The sham of the legislative process.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES wrap-up - Editorial

I have made it well known over the years how much contempt I have for the Colorado General Assembly, aka the state Legislature. This isn't about being anti-Republican or anti-Democrat; I'm just anti-ineptitude, and it's been on display down there forever.

Members grandstand, of course, and then argue about the superfluous, and then when anything is too tough for them to handle they just refer it to the people so they don't have to take the responsibility or, more to the point, the blame. Can you say TABOR?

Our elected hacks had numerous chances to address the tax-and-spend issues its champion, Douglas Bruce, was attacking without hamstringing our state budgets. It was easier to let Bruce's rhetoric take the place of meaningful legislative work. Now Bruce himself is a Colorado legislator, and I think they let him in so, by comparison, the rest of the assemblage will seem to have crawled out of the slime.

Don't be fooled for a moment. This year, for the umpteenth time, there is a bill in the Legislature that addresses the issue of Sunday liquor sales, and also one that would have allowed full-strength beer and wine sales at a broad selection of supermarkets. I am interested in these bills for two reasons: first, there is little doubt that the public at large would favor both these measures by a wide margin; and, second, for the first time ever the liquor-store lobby is backing the Sunday-sales bill.

As usual, it has all to do with politics and very little to do with what the public wants or what, goodness forbid, would be in the best interests of the people. I wrote about the Sunday liquor sales bill three years ago this very month, and noted at the time that a) the public wanted it, but, b) the liquor lobby was vehemently opposed. So, of course, it did not pass.

What's different this year are the competing bills The liquor lobby is willing to go for the Sunday-sales measure in an effort to strike down the supermarket sales of beer and wine (apparently they met success on both counts); they fear the competition more than they loathe working Sundays. Small liquor store owners in particular are against the supermarket provision because they...