Wednesday, January 9, 2008, the second half of the 66th General Assembly will take up at 10:00 am. By law, we will work in session for 120 days, adjourning sine die on May 7.
There are 15 Republicans and 20 Democrats in the state senate. In the state house, there are 25 Republican members and 40 Democrats.

Of all that we can anticipate for this legislative session, the biggest development may turn out to be something that does NOT happen . . . Enactment of a radical new health-care system. Certainly, we will not pass any of the major recommendations coming out of the 208 Commission, a panel that has been studying health-care reform for the past year. As the Denver Post noted in a Dec. 5 editorial: “It would be foolish to spend billions re-inventing Colorado’s health care system root and branch next year without knowing what the next president may propose in 2009.”

We can expect real bipartisan cooperation on education reform, which is a particular interest of mine. Senate President-elect Groff has proposed granting schools waivers from regulations and union contracts so they have the flexibility to hire faculty and develop curriculum they need to help their students. Republicans like his proposal.

Republicans are hopeful about winning bipartisan backing for proposals like my bill to fund performance pay for our best and brightest teachers – an idea in the governor’s Colorado Promise.

Colorado is falling behind in preparing high school graduates for college and work. Colorado is one of the few states that have no statewide, basic curriculum standard for high school graduation. We will again push for statewide graduation standards.

We will continue to support and strengthen charter schools and online education programs that now serve thousands of Colorado’s school children. We will not allow the legislature to roll back the tremendous strides we have made in recent years in public school choice.

You can also expect a determined bid by Republicans to repeal the governor’s executive order to expand union membership in state personnel ranks – and to bar strikes by public employees. I will be sponsoring that bill, too.

The governor’s Transportation Finance and Implementation Panel has conducted a series of meetings throughout the state. Their mission was to bring together a broad range of stakeholders to identify long-term sustainable transportation programs and funding options. In the 2008 legislative session, we will consider their funding strategies and evaluate various options.

And, finally we will examine Colorado’s fiscal prospects after Ref. C, which allowed us to avoid additional cuts and restore some of the services cut during the economic downturn in the early 2000’s.