The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

At the beginning of his fifth session representing the Eastern Plains in the state House, Representative Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, moved into leadership of the House GOP caucus. He gained the title of minority whip, which means counting votes on the most controversial measures and finding the voices to contest the Democratic agenda. That included his own.

Holtorf has become known as a prolific speaker on agricultural and other issues in the General Assembly, but at times generating controversy over some of his remarks.

Nowhere was that more apparent than in 2023, which he called the hardest session he’s ever had, part of a caucus of 19 compared to 46 for the Democrats. It meant fighting against the agenda of progressive Democrats on issues such as abortion, guns and transgender rights. 

When he asked Democrats why they pushed so hard on these issues, which includes five major gun control bills and three bills tied to abortion and transgender care, Holtorf said he was told “We have the super majority and it’s our time.”

Where he said he felt he was most successful in 2023, despite the lopsided advantage for Democrats, was to show Coloradans that Republicans continue to be the voice of reason, with good-tempered governance. “We have tried to push back to the best of our ability despite many, many excessive rules and overreaching rules by the majority that hadn't been invoked in decades,” he told this reporter recently.

Another issue was the number of bills in the 2023 session — 617 bills and another 64 resolutions — including more than 300 bills from the Senate. “Something is wrong in Colorado” when the number of bills coming from the Senate exceeds the space lawmakers have for them, he said. Lawmakers’ senate file cabinets only go up to 300 bills, but the Senate introduced 306 this year. 

That’s the most coming out of the Senate since 2003.

Within the last week of the session, that included two measures on property taxes, with one that resulted in the House GOP walking out on the last day in protest over being denied an opportunity to offer amendments. They never returned for the rest of the day.

Holtorf has had his personal successes in the 2023 session, with one of the biggest a bill to require a study of the economic impacts of the Republican River, a measure that almost didn’t make it to the finish line.

“I have stood up and fought for rural Colorado and the Eastern Plains to the best of my ability,” he said, but the Republican River bill came out in February “and the Democrats sat on it,” he said.

House Bill 1220 was introduced on Feb. 27, got its first hearing in March, and then sat in House Appropriations for a month, not all that unusual for a measure that requires general fund support. Appropriations committees usually hold off voting on measures that need funding until after the state budget passes, which won final approval on April 13. HB 1220 won approval from the appropriations committee a week later.

The bill eventually won a 65-0 vote in the House and unanimous approval in the Senate on the last day of the session. 

But Holtorf also believes part of the delay — its cost of $146,238 is relatively minor — was because majority Democrats held it hostage because of his position as whip. “They blame me for what Republicans are doing this session. Now, I would argue that the Democrats controlled the calendar. They are the majority. They set the tempo and speed and volume and throughput of everything that's happening.”

His message to the Speaker of the House was that “somebody needs to close the gate. There's too many horses running out of here and somebody needs to close the gate.”

Even on the last day of the session, lawmakers still had 72 measures to clear off the calendar, and some bills didn’t make it.

Holtorf questions why there were so many late bills in the 2023 session, dozens in the final weeks.

It was the measure on property taxes — Senate Bill 303 - that earned much of his ire.

“Why are we addressing some of the largest fiscal policy changes in the history of Colorado in these waning days and hours? This is why this is not good governance.”

“If we really want to be serious and honest about water, the criticality of water in Colorado, those water bills should have been pushed to the top of the list, not being held hostage and watching them walk back to the bottom of the list,” he said.

There were good bills in the 2023 session, he said, pointing to House Bill 1136, sponsored by Rep. Anthony Hartsook, R-Parker, which requires health insurance companies to provide prosthetics for those under age 26 so that they can more readily participate in outdoor activities. But even that got pushback from the Governor’s office, Holtorf said. (Governor Jared Polis signed it on May 25).

His least favorite of the 2023 session was a bill that targeted so-called pregnancy centers, making it a deceptive trade practice for those centers to directly or indirectly advertise abortions, emergency contraceptives, or referrals for these services when they do not provide them.

While the Governor signed SB 190 into law on April 21, with an ensuing court challenge, the State is not enforcing one provision of that law around the advertisement of abortion-reversal medications. The state is holding off until those claims can be reviewed by the State’s medical licensing boards, which is part of the law. That review is due in October.

Holtorf said he believed if someone had a change of heart after starting a medication abortion, they should be able to avail themselves of the reversal. (The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology says there is no evidence abortion reversal works, and calls the practice unproven, unethical and dangerous.)

Believing that life begins with a beating heart, “women should keep all their options open,” Holtorf said.

Holtorf was also one of the most vocal opponents of the right to repair for agriculture equipment measure, House Bill 1011.

The right to repair cuts both ways, he said, and can negatively impact implement dealers in rural Colorado.

He also believes the law, signed on April 25, doesn’t solve the problem, which he said is not enough mobile service vehicles to do all the repairs. He also claimed the bill’s Democratic sponsor, Rep .Brianna Titone, D-Arvada, is a consumer rights activist now operating in the agricultural space, and who he said knows nothing about agriculture. The measure was also sponsored by Rep. Ron Weinberg, R-Loveland.

With the 2023 session in the rear view mirror, Holtorf said he is going back to his Buffalo Springs ranch, to fix a hundred miles of fence, brand calves, get his bulls fertility tested and out with the “mama cows” and get the crops going, because two years of drought means he hasn’t had a crop in that time.

“I'm driven by my faith in God and  trying to keep our family business going and trying to stand up for rural eastern Colorado,” he said. “If you've noticed, everybody's talking about the rural- urban divide now in almost every corner of this building. And that's not by accident.”

In other news:

Seven Eastern Plains counties have joined in on a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Senate Bill 303, the property tax measure that was rushed through the General Assembly in the session’s final week. That includes Phillips, Washington and Logan counties in northeastern Colorado.

Senate Bill 303 would take a portion of TABOR refunds over the next 10 years and use it to reduce the increases in property taxes for homeowners and commercial building owners. TABOR surplus dollars, which are paid out to taxpayers, would also be diverted to backfill lost property tax revenues for schools, hospital and fire districts and library districts, about $167 million per year, according to the bill’s fiscal analysis.

At issue is what the plaintiffs, led by the conservative Advance Colorado Institute, claim is violation of the State’s single subject rule. That rule requires any legislation to adhere to the title of the bill. 

The lawsuit, filed May 15, claims SB 303 has four subjects instead of one, including a provision to create a housing development grant program for renters. That’s intended to assuage concerns that renters, who are 40 percent of Coloradans, would be paying for the property tax relief while at the same time facing higher rent when landlords pass on higher property taxes to their tenants.

In a statement, the Phillips County commissioners said, “As County Commissioners, we understand what a property tax solution looks like. SB23-303 isn't that solution. The State didn't collaborate with local governments, and it shows. A responsible state government shouldn't be taking more of the people's money through TABOR refunds while giving them almost nothing to show for it — roughly half a percent in property tax relief.”

Washington County commissioner Kent Vance added that “It is very disappointing when politicians attempt to circumvent the intent of the voters. SB23-303 and proposition HH is obviously a way for politicians to circumvent and destroy TABOR. We hope that the people will see that TABOR is intended to protect the people of Colorado and HB23-303 in conjunction with proposition HH is a way for politicians to destroy what was put in place with TABOR.”

“The Governor and legislature have majorities to do almost anything in our state but instead make the choice to trample on the Constitution of Colorado … It is amazing that out of one side of the politicians’ mouths they want local control and out of the other side, they emphasize that they know best how to govern locally.

Commissioners already have the ability to mitigate these increased property taxes. The magic shell game where the Democrats take our TABOR refunds to pay for higher property taxes is a classic Washington political trick,” said Jerry Sonnenberg, Chairman of the Logan County Board of County Commissioners.