Highlighting ongoing concerns about rancor and disrespectful behavior at the state Capitol, top Colorado lawmakers opened the 2024 legislative session Wednesday focusing as much on civility as on their policy priorities.
“The people who work here, serve here and visit here all deserve to be treated with dignity and respect at all times,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, said in an opening day speech. “What we see at the national level with partisan politics and personal attacks is not what we want to see in Colorado.”
The tone was a marked departure from the typical opening day of the General Assembly, which is usually dominated by optimistic promises to fulfill lengthy legislative agendas. Instead, McCluskie began her address channeling Ted Lasso — the title character of the feel-good Apple TV soccer comedy — in a call for lawmakers to be kind to one another after two Democrats resigned in December, citing a toxic work environment.
The time McCluskie dedicated in her speech to addressing the Capitol culture instead of the Democratic majority’s policy agenda is an acknowledgement of how the two have become intertwined. If the legislature becomes embroiled in interpersonal controversies, some fear that could threaten the General Assembly’s ability to accomplish its priorities.
McCluskie said House Democratic leaders are developing new guidelines for lawmakers when they speak at the House podium. That comes in response to offensive remarks and interruptions that plagued the chamber last year during the regular lawmaking term and during the special legislative session.
Her Republican counterpart, Minority Leader Mike Lynch, echoed McCluskie’s remarks.
“We’re not going to agree. We are going to vigorously defend our differing opinions,” said Lynch, R-Wellington. “May we also never forget we are colleagues and individuals with way more in common as humans and Americans than we have differences as members of a political party.”
Earlier in the week, McCluskie sent a letter formally reprimanding a member of her own caucus, state Rep. Elisabeth Epps, for joining pro-Palestinian protestors in the House gallery and shouting at other lawmakers as they spoke at the podium on the final day of the special legislative session in November. The letter was in addition to McCluskie’s decision in December to remove Epps from the House Judiciary Committee, one of the most prestigious panels in the legislature, after the special session in response to the Denver Democrat’s behavior.
Protestors of the Israel-Hamas war briefly interrupted Wednesday’s proceedings, as well. After chants criticizing U.S. funding of the war, which has led to thousands of civilian deaths, they were escorted from the House gallery by security without incident.
Epps showed little sign of backing down in the new year. She fired off a series of tweets criticizing McCluskie and House Democrats for turning off the chamber’s public video feed when a recess was called to disperse the protest.
“Stop silencing dissent!!!” Epps wrote on social media. “It is the people’s House and the people of Colorado deserve to watch you go all out to silence dissent. SHAMEFUL.”
Epps was a notable absence from the chamber Wednesday. She was one of two representatives who attended virtually — the other who is soon to have a baby — and went on to send leadership a message of her own by voting against a procedural measure authorizing Thursday’s joint session of the General Assembly for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’ State of the State address.
In the Senate, where verbal scuffles — both intraparty and between Democrats and Republicans — have been less of an issue in recent years, Senate President Steve Fenberg also focused his opening day remarks on Capitol civility.
“We must resist the urge to be performers,” the Boulder Democrat said. “We must remind ourselves that to be a caretaker of this institution, we need to legislate for constituents, not for Twitter.”
Fenberg, who is beginning his last year as a senator before he is term-limited, urged the chamber to take the long view.
“If this place was only a vessel for the populism of the day that swings with the blowing winds of trends and slogans, the pendulum would eventually swing off its hinge,” he said. “It would result in the erosion of an institution — of democracy. Perhaps even civil order itself.”
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, R-Monument, said in his opening day speech that “decorum is fundamental to the success of our work.”
“We must be able to bring disparate and conflicting ideas together in a way that is rich in the values of the Senate and equally rich and respectful process and the people with whom we engage in that process,” Lundeen said.
The legislative leaders’ speeches weren’t totally devoid of policy.
Democrats reiterated their support for a slate of housing measures aimed at increasing supply and promoting affordability, particularly near transit stops. They also called for measures to reduce gun violence, boost mental health access for kids, conserve water and crack down on pollution.
Fenberg and McCluskie also endorsed a study of systemic racial disparities in Colorado, a nod to a top priority of the legislature’s Democratic Black Caucus.
“While we cannot right the wrongs of the past, we can learn and strive to eliminate the health, education and economic disparities that continue to harm people of color in our state,” McCluskie said.
Republicans acknowledged they have little power over legislation, particularly in the House where Democrats have a supermajority. Seizing on the theme of the day, Lynch reminded Democrats that respectfulness extends to constituents, too — even the ones who didn’t vote for them.
“I ask only one thing,” Lynch said. “Please let those (conservative) voices be heard.”
The legislative session runs through May 8.