Colorado: Larry Liston

Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, served as the acting speaker for much of the floor action Tuesday afternoon. After a couple hours of debate, Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, walked to the podium and recognized McFadyen:

"Madame Speaker au jus," he said.

Au jus is French for "in its own juice" and refers to food.

Liston meant du jour, which is French for "of the day."

TRUTH SPOKEN HERE

"The real perk in the job isn't the title, rather it's the good parking spot next to the Capitol. It's really crowded up here in Denver - that parking spot pays off!"

Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, having some fun in his electronic newsletter after the House speaker insisted lawmakers be called by their titles, not their first names

OLD-TIME RELIGION

UNDER THE DOME

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, opened the Colorado House on Tuesday with a reading from the Rig Veda, the oldest scripture still in common use.

A House committee Wednesday killed a proposal to give tax credits to Coloradans building new homes but approved a measure giving incentives to out-of-state filmmakers.

Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, told the House Finance Committee his bill was needed to jump-start home construction in Colorado. The bill would have given a tax credit to people who buy homes to be built in 2010.

The bill called for a credit worth 3 percent of the purchase price of the home, up to a maximum of $10,000.

Liston said the number of housing-construction starts in Colorado had fallen from a high of 40,000 in 2005 to fewer than 8,500 last year.

Saturday, Feb 7th was a long but rewarding day for the long list of candidates running for the multiple leadership positions within the El Paso County GOP.

The race pitted two slates of candidates against each other; both with legitimate claims to the office they were seeking.  As a recap: (in order of ballot appearance)

Chair:
Kay Rendleman-Former Reagan staffer and former Chair of the Napa County GOP, and former California campaign operative.  She also managed all three of Kent Lambert's House District campaigns.

Cami Bremer-American Heart Association fund raiser, former GOP field director and campaign manager for Duncan Bremer's (father in law) Congressional campaign, and Larry Liston's 2008 re-election campaign.

We're told it had to be seen to be fully appreciated, as the Rocky Mountain News reports:
Shaking and crying, Don Johnson turned to the lawmakers in front of him, produced an urn holding his daughter's ashes and begged them to pass a bill mandating carbon monoxide detectors in new homes and apartments.

"This is my daughter today!" he screamed. "That's all that's left of her!"

"And what's the difference? What's the difference? There it is. Twenty bucks," he said, holding up a bill to show what it would have cost for a detector that could have saved his daughter's life...

The appeals appear to have swayed at least some skeptics of the bill and assured its passage to the House floor.