At least they tried. Responding to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s call and at a total cost of $70,500, the state legislature held a three-day special session to consider the multitude of bills that were killed at the last minute due to the “legislative impasse” over the civil unions bill. The session was a moderate success with one major disappointment.

The civil unions bill died in the first committee that it was assigned to. Speaker McNulty decided to assign the bill to the House Committee on State, Veterans and Military Affairs, rather than the Judiciary Committee.

McNulty argued that it was a move made to make the session more efficient by having this committee consider it; an admirable maneuver, but I highly doubt that assigning it to the judiciary committee would have added to the overall price tag of the session. The committee assignment doesn’t make sense, simply because that committee usually considers bills related to elections and veteran affairs; other than the political ramifications I am unaware of how civil unions affect either of these.

The committee was labeled as a kill committee, and they did kill the bill. It’s an improvement over a filibuster that killed 30 other bills, but politics still played too much of a role in a bill that should have been considered on its policy merits. I commend the session for the rest of the work it did. As usual, partisanship played a very small role in the affairs of the state government. The session approved a $55 million bill for water projects, as well as stabilizing unemployment insurance rates and another business-related project.

They killed another bill that would have created penalties for driving while high due to concerns over the science of the bill. The weirdest kill was a bill that would have created benefit corporations, or businesses that exist to promote social good.

As Coloradoans, we should be proud of our state legislature. They normally act on a very bipartisan and policy focused basis, and had a great many successes in the regular and special sessions.

While politics ended up creating a need for an expensive special session, our elected officials were able to pull it together and pass some very important bills. It is a shame that civil unions died while in committee, but the party responsible for that may suffer this November at the hands of the voters. It was a successful session, and we should be proud because our state has such a “get it done” attitude.