for early childhood education, although an initial goal of funding all-day kindergarten for all children will have to wait. 
• While the goal of covering all kids was not possible, the state did provide funding to expand health care coverage to over 50,000 uninsured children and adults over the next four years.  This was combined with investments in uniform billing and electronic medical records systems to hold down costs.

Where Minnesota made the largest gains was in Clean Energy programs:

• The marquee victory was establishment of the most aggressive renewable energy mandate in the country: a requirement that by 2025 all utilities in the state get a quarter of their energy from renewable sources and that, by 2020, the largest state utility achieve 30% renewable energy, with 25% coming from wind power
• The state also established a long-range goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
• Lawmakers created a statewide program for collecting and recycling computers, television and other electronic waste.

A respectable year for Minnesota, but one far short of the vision of the legislative leaders thwarted by the Governor's vetoes.

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Increasing Democracy

Hawaii Legislative Roundup

With a similar partisan divide between a Democratic legislature and Republican governor, Hawaii achieved solid progressive achievements with less rancor and friction.

With a constitutional mandate to distribute a budget surplus, Hawaii enacted a remarkably progressive rebate to its taxpayers, delivering the largest dollar amounts to its poorest citizens and restricting all rebates to those families making less than $60,000 per year.

Hawaiian businesses enjoyed a $151 million cut in unemployment insurance taxes over three years in exchange for raising unemployment benefits from 70 percent of wages to 75 percent, with additional benefits for part-time workers-- a package supported by both business and labor groups.

Hawaii, a long-time leader in health care reform, expanded its Keiki Care program to provide free health care to all uninsured children up to 300 percent of the poverty line, including eliminating monthly premium payments for immigrants. This was combined with a restoration of rate regulation for health insurers and adding $80 million to the state Medicaid system.

To fight Global Warming, Hawaiian legislators created a task force to develop a plan to reduce greenhouse gases to the 1990 level by the year 2020-- a way to bring the state in line with the goals of the Kyoto treaty.  To encourage cleaner gas and ease the burden on consumers at the pump, the state also restored an 11-cent-a-gallon ethanol tax credit.

On labor rights,  Hawaii expanded the rights of public employees to bargain over transfers from one job to another.

Despite these successes, a number of promising bills failed, including easing roadblocks to environmentally smarter development, passing a state version of the EITC, and allocating real funding for affordable housing, a chronic need in Hawaii. 

The Hawaii legislature also endorsed allocating Hawaii's electoral college votes for President according to the National Popular Vote, only to see the bill vetoed, although the bill may be saved in a subsequent special legislative session.

It was a solid performance by legislative leaders, less ambitious than many would hope but delivering real gains for the families of the state.

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