As clock ticks, it’s time for impact
House Speaker Mark Ferrandino is determined to affect policy as his career in the legislature ends.
As his days in the Colorado legislature dwindle, Mark Ferrandino admits that there are occasions when he can’t ignore the sunset beckoning on the horizon.
“As we did the budget, I got a little emotional,” Ferrandino said recently. “And when I realize, ‘This is the last time I’m doing X,’ or ‘It’s the last time I’m doing Y,’ it gets emotional. … I’m definitely sad.”
But until he bangs his gavel for the final time onMay 7, concluding seven years in the legislature, the last two as House speaker, Ferrandino seems determined to plant a long-lasting imprimatur on Colorado law. Twoweeks ago, he presented a bill on college funding that threatened to turn the higher education community onits head. Lastweek, he co-sponsored a bill allowing citizens to testify before the legislature fromremote locations and another regarding regional tourism. He’s also hoping to introduce ameasure intended to help secure retirement funds for citizens.
“I’ve had so many other things to deal with and get in order. Now I can focus on the legislation,” he said. “I’ve always been a policy person, and given an opportunity to have an impact on policy, I’m going to take it. This is my last opportunity, so the question is, howdo I have the most impact in the last days of the session?”
While Ferrandino says most of his final acts aren’t controversial, that wasn’t the case with his push to change how colleges and universities receive their money from the state. Traditionally, the schools have met with the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and decided howto slice the multimillion-dollar pie.
Ferrandino’s bill called for the money to be allotted based on a university’s performance in a number of metrics like graduation rates and helping at-risk and underrepresented students succeed.
To say that the schools, and higher-ed officials, were taken aback would be an understatement. There was immediate pushback from both the education commission and Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia, who’s also the executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Since then, Garcia said, “There’s been a healthy give-and-take with the speaker and we sharemany of the samevalues. At the end of the day, his proposal will have to be measured by the impact it has on tuition rates and how it improves outcomes for Colorado’s students.”
The disagreement is fine with Ferrandino, who admits that he’s less interested in ramming a bill through the legislature than ensuring that a meaningful discussion — and change— takes place.
“I took the feedback from the institutions and the lieutenant governor, and I’m trying to improve the bill to address the concerns,” Ferrandino said. “I always knew when I introduced the bill that itwas a very significant change that wasn’t going to be where we ended up. But it got everyone’s attention so we could all come to the table and talk, and I thinkwe’ll get a better product in the end.”
Ferrandino insists that he hasn’t been sitting in his office trying to come up with as muchlegislation as he can beforewalkingout the door. When he introduced the higher-ed bill, for example, he said college funding has been a concern of his for at least five years. The other projects, he continues, have been in various stages of development since the start of the session.
Even so, the furious pace of Ferrandino’s actions, coming through such a rapidly closing window, is amarked contrast to his predecessor as speaker, FrankMcNulty.
McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, admits that many of the policy issues that were dear to him, college affordability and access for veterans and water rights for the environment, were accomplished over the length of his two-year tenure.
“I always said I would set aside my personal priorities for the good of the caucus and the House; that if I was injecting those into the debate, people would questionmy work and the work we were doing as a whole,” McNulty said. “But different leaders do things in different ways, and this is his way.”
Over the last couple ofweeks, Ferrandino has joked that his colleagues in the House are making bets about how much he’ll cry on his final day. And while he doesn’t deny that the waterworks may be in full flow, there’s also the sense that his departurewill be accompanied by a sense of relief.
Recently, the House paid tribute to former legislator Carl “Bev” Bledsoe, who served as speaker for 10 years. Sitting in his office, Ferrandino flatly stated that even without term limits, such a run would be impossible in this day and age.
“Speaker is a tough job; it’s very taxing, very stressful — just ask my husband,” he said. “I don’t know if someone can be speaker for more than two years, with the amount of attention fromTwitter and Facebook and social media, the pace of everything in a growing state with all its needs.
“Yes, this is the best job I’ve ever had and probably the best job I will ever have, but even so, I’m looking forward to having a little more relaxing life.”