In-State Tuition, Honoring Veterans, Cutting Taxes

In the interest of keeping this update as brief as possible, I’ll dive right in:

In-state tuition for illegal immigrants (SB 170)

In a surprise move, Dems pushed up the date of the committee hearing on this bill because Sen. Ted Harvey, a critical Republican vote, had to leave town to attend to his father-in-law who has Alzheimer’s. Read about the sneak attack in the Denver Post here. As expected, the chairman did not support my motion to delay the vote so our member could return, so we were down a vote, which meant the bill will come to the full senate. I laid out key parts of the case against it during committee debate here, and for part two, here.

Also, it was revealed in committee that the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) is in full support of the bill. The problem with this is that when the senate education committee confirmed the Executive Director two years ago, I asked the appointee, David Skaggs, to tell the committee his position on providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. He said that, “only legal residents or [U.S.] citizens are entitled to in-state treatment in the state system, so I think we’re going to follow the law.”

I sent the Director a letter asking him to clarify his position. I’d be interested to know why a gubernatorial appointee, who essentially said under his watch that CCHE would not advocate for a change in law -- but just follow the law of the state -- has now allowed the Commission to do just the opposite under his watch.


Honoring Danny Dietz

Remember Navy SEAL Danny Dietz, the Littleton hero who gave his life in service to his country on a remote Afghani mountainside in 2005? It was an honor to designate a portion of the state highway that runs through his old neighborhood (State Highway 85, Santa Fe) as the Navy SEAL Danny Dietz memorial highway. A copy of the resolution which describes his amazing story can be viewed here.


Honoring War on Terror Fallen Heroes

After two years of complete inactivity on the part of the chairman of the government board appointed to honor our state’s fallen sons, I called for the ouster of the chairman. The story is here. I hope we can get it back on track.


Business Tax Cut (SB 37)

The bill cleared the final hurdle in the senate this week with a unanimous vote and is now headed to the house. It will save CO businesses at least $10M this next year. The Denver Post wrote about it here.


By the way, if you would like to listen to the debate between Senator Romer and myself, you can find that on my Facebook page here.