Ritter hails accomplishments

   DENVER - A legislative session that began with ambitious calls for reform ended Tuesday with changes in education and health care but no help for transportation.

   Gov. Bill Ritter, nevertheless, hailed the General Assembly's accomplishments, but he called the lack of a solution for improving transportation "one of the biggest disappointments."

   Appraisals of how much progress had been made during the four-month session depended on which side of the aisle they came from.

   Democrats, who control the House, Senate and governor's mansion, said the reforms will be of great benefit to the state's children. 

   Minority Republicans, meanwhile, criticized passing fee and insurance-rate increases while the state appears headed into recession.

   "It's no longer the Legislature of guns, God and gays," said House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, referring to Democrats' complaints about the issues that dominated the Legislature when Republicans were in control. "We've actually been able to focus on the issues that people care about."

   The final day of the session was a scramble to pass roughly 50 bills still pending on the 199th day.

   Among them were three measures that affect how much Coloradans pay for insurance.

   The first makes it more likely that drivers will buy $5,000 worth of medical coverage for injuries from vehicle wrecks.

   Another would give the state insurance commissioner the power to reject private insurers' rate hikes.

   The last would increase fines insurers' face for failing to pay claims.

   Legislators also voted to place a referendum on the November ballot that would make it more difficult to change the state Constitution. If passed, it would increase the number of signatures needed to get a constitutional change on the ballot while lowering the signatures needed to put a proposal on the ballot that would change a state law.

   The amendment also would require at least 8 percent of petition signatures to be gathered from each of the state's seven congressional districts.

   The House and Senate put finishing touches on the term's major education bills, giving final approval to Ritter's plan to realign and reassess K-12 curricula and signing off on this year's School Finance Act, which adds $75 million to expand full-day kindergarten classes.

   As the 66th General Assembly adjourned at 9:34 p.m., the partisan nature of debates still rang through evaluations of the session. 

   Republican and Democratic leaders praised the educational reforms, including Ritter's realignment plan and a bill that will use federal minerallease revenues to create construction and reserve funds for higher education. Ritter called it "one of the most significant education reform plans in the country."

   House Speaker Andrew Romanoff of Denver called 2008 "the single best year for kids," citing passage of a $1 billion school-construction plan and extension of public health-insurance eligibility to 55,000 additional children. Madden said other bills streamlined the ability for parents to sign kids up for government health care programs and to pay for visits to doctors and hospitals.

   But Ritter admitted to a Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce luncheon Tuesday that he was disappointed that no solution was found to address the state's crumbling roads and bridges.

   Proposals to put toll booths on Interstate 70 to improve the highway that takes skiers to Western Slope resorts and raise vehicle-registration fees to fix roads and bridges were killed.

   House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, complained that Republican attempts to improve roads without raising fees were rebuffed.

   May assailed raising the cost of insurance and further regulated businesses. "If you measure regulations and fee increases and tax increases . . . as success, then I guess they were successful," he said of Democrats.

   For Romanoff, the biggest disappointment was failing to get onto the ballot a constitutional amendment that would remove spending limits in the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights and end mandated educationalspending increases that have handcuffed lawmakers' attempts to fund other needs, such as higher education.

   Legislators head back home now to prepare for November elections in which every seat in the House and about half those in the Senate will be on the ballot.

   Madden predicted that every Democratic-held district in the House will stay that way. Republicans like Sen. Dave Schultheis of Colorado Springs said this year's expansion of government will come back to haunt Democrats in November.