Budget business as usual? Not if GOP can help it
By Charles Ashby 
| July 30, 2009 | 5:01 AM
Mike May is mad as hell at the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, and he’s not going to take it anymore.
The leader of the Republican minority in the Colorado House is fed up with the so-called powerful JBC, which drafts the state’s annual spending plan, saying its three senators and three representatives expect the rest of the 100-member legislature to approve their bills dutifully without thought or question.
That’s why May plans to do something he says no one has done in recent memory: send a new member to the Legislative Services Building across 14th Street from the state Capitol — where the JBC offices are located — who won’t “drink the JBC Kool-Aid” and expect other legislators to rubber-stamp their work.
“I’m looking for change. Yeah, that ole’ hokey change thing,” May said with a snicker. “The JBC has become kind of interesting of late in the number of nontraditional budget bills that they get involved with, like somehow they put their stamp on it and the rest of the legislature bows down like the Hallelujah chorus.”
May got the chance to name a new member to the JBC after Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, stepped down from his House seat to accept an appointment from Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter as head of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. May expects to name someone in the next couple weeks.
Marostica, who hadn’t served on the JBC for very long, quickly became known as the go-to guy to say the most outrageous things, particularly to the ears of fellow Republican. During last year’s session, over talks about creating a rainy-day fund that called for no actual money, a bill proposed by Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, Marostica upset his GOP colleagues when he compared that bill to wetting the bed.
“It feels really good when you’re doing it,” Marostica said in a open committee hearing on the bill. “It’s very, very warm, and you lay there and you feel good, but in the morning you’ve got to get up.”
While those in the committee room got a good laugh, Gardner, who’s vying for U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey’s congressional seat, was none too happy to see his measure die.
‘I don’t like feeling manipulated’
May had appointed Marostica to the panel, but this time he wants his caucus’s representative to be different, someone who respects the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and doesn’t come away with an attitude that everything the JBC does is gold. While the panel is evenly split between the House and Senate, it isn’t among the parties. The majority party, in this case the Democrats, have four seats (two representatives and two senators), and the Republicans have only one from each chamber.
“What I’m more interested in is somebody that sits on there and represents the citizens, as opposed to government,” May said. “I want somebody who respects TABOR, particularly as we move forward. I was pleased to see the governor’s comments on sticking to making cuts and not raising taxes and fees like we did last year. That’s what I want to make certain of.”
May said the JBC used stunts last session to try to get the legislature to approve what he saw as bad ideas, such as transferring up to $500 million held by Pinnacol Assurance, a state-chartered worker’s compensation fund, to help balance the budget. At the time, Democrats said it was taxpayer money that was going unused and said it was either that option or cut higher education by hundreds of millions, which likely would have resulted in the closing of some schools.
In the end, the idea was rejected, but not before it created a brouhaha of epic proportions.
“I don’t like feeling manipulated,” May said. “Everyone knew they were positioning for something else, and that didn’t sit well with me. I want a more straight-up attitude, that’s why I expect I’m going to appoint the first truly fiscal conservative to the JBC in a long, long time.”
Get ready to rumble, because that will shake things up across the street. The JBC likes to think of itself as being a nonpartisan panel that considers state revenues and spending without looking through the lens of the politics that affect everything else under the golden dome.
Sen. Maryanne Keller, D-Wheat Ridge and JBC chairwoman, said she’ll be greatly disappointed if May’s appointee comes only to disrupt. She said the panel is used to working as a team and has not seen a time when one member goes his or her own way.
“We have not politicized the Joint Budget Committee, and if that is the Republicans’ agenda, that’s very unfortunate for everybody,” Keller said. “We don’t have the luxury to play games. We have to work as a team to balance the budget and present a product that is sound to everybody.
“If the person coming over is not with us, the rest of us will just work as we traditionally have done,” she added. “I’m sorry that they’re going to waste the position if that’s the case.”
Historically, many of the 94 other lawmakers, particularly those in the minority party, have criticized how the JBC functions. When the six are presenting the budget to the rest of the legislature, it’s understood — and forgiven — that the minority members of the JBC will stick with the rest of the panel even if one party or the other opposes them on changes to it. At the same time, a number of Republicans routinely vote against the annual budget bill no matter what’s in it. Keller fears one of them will end up on the JBC.
Of ‘star chambers’ and taxes
Two possible candidates whose names have come up are Reps. Glenn Vaad, R-Mead, and Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs. Both consider themselves fiscal conservatives and TABOR defenders. While May confirmed that Vaad isn’t on his “short list” of three or four contenders, he was silent on others.
In an interview, Lambert — who in the three sessions he’s served has yet to vote in favor of a budget bill — repeated some of the same catchphrases uttered by May. They both called the JBC a “star chamber.” They both said TABOR needs to be defended before the panel. They both said the JBC likes to operate with little accountability.
“Whoever it’s going to be, you can pretty much take all of that to the bank,” Lambert said of the qualifications for the House appointee. “He’s looking at a couple of different people and going through an interview process. I fit those qualifications. Whomever Mike selects is going to more in the mainstream of the caucus.”
Like May, Lambert said the JBC seems to be acting as a “legislature within the legislature’’ and has gone far beyond its mandate of carrying budget-only bills. Next session, for example, the JBC is expected to consider getting rid of some tax credits as a way of helping increase revenues in the face of a $385 million shortfall. Democrats have interpreted a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision over budget matters as justification that it can legally do away with them, but Republicans such as Lambert and May say that would be unconstitutional under TABOR.
“For the JBC driving that and going beyond the budget and raising revenue that even the legislature doesn’t have the authority to do, yeah, that’s probably beyond their scope of their authority,” Lambert said. “If it’s not part of the budget or the supplemental bills of the School Finance Act, why would we allow the JBC to do that or even sponsor such a bill?”
Keller said that often a recently appointed JBC member comes over with a certain ideological attitude that quickly dissipates as he or she gets a better understanding of how the budget works, particularly when faced with such drastic cuts as the JBC faced this year, and will again when the legislature meets in January. She hopes that continues but now fears it may not.
“This isn’t ideology, this is serious. We have real reasons why we carry bills. Usually people come to the center,” she said. “The thing that makes me the most angry is that when it came to making the hard choices, the Republicans weren’t there. I’m properly bitter about that because it’s all talk and no action. I don’t know how we get out of this next round, they’re probably going to vote no again. I resent it. You have to be a player.
“If the intention of the individual who is coming over is to disrupt the process for no productive gain for the citizens of the state, it will be obvious pretty early on,” she added. “I don’t think that person will get the accolades he thinks he’s going to get.”
colorado, don marostica, joint budget committee, legislature, maryanne keller, mike may, politics
