Party-line votes, led by House Democrats, killed the bill. It had been previously approved May 6 by the Senate on a 19-16 vote.
Dubbed the Fix Colorado Roads Act, the bill would have allowed Colorado voters to allow the state to issue transportation revenue anticipation notes, referred to as TRANs, in a maximum principal amount up to $3.5 billion. State voters approved a similar action in 1999 for TRANs up to $1.7 billion.
Sen. Randy Baumgardner (R-Hot Sulphur Springs) sponsored the bill in the Senate.
“It’s just unfortunate to see politics and personal agendas sidetrack something that was designed to deal in a statewide way with a problem that every Coloradan wants addressed,” Baumgardner says. “Defeat of this bill means we’re still stuck doing nothing for the people of Colorado, because people down here make it all about what’s under the Golden Dome. They made it a partisan issue, again, and people of the state of Colorado lose, again.”
House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso (R-Loveland) said the issue was disconcerting due to the universal agreement regarding transportation funding.
“Every year I have been in the legislature, I have heard how dire the needs of our state transportation system have become, yet even when we addressed the Democrats’ concerns from last year they still rejected this legislation,” says DelGrosso. “It’s frustrating to hear House Democrat leadership start and end the session talking about the need for more transportation funding, but when it comes to supporting viable solution, they can’t get around their partisanship—Coloradans deserve better and politics is not an acceptable excuse for failing to support this legislation.”
