Dems’ conflicting stances boil over
Legislation latest flashpoint in stark divide between House, Senate over crime issues
Long-simmering tensions between some Colorado House and Senate Democrats boiled out into public this month when Sen. Dylan Roberts accused the lower chamber of continually undermining “pro-victim” legislation.
At hand was a bill to strengthen laws against human trafficking. The Senate version sought to classify the crime as automatically violent, which would make it subject to tougher sentencing guidelines. House lawmakers narrowed that provision and inserted language that would allow victims who later were drawn into trafficking to better defend themselves in court.
For Roberts, the change was an acute example of ideological maneuvering by a key House committee. For him, the broader language made the punishment commensurate with the “heinous” crime and acknowledged the coercive, inherently violent nature of human trafficking.
“This Senate has continuously sent good criminal justice bills to the House, only to see them significantly weakened by the House Judiciary Committee,” Roberts, a former prosecutor who lives in Frisco, said in a floor speech last week.
The flashpoint reflects intraparty tensions that have lingered between the progressive House and the more moderate Senate since last year. The split has surfaced not just between the judiciary committees and on criminal justice bills, but also has been evident on housing policy, too.
House lawmakers defended their work on the human trafficking bill and on justice issues more broadly. While Roberts, a key swing vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is generally more aligned with law enforcement’s positions, many House Democrats have made well known their aversion to policies that would send more people to prison.
Both chambers have wide Democratic majorities, but at times each has acted as a check on the other, often to the frustration of lawmakers and their allies who get caught in the middle.
One House Democrat last year, voicing the irritation of many progressives, quipped that the Senate “is where our dreams go to die.” Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, referred to the Senate as the “red room of death” — a nod to its red walls and carpet. More sweeping legislation typically is introduced in the House, while lobbyists who seek to blunt or kill reform often train their focus on the Senate.
Progressive Democrats in the House say they may disagree — bitterly — with the Senate’s approach, but that’s the system. And it cuts both ways.
“If we were mad about the Senate, then we should just want a single-chamber legislature, and we don’t have that. We have two chambers for a reason,” said Bacon, who serves as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee. “And even though we hate it, it’s for (things) like this” — differences in approach.
“Yeah, it makes me mad,” she added. “But you know what? I’m not going to be mad at the constitution. I think there are other things that we can work on to