Although both parties talked about transparency during the campaign, it became clear that only one party was serious about giving citizens information about – and power over – their elected officials.
One of the bills I sponsored this session, Senate Bill 57, would have placed the checkbooks of every school district online. My original vision was to have a searchable website of school expenditures so parents and taxpayers could track how their schools were spending money and contribute to the conversation about school funding.
Unfortunately, the bill ran into opposition from the teachers’ unions almost immediately. I had anticipated their aversion to transparency and expected the bill to be quietly killed in committee on a party line vote. On the day of the committee hearing, dozens of conservative activists showed up at the committee hearing to testify in favor of the bill. Most of the witnesses who made eloquent arguments for transparency were people I had never met.
The logic of the citizens who supported transparency was so indisputable that the committee reluctantly passed the bill. From then on, citizen engagement on the issue only increased, forcing the Senate to vote in favor of a bill that the majority party would have otherwise killed. Although SB 57 was killed in the House Education committee – whose members are more in check with the teachers’ unions that their Senate counterparts – the Colorado legislature received a clear message that voters want transparency. I have no doubt that we are on the right side of this issue and will win this fight in the end.
