With Republicans relegated to super-minority status in the Colorado House (and nearly so in the Senate), they will have little leverage during the special session of the state Legislature set to begin tomorrow. But in radio interviews this week, caucus leadership nevertheless presented a united front via a pair of bills. Minority Leader Mike Lynch (R-Wellington), Assistant Minority Leader Rose Pugliese (R-Colorado Springs), and Senator Barb Kirkmeyer (R-Weld County), who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, are all promoting the same proposal while saying they believe a compromise can be reached with Democrats. However, other GOP legislators and the state party share neither their optimism nor their policy goals.
Appearing on KCOL’s Jimmy Lakey Show on Nov. 10, Lynch was one of the first GOP leaders to express optimism about working with Democrats, albeit while also drawing a hard line at providing any direct relief to Colorado renters.
“This is numbers and percentages, and it should be pretty easy to come to a consensus on this,” said Lynch. “However, as Republicans, we will not stand for them trying to slide other things in there. Relief for renters and taking your money and then redistributing it to somebody who is having a hard time paying the rent — that’s not part of the Republicans’ agenda. That is a socialist agenda. So we’re going to fight stuff like that really hard. This is about property tax. The way renters get relief is that there’s relief given to the people that own the house in the form of property tax…”
His position on help for renters aside, Lynch’s willingness to reach consensus with Democrats appears to be at odds with Rep. Scott Bottoms (R-Colorado Springs), who told KVOR radio host Richard Randall that while he believes his caucus will “stay strong,” warned that any compromise is unacceptable. The rookie legislator, who considers himself to be the “real leader” of the House Republicans, went so far as to say any Republican who sides with Democrats shouldn’t be in office at all.
Randall: Do you think, at least on this issue, most conservatives and Republicans are on the same page?
Bottoms: Yeah, I really do believe so. So I’m an ultra, ultra conservative — anybody that has kept up with me knows this. And so I am at odds sometimes with our Republican leadership. I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with our Minority Leader. But I do believe on this we’re going to rally, we’re going to stand strong. We’re going to be conservative. But the only thing you have to do is just watch. If you immediately start seeing Republicans siding with an amendment or siding on some kind of plan that the Democrats present, the state needs to pay attention because those Republicans don’t need to be in office, whether it’s Senate or House. We have to stand strong for the people of Colorado. And if you see wavering, we’ve got to stand against that. And if nothing else, that will keep the Republican caucus together on all of this kind of stuff. This is the most important tax issue it’s ever going to happen. It’s do not let them take our TABOR away. Look, we will be California next year. If they take our TABOR.”
Kirkmeyer, who was one of the Republicans’ spokespeople against Proposition HH, used her airtime on Colorado Morning News last week to flag one policy proposal she says the legislature will not attempt: reinstating the so-called Gallagher Amendment, a mechanism that kept residential property taxes well below market rates until Colorado voters repealed it in 2020.
Kirkmeyer: I’m not sure if everybody understood that when they were repealing Gallagher, that if values increased substantially — it doesn’t matter what happens if everything else stays equal — people’s taxes were going to go through the roof. And that’s exactly what happened. Every other year property values are reappraised by the assessor. And sure enough, they went through the roof and this is what happens. So we’re not going to be able to fix that in this special session. I don’t think anybody’s really even truly attempting to do that, because the call that the governor made for the special session is very limited in that it’s supposed to be a one-year fix. So Republicans, we came out a couple of weeks ago with our plan, which is focusing on a one-year fix in an attempt to get to true, meaningful property tax relief for all Coloradoans.”
Jus two days earlier, however, Kirkmeyer’s colleague Rep. Ken DeGraaf (R-Colorado Springs), told podcast host Julie Hayden that reimposing Gallagher is his primary proposal.
Julie Hayden: What what do you see as some of the solutions and some of the best ways forward?
DeGraaf: Well we could reimpose- we could fix Gallagher. Gallagher was supposed to be, you know, hey, repeal it, and then we’ll fix it and give you something better. Well, that was not that was not done- that could be done. And if it lowers taxes, then it should be we should be able to do it in session, get it signed and and go through. There’s been plenty of time to work on Gallagher. So we should be able to get that. That should be doable.”
Degraaf also told Hayden he supports lowering the state income tax, which is included in the House GOP’s proposal.
“We could lower the taxes,” said DeGraaf. “There was a bill Scott Bottoms presented last year. That took it down initially from 4.4% down to 3.5% and they [Dems] said, ‘Well, we can’t do that.’ So they amended it up to 4.25%. So it would have been a very modest decrease and the Democrats voted down the small decrease so that they could vote down the entire bill. And that was to avoid having it even leave committee. So we know that the Democrats are not in any way, shape or form serious about lowering taxes and the senior property tax exemption.”
Another intra-party sticking point appears to be whether to provide any “backfill,” or financial support to local governments and school districts whose budgets will be impacted by property tax cuts. According to Pugliese, both GOP bills include some backfill for the upcoming fiscal year, with the expectation that the Legislature will find a long-term solution during next year’s session. Furthermore, as she explained to guest host Kristi Burton Brown who was filling in for Dan Caplis yesterday on KHOW, Republicans want to use money from either the general fund or its reserve.
“I think it’s really important to know that while we do support some backfill, I support some backfill in this one year until we find a long term and sustainable solution,” said Pugliese. “It’s also important to keep in mind that this is just a one-year solution and we’re not using TABOR surplus in order to give that relief. That money is coming from general fund or reserves.”
In an email sent the day before’s Pugliese’s interview, Colorado Republican Chair Dave Williams, ripped at least part of the GOP’s backfill proposal, calling the idea of using reserves a “disaster” and “morally wrong,” and promising to oppose any attempt, including those from his own party, that includes backfill dollars, be they from reserves or, as Democrats have proposed, TABOR surplus funds. Instead, he endorsed an assessed value cap named for state Sen. Kevin Van Winkle.
“State House observers are informing the Colorado Republican Party that legislative leadership in both the Republican and Democrat Caucuses are seriously considering backfilling local governments with taxpayer dollars,” wrote Williams. “Republican legislative leaders are wanting to use General Fund Reserves and Democrats are wanting to use TABOR Surplus. Both options are a disaster for your pocketbook and morally wrong in the face of “Bidenomics,” which is deteriorating our national economy right before our eyes.
You should expect Democrats in the legislature to attempt to violate our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and steal our refunds even though voters told them “NO!”
Screenshot of Colorado GOP Nov. 14 email
What’s unexpected is learning how some Republican lawmakers want to bailout governments who aren’t losing revenue instead of solely making taxpayers whole and protecting them from losing their homes.
The Van Winkle Plan would cap the increase in property values to limit the runaway tax increases homeowners are getting saddled with. By supporting the Van Winkle Plan, Colorado Republicans can provide a real solution to Coloradans facing this dire situation while highlighting the stark contrast between Republican principles that empower taxpayers and the Democrats’ blatant disregard for fiscal responsibility.
The Colorado Republican Party will oppose any measure that attempts to backfill or “buffer” local governments with taxpayer dollars, whether from General Fund Reserves or TABOR Surplus.
We will also notify our members of the these bait-and-switch schemes, from either side of the aisle, to grow government and be fiscally irresponsible.”
At least one prominent Republican expressed skepticism at Williams’ motives for dubbing the assessment cap the “Van Winkle Plan.” On his radio show this morning, host George Brauchler speculated that the proposal, which appears to be essentially the same as a bill proposed by Pugliese and two other state representatives, Byron Pelton and Lisa Frizell, was perhaps rebranded by Williams in order to help Van Winkle with his next campaign. He filed to run for Douglas County Commissioner less than a year after being elected to a four-year term in the state Senate.
“”It just seems interestingly timed given that Kevin has announced he’s running for county commissioner in our county in Douglas County,” said Brauchler. “I don’t know if that’s the reason that it’s getting the publicity it’s getting or it’s earned the name from the state GOP, ‘The Van Winkle Plan,’ which feels a lot more like the Pugliese, Pelton, Frizzell plan.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Kirkmeyer as Senate Minority Whip, a position she gave up upon taking a seat on the Joint Budget Committee last December.
