Owens shows a responsive side.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: On Colorado - Colorado state finances - Bill Owens - Editorial

WHAT'S UP WITH GOVERNOR BILL?

Voters took him to the woodshed (he's a Texan, so he'll understand what that means) over Referendum A and FasTracks. Have those whuppings finally convinced Bill Owens to open up a little, become a little more flexible and pick up the reins of government not just to slow down the old horse, but to let it run?

Owens picked John Suthers, an admittedly conservative Colorado Springs career prosecutor (which can also be translated as trial-lawyer, by the way), to succeed former state Attorney General Ken Salazar, who is on the cover of this power issue of our magazine.

Suthers was on Salazar's suggested list of successors, and perhaps Owens' choice of him suggests the governor has started to listen to advice from his "Democratic friends" in the legislature and elsewhere, as he likes to call people who are not Republican.

Owens also told the Rocky Mountain News last month--after the presidents of colleges across the state complained to the legislature's Joint Budget Committee that the administration was not going to allow a step enough tuition hike at their schools to keep them competitive with other states' universities--that there may be room to raise the 5.5 percent tuition rate hike dictated by the state Commission on Higher Education.

That concession on tuition came, too, after I had suggested on our website, www.cobizmag.com, that the tuition hike might be the governor's first opportunity to show he is sincere when he says he is willing to work with the new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate of the General Assembly.

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Both Colorado's political and business leadership have to join together to solve the financial problems facing this state as conflicting constitutional amendments approved by...