DENVER – Sen. Ellen Roberts, a Republican from Durango, said a large part of her party’s business agenda this year will be to ease regulatory burdens pushed by Democrats when they were in the majority.
Roberts will serve as Senate president pro tempore when the Legislature convenes Wednesday. She will take over after Republicans took back control of the Senate last November after Democrats controlled the chamber for a decade.
Roberts spoke along with other legislative leaders at an event Monday morning in Denver hosted by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and other business interests.
“I feel that many of the things that happened in the last eight years at the Capitol were very well-intentioned,” Roberts said, referring to her time serving as a lawmaker. “While I honor my Democratic colleagues, there were many things that happened in the last eight years that I absolutely did not support happening, particularly in our very difficult economic times.”
The GOP has criticized Colorado Democrats for suspending or eliminating tax breaks for businesses and making it easier to sue employers in discrimination cases, among other issues.
Rather than new regulations and using tax dollars to create new programs, Roberts said the focus of the Legislature this year should be utilizing existing resources.
She suggested that revenue from taxes collected from the gas and oil industry should be applied to critical needs, such as building water infrastructure. Roberts also said it was a mistake to expand programs like Medicaid during down economic times.
She applied the issue to a task force meeting to recommend measures governing the gas and oil industry, including potentially giving local governments more control.
“There have been so many new laws and regulations put in place that this is indeed a highly regulated industry,” Roberts said. “We jammed the toolbox full of all sorts of things.”
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Morgan Carroll of Aurora – who will be demoted from president to minority leader come Wednesday – said economic recovery under the leadership of Democrats has been strong. She pointed to an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, and Colorado having one of the fastest-growing economies in the country.
But Carroll acknowledged that while recovery has been strong in the Denver-metro region, lackluster growth remains problematic in rural parts of the state.
“It’s been an uneven recovery, and what we would like to focus on is making sure that our economy is working for everybody,” Carroll said.
She pointed to assisting displaced workers, expanding job training and addressing student debt, as possible solutions.
In the House, Democrats held the majority, but lost three seats.
Incoming House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder said the election this past November will force bipartisan partnerships, especially on economic recovery for rural Colorado.
“The broad middle class, that needs to be the top priority of this session, and probably the next session, to ensure that the broad middle benefits from this economic upturn,” Hullinghorst said.
One issue that is likely to be debated this year related to the middle class is construction-defects lawsuits, a topic tied to affordable housing. Lawmakers are expected to resurrect an effort to curb lawsuits related to defective construction of condo developments.
But the two Democrats who spoke Monday cautioned against thinking that lawsuits are the only reason there is a shortage of affordable housing in Colorado.
“It has to be addressed from the perspective of a comprehensive look at what this problem really is,” Hullinghorst said.
From the House Republican perspective, Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso of Loveland said the best thing his caucus can do for development and the economy is to allow businesses to prosper.
“Colorado is one of the best places in the country to do business,” he said. “Our agenda is to not screw that up, and that should be the agenda for the entire Legislature.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
