Risky business: state politics that reach the bottom line.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Editorial - Cover Story

Watch for the headlines. They started even before the first day of the legislature, Jan. 7.

Colorado Republicans and Democrats at the state Capitol may turn General Assembly debate over business issues into a cat fight this year, perhaps without the clawing and scratching, but certainly with caterwauling aplenty.

Yet come May, when the legislative session ends, leaders of both parties will have more than a few packages of business legislation--no matter how battered and torn around the edges those packages may be--to drop at the doorstep of the governor for his signature.

And again, no matter how battered and torn the final products, the laws will be aimed squarely at business development in Colorado.

From insurance matters to business taxes, from tourism promotion to higher-education funding, legislators will be dealing with issues that not only affect Colorado consumers but also the bottom line of many of the state's commercial firms.

And political affiliation and party lines will temper the debate for several reasons:

First, 2004 is an election year, and many of the state's senators and representatives will be posting voting records they hope will in turn win them the political hearts of their constituents when their re-election is at stake in November. Second, business problems, or at least their solutions, often are parsed along politically ideological lines: market freedoms vs. government regulation.

And finally, recent legislative history. During the first session of the 64th General Assembly (120-day sessions are designated by year: the 2003 and 2004 sessions make up the 64th Assembly), Republicans caught Democrats by surprise by pushing through a congressional redistricting bill that shored up the positions of the state's current Republican congressmen. It happened in just three days, the last three days of the 2003 session.

The redistricting bill was later ruled unconstitutional by the Colorado Supreme Court, but the last-minute ramrod of the measure through the legislature, as well as the court ruling--a split decision of justices that was divided along party lines--have honed the razor edges of party loyalty and widened the gap between the aisles in both House and Senate.

Those voting sides were already very close in the two chambers: Republicans hold 18 votes in the Senate, to the Democrats' 17. The Republican majority in the House is larger but not huge: 37 to 28, and you need 33 votes to pass a bill. Tim Jackson, a lobbyist...