Scott Renfroe

Principled Conservative Leadership

 
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At the Capitol

I Need Your Help: Ban the Sale of Pornography to Minors

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April 31, 2009

You probably haven’t heard that Colorado is 1 of 7 states where it is still legal to sell pornography to minors. Not only is this glaring omission from our law immoral, I have heard testimony from law enforcement that sexual predators use pornography to lure minors. This loophole puts our kids at risk.

My Republican colleagues in the Senate have been trying to outlaw this practice for years. It looks like our chance to ban this deplorable practice has finally come, and I need your help.

The Senate Republicans were able to amend House Bill 1162, Crimes Against a Child, to include a ban on selling pornography to minors. The Democrats do not want this amendment to pass, and will strip it from the bill if they get another opportunity to amend it in a conference committee.

If the House votes to concur with the Senate amendments, the bill will pass in its current form and selling pornography to minors will be outlawed as soon as the Governor signs the bill. But if the House votes not to concur with the Senate amendments, a conference committee will be called where the bill can quietly be amended back to its original, weaker form.

It is crucial that the House votes to concur with Senate amendments. Please write the Representatives and urge them to concur with Senate amendments on House Bill 1163, Crimes Against a Child, especially the Harvey amendment that outlaws the sale of pornography to minors.

Harvey’s amendment is structured so that it will not cost the state money. The Democrats have no excuse for voting against this amendment: please let them know how important this is to you right away. They could vote on HB 1163 as early as this afternoon.

Thanks for your help,

Scott W. Renfroe
 
E-mail addresses of State House members:
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Week of April 17

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Capitol Tea Party

The Colorado State Capitol was flooded with about seven thousand protestors on tax day, April 15th. The attendees advocated not just lower taxes, but lower spending, smaller government, and balanced budgets – the things I fight for every day in the Senate.

It was very encouraging to see such a great turnout: while the legislature is in session, it’s easy to get burdened with the Democrat doublespeak about redistributing wealth and raising taxes and forget that so many Coloradans still stand for freedom and personal responsibility.

This Saturday, Greeley will host a Tea Party of its own in Bittersweet Park from 11 am – 2 pm. I hope to see you there!

Budget Plan Looking Better

At the end of last week, the Senate passed a budget which hinged on an illegal seizure of $500 million from a private insurance company, Pinnacol. Although the seizure was both unpopular and illegal, the Democrats pushed ahead with the plan at the behest of Governor Ritter.

The budget bill then progressed to the House. The Governor shot the Pinncaol seizure idea down almost as soon as the House started debating the bill, saying that he would not support the seizure of Pinnacol’s money – even though it was his idea to begin with.

The House, faced with rewriting the entire budget, decided to repeal about $255 million in tax breaks and make $77 million in cuts. The drastic $300 million cut to higher education is now off the table, as well as the private asset seizure – for the most part.

The asset seizure would have been accomplished by passing two separate bills: one to put the company under state control, and the second to take its money. The bill to seize the money failed, but the measure to put the state in control of Pinnacol passed late this week.

The Democrat majority has also approved a study committee to investigate how Pinnacol has managed its premiums and served the businesses who buy their insurance. As a small business owner who buys workers’ comp insurance from Pinnacol, I can assure you that their business practices meet the highest business and ethical standards. But the purpose of this study committee isn’t to conduct a fair evaluation of the business: it’s a witch hunt. Once this study committee reaches its predetermined conclusion of bad business practices, the Democrats will have manufactured the moral authority they need to seize the $500 million in assets.

The saddest part of this charade is that the 68,000 business owners who use Pinnacol – as well as their employees – will ultimately lose out when the company is put back under state control. Several decades ago, Colorado’s government controlled PInncaol – and ran it into the ground. They privatized the company to rid of the responsibility of shouldering annual losses. Pinnacol has since thrived in the private sector, building up $2 billion in reserves for its policyholders, lowering premium rates, and reducing workplace accidents. It’s a shame that all these gains will be reversed to assuage the Democrats’ insatiable appetite to spend. 

Second Amendment Victory 

This morning, the Senate finally passed a bill to exempt concealed carry permit holders from undergoing a background check when purchasing a weapon on a 22-13 vote. Not only does this bill reinforce our second amendment right, it will cut down the workload at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and speed up the background check process for others who buy weapons.

This bill has been delayed for months as the Democrats tried to figure out how to kill it while incurring the smallest possible amount of political blowback. Today Senator Newell put an amendment on the bill that gave it a small fiscal impact in the hopes that she could send it back to the Appropriations Committee and kill it quietly. However, the Democrats could not figure out how to send the bill back – Parliamentary Procedure can be tricky, and apparently no Democrat knowledgeable about the process was willing to kill the bill.

This bill, sponsored by my Republican colleague Senator Brophy, must pass a final concurrence vote in the House before it is sent to Governor Ritter.

Three Democrats Moving On

Three Democrat Senators have announced that this will be their last year in the legislature. Senate President Peter Groff accepted a position overseeing education and faith-based initiatives in the Obama administration. Although I disagree with Senator Groff on most issues, he has been a great advocate for school choice, and he will be a great asset to the President’s team.

Senator Veiga will be moving to Australia with her partner, and Senator Isgar will be taking a job in the Federal Department of Natural Resources.

The Senate Democrats will lose some of their most knowledgeable members on education policy and water law.

 

Week of April 10

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Colorado Taxpayers Deserve Better  

The Colorado General Assembly is working on the state’s budget for next year.  This has been an incredibly frustrating process.   At the state capitol, we are over one billion dollars short of expected tax revenues and Democrats are mainly looking for ways to increase revenue instead of reducing spending.   I have great concerns with this budget because it relies heavily on one-time money to meet the shortfall and this will only magnify the problem in the next budget process. 

The Joint Budget Committee’s (JBC) initial proposal for handling the budget shortfall is to increase tax revenue by eliminating the homestead tax credit to senior citizens and eliminate vendor fees for sales tax collections, basically raising taxes on all retail stores.   The JBC budget also will rob 25 different cash funds of about $250 million.  The budget also proposes a crude cut of $423 million to the state’s universities and community colleges.  Amazingly, the budget has an increase in state employees.

Higher education is being held hostage in this budget to allow Democrats to move quickly after a “new” money source to “save” higher education.  Their solution centers on seizing business assets from Pinnacol Assurance.  The state government is going to take $500 million from 58,000 policy holders who have paid premiums to Pinnacol for workers’ compensation insurance. 

Before the state seizes the assets, current state law must be changed.  Here is what state law said in regards to Pinnacol’s assets.  Section 8-45-102 (5) C.R.S. “…All revenues, moneys, and assets of Pinnacol Assurance belong solely to Pinnacol Assurance.  The state of Colorado has no claim to nor any interest in such revenues, moneys, and assets and shall not borrow, appropriate, or direct payments from such revenues, moneys, and assets for any purpose.”  What part of this is unclear?  Democrats deleted this section of law in order to accomplish their scheme.

The Attorney General has said the Pinnacol funds are not assets of the state and seizing the money would violate the Colorado Constitution.  The CEO of Pinnacol said “Pinnacol policyholders have a vested right to the funds and Pinnacol has a fiduciary responsibility to hold those assets in trust for them.” 

Senate Majority Leader, Brandon Shaffer (D), calls the budget “…more than just a set of numbers; it’s a moral statement reflecting our values.”  Sometimes I sit at my desk on the Senate floor and just shake my head in disbelief.   What values?  We are going to pass a budget that relies on changing state law to allow the seizing of private assets. 

Attempts to confiscate Pinnacol’s assets will lead to lawsuits.  Lawsuits will delay the state from seizing funds, forcing massive cuts on higher education.  This will have devastating impacts on our colleges with the full weight of the cuts on the backs of college students.  Tuition will potentially increase by 34% and possibly 12 colleges will close.

 Senate Republicans disagreed with the Governor and JBC’s proposal to slash higher education, and spent days poring over the budget, line by line, looking for places to cut back. The Republicans agreed to spread spending cuts across all departments instead of singling out higher education for the full cut. I also carried an amendment to restore the senior citizen homestead tax exemption, it failed. 

The next few weeks will be full of tough choices.  This budget is truly built on sand and not with a solid foundation.  At times when citizens are losing jobs and making extreme sacrifices, government owes it to the people of Colorado, the taxpayers, to step up and make the difficult cuts.

Senate Approves Pinnacol Asset Seizure

This afternoon the Senate voted 18-15 to seize Pinnacol and its assets. The vote was divided on party lines -- Democrats in favor; Republicans against. Two Democrats (Dan Gibbs and Paula Sandoval) broke from their party to vote no, and one Republican (Al White) voted in favor of the plan.

 
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