Republicans’ unethical gambit to game busing laws for charter schools»

In an unethical gambit that received scant attention at the time, a Republican colleague in the Colorado Senate amended a school busing bill with language designed to benefit charter schools at the expense of public school districts.

The original bill in 2018 (House Bill 1306) pertained to foster children, enabling them to establish some stability by busing back to their home schools, especially when the government essentially displaced them. The bill had no connection to charter schools, and it certainly had nothing to do with income disparity or integration issues, as the author of the recent column in The Denver Post would have readers believe.

As it turned out, a Denver District Court judge easily recognized the disconnect in the bill and declared the amendment illegal. Under Colorado law, a bill can address only one subject at a

time. The law prevents legislators from “logrolling” (stacking various laws on top of each other). The prohibition essentially forces a single law to stand on its own merits.

Really, Republicans should be ashamed of the tactics they used in this case. While the author of The Denver Post column would have readers believe the bill in question was sponsored by Republicans to benefit low-income and minority students, it was a bill sponsored by Democrats to benefit foster children. One Republican senator in a committee meeting slipped the disconnected language into the bill at the end of the meeting, with the threat that he would kill the bill otherwise. There was no advance notice, no one there to testify either for or against the amendment, and it all happened in less than 20 seconds.

Former Gov. John Hickenlooper supported the spirit of that pro-foster child bill in 2018, so he signed it into law, noting at the time that he couldn’t unilaterally parse out the offending language, and only the courts could do that. So they did. When the court decided that the 2018 bill was unconstitutional, it came back to the Senate for repair. My vote was to fix the bill.

I would be happy to have a debate about a new bill that forces our public schools to pay for children who want to attend a charter school out of the district. I suspect at the end of the day, I will vote against the idea. But let’s talk, and let’s do it in an appropriate, upfront manner. In the meantime, I am pleased to know that my work on this bill (co-sponsored by colleague Tammy Story) might be helping foster children to enjoy a bit more stability in their lives.