Bruce leaving seat vacant doesn't sit well

DENVER - Anti-tax crusader Douglas Bruce hasn’t even been sworn in as a state lawmaker, but he’s already making waves by refusing to take his seat until five days after the 2008 session begins.

Bruce was chosen by a Republican Party committee last month to fill a vacancy in the House. By not taking the oath until Jan. 14, he will serve less than half the unexpired term and would be eligible for eight more years in office under Colorado term limits, instead of just six.

That irritated House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat from Denver.

“If you are chosen by a vacancy committee, you ought to take your office within a reasonable time. A reasonable time would be 10 days,” not the month and a half Bruce is taking, Romanoff said.

Romanoff said he will introducing a bill setting a deadline for midterm newcomers to take office, saying it’s a loophole that needs to be closed.

Romanoff also decided to let Bruce introduce only two bills after the Dec. 1 deadline, instead of the normal three usually allowed newcomers who come in late. That unprecedented step would allow Bruce to introduce a total of four bills instead of five.

Bruce questioned why he was being punished but said he won’t challenge the House speaker’s ruling.

“I will file my four bills and I will ask him to reconsider. There is nothing to sue over. Late bill status is his decision,” Bruce said.

Bruce gained national attention in 1992 when he persuaded Colorado voters to approve some of the toughest tax limits in the country with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, an amendment to the state Constitution.

Bruce has often clashed with lawmakers over TABOR and other issues, but now that he is joining their ranks, he’s trying to play nice. On Friday, when he showed up with three other new lawmakers for legislative training day, he brought a dozen roses for Marilyn Eddins, chief House clerk.

“I know where the power is,” he said, handing her the flowers.

He also groused about security at the Capitol, noting that he was stopped and searched by security guards when his spiral notebook set off a metal detector.

“That’s preposterous. I’m not taking off my pants for anybody. I learned that from Bill Clinton,” he told his new colleagues.

On his Web site, Douglas-Bruce.com, he went after lobbyists and threatened to expose any offers of free meals or other gifts.

“I will listen to anyone’s story, but I won’t accept being fed in order to listen,” he said in an e-mail to a nonprofit group that invited him to dinner.

Bruce said the only thing he will miss by being sworn in late is the pomp of opening day speeches and the governor’s state of the state address, which he plans to tape and watch later.

In addition to getting the chance to stay in office longer, Bruce said, the delay lets him keep his job as an El Paso County commissioner long enough to attend a Thursday commissioners meeting and vote on an ethics proposal. He said he was told he cannot hold both jobs at once.

Bruce noted that this is not the first time questions have been raised about how term limits apply to lawmakers who take over an unfinished term.

In 2006, it took a judge’s decision to allow then-Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald to run for her second full term. A dispute had arisen over whether the partial term she served starting in 2000 should count against her total. The judge ruled it did not because she was sworn in with less than half the term left.

The judge ruled that “all a legislator would have to do to avoid having his or her partial term treated as a full term for term limits purposes would be to take the oath of office one day or more after opening day.”