{"id":114144,"date":"2015-03-05T20:38:12","date_gmt":"2015-03-06T03:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/impasse-on-public-safety-resolved\/"},"modified":"2015-03-05T20:38:12","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T03:38:12","slug":"impasse-on-public-safety-resolved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/impasse-on-public-safety-resolved\/","title":{"rendered":"Impasse on public safety resolved"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Gun
Gun dealer Mel Bernstein finishes a sale at Dragonman\u2019s, east of Colorado Springs. Colorado lawmakers on Wednesday passed a Department of Public Safety spending bill without funding for concealed-carry background checks after the measure was held hostage.<\/span>Brennan Linsley\/Associated Press file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 A showdown over public-safety funding ended with a cease-fire Wednesday when Colorado House Democrats agreed to a spending bill without dollars for firearm background checks.<\/p>\n

The issue was specific to concealed-carry permits. The Department of Public Safety needed the Legislature to approve a $369,323 spending authorization for the current fiscal year, which aimed to reduce wait times.<\/p>\n

The department said current background check wait times stand at about 54 days. The goal was to get that number down to about 20 days.<\/p>\n

The Joint Budget Committee deadlocked earlier in the session on the spending authorization when Republicans opposed the money, even though it was already available because of a $52.50 fee paid by concealed-carry applicants. The money likely will just sit in a fund for now.<\/p>\n

Senate Democrats attempted to amend a separate public-safety spending bill so the money would be available for the background checks. But controlling Republicans in the chamber shot it down.<\/p>\n

But controlling Democrats in the House later amended the bill to include the background-check money.<\/p>\n

When the amended bill made it back to the Senate to approve the House provision that added the background-check funding, Senate Republicans rejected the change, refusing to send the measure to a conference committee to work on the impasse.<\/p>\n

House Democrats were left with a tough choice \u2013 stand up to Republicans and let the overall $2.2 million in Public Safety funding die because it didn\u2019t include the background-check dollars, or pass the spending bill without the money in question.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, said it was too important to let the bill die, noting money for the state\u2019s toxicology lab, law-enforcement training, and testing for rape kits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call it being the adults in the room,\u201d Hullinghorst said after the vote on Wednesday, which passed unanimously. \u201cThere was very little alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, also encouraged the House to pass the bill.<\/p>\n

But a larger issue is the fact that Senate Republicans would not send the measure to a conference committee to resolve the dispute, a commonplace practice.<\/p>\n

Hullinghorst said Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, was \u201ccontrite\u201d in pushing to move the bill back to the House without negotiation.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Cadman called the speaker\u2019s comments \u201ca bizarre mischaracterization.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue is relevant as a spending bill for the Department of Revenue has been held hostage in the name of an immigrant driver\u2019s license program.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Republicans on the JBC blocked a spending authorization to fund the program that provides licenses to immigrants in the country illegally, even though the $166,000 is available thanks to a $50.50 fee charged to applicants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK spending bill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,150,13,1310],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-114144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-firearms","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-safety-of-citizens"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114144"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=114144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}