Colorado: Al White

Conservative blogger and columnist Ari Armstrong says state Sen. Scott Renfroe should resign and calls on the state GOP to “publicly condemn” the Greeley Republican for his remarks comparing homosexuality to murder during a debate over a bill to extend health benefits to same-sex partners of state employees.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Armstrong writes in his FreeColorado.com blog, “and it’s also the prudent political move, if the GOP wishes to be taken seriously as a political force in Colorado.”

Renfroe quoted scripture, including a passage that says gay men have “committed a detestable act and they shall surely be put to death,” on the Senate floor Monday before an initial vote on SB 88, which passed 22-12 the next day.

I'm hearing rumors that Josh Penry is pressuring Al White to remove his name from a bill to undo the Arveschoug-Bird amendment. I don't know if the bill has been introduced yet or if it will be some time soon, but I hope for the sake of moderates in my party that White will hold strong. Kudos to White for signing on in the first place.

If Penry really is whipping his caucus this hard, then he is no different from the extremist Congressional Republicans: both Penry and the federal Rs seem to have decided that bipartisanship undermines their message discipline, and therefore is unacceptable (regardless of a bill's merits).

Not sounding quite as conciliatory as his state Senate Republican colleague Al White, R-Hayden, minority leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel Tuesday he’ll do everything in his power to slow down FASTER.

That’s the name of a proposal by Sen. Dan Gibbs, D-Silverthorne, to up vehicle registration fees $32 a year to raise more than $200 million for road and bridge fixes around the state. FASTER stands for Funding Advancement for Surface Transportation and Economic Recovery.

SB 108 passed out of committee on a 6-4 party-line vote Tuesday and will now be debated by the full Senate.

Penry told the Daily Sentinel the battle is shaping up because Democrats have refused to accept any compromises offered by Republicans to reduce the fees in a time of economic hardship.

From GOP propaganda "news" site Coloradosenatenews.com:
This week's debut features GOP Senate Whip Nancy Spence, of Centennial, urging the General Assembly not to cut the state's property tax homestead exemption for senior citizens. Spence tells viewers that the exemption, which can offer substantial property-tax savings to seniors who have lived in their current homes at least 10 years, "is one way Colorado recognizes the contributions of its many senior citizens over the years."

"Suspending or repealing that important allowance in state law would be an insult to the very Coloradans who have done so much for our state," Spence says in the video.

Sounds really compelling, doesn't it? Problem is that reduction of the homestead exemption has been done before, in 2003--in a budget compromise that Nancy Spence voted for.