Governor won’t call special session this year

There will be no special session of the Colorado legislature this year.

Gov. John Hickenlooper on Friday said he will not call lawmakers to return to the state Capitol in coming months to hammer out a deal for more money to fix and widen the state’s roads, among other topics.

“The political landscape hasn’t shifted,” Hickenlooper said during a news conference at the Capitol, putting to rest a week of speculation.

During the legislative session, a Republican-led Senate committee blocked a measure — sponsored by a bipartisan coalition of legislative leaders and supported by the governor — that would have asked voters for a 0.5 percentage-point increase in the state sales tax. It could have generated $3.5 billion for roads.

After the session ended last week, Hickenlooper announced he was considering calling a special session to deal with a slew of unfinished business.

He said lawmakers didn’t do enough to fund transportation, and he chastised the state Senate for killing a series of health care reform measures. He also blamed both sides for their failure to salvage the Colorado Energy Office from its statutory expiration date. Nevertheless, Hickenlooper called it “the most productive legislative session” since he took office.

Hickenlooper on Friday said he spoke with a number of stakeholders from both parties over the past nine days to assess whether the legislature could get anything else done. He said he still has “real concerns” about infrastructure. “We received only a fraction of the money we really need for transportation,” he said.

Senate President Kevin Grantham said he never heard from Hickenlooper on the issue.

“He wasn’t talking to anybody,” the Cañon City Republican said after Hickenlooper’s announcement. “We didn’t get any rationale. Right after we said no, he kept talking about it. … I’m glad this was the end.”

Legislators passed a farreaching spending measure during the session that included raising $1.9 billion for roads by mortgaging state buildings. A separate, Republican effort to issue $3.5 billion in bonds for transportation projects, funded by existing sales-tax revenues, was unsuccessful.

There are several initiatives in the works or being considered for the November ballot to boost roads funding in Colorado.

House Speaker Crisanta Duran, a Denver Democrat, said Friday that she supported an extra session if there was hope for progress.

“If there could be a different outcome, I think it would have been time well spent,” she said.

Duran said she will be “looking closely” at ballot initiatives for roads but was noncommittal on what she would support.