Urban-rural divide has widened, say Senate Republicans

    If you thought the rural-urban divide at the state Capitol showed signs of improvement under the previous administration, in recent weeks it’s shown new signs of blowing much further apart.
    In the past two weeks, Senate Republicans have engaged in slowdown tactics, in part because they claim Senate Democrats refuse to sit down and meaningfully negotiate over some of the issues that most divide the two parties.
    It’s a marked difference from the past four years, when divided chambers — with the Democrats in charge of the House and Republicans ruling the Senate — meant lawmakers had to work together to get anything done.
    The slowdown tactics work like this: A lawmaker has the right to ask that a bill be read at length at two points — when the bill comes up for debate by the House or Senate and when the bill is ready for its final vote in either chamber.
    It’s nothing new to see these tactics at work in the General Assembly, and the tactic goes back years. It’s something the minority party does to get the majority party’s attention. What usually happens is that once that request is made, leadership from both caucuses sit down and work out some kind of solution.
    That isn’t happening in 2019.
    On March 12, Senate Republicans took their Senate Democratic counterparts to Denver District Court, obtaining a temporary restraining order that forbid Senate Democrats from employing computer-assisted reading programs that allowed for speed-reading of a 2,023-page bill on March 11.
    On March 19, Denver District Court Judge David Goldberg granted a request for an injunction that would keep the restraining order in place until a trial on the merits can be held, although that probably won’t happen until after the session ends on May 3.
    What that means is that Senate Democrats must ensure that bill readings are intelligible and read slower than they’d been in the past.
    On March 21, with two controversial bills on the agenda (the red-flag bill and the bill on banning conversion therapy for minors), Senate Republicans began again with requesting bills be read at length, bringing the Senate to yet another standstill, albeit brief.
    The tactics underscore the frustration Senate Republicans have over how the 2019 session has been run by the Democrats, including their belief that controversial bills are being rammed through too rapidly and without constitutional protections that would allow citizens to weigh in on those issues.

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