ALAMOSA — Last Thursday morning, the Valley Courier had a more than hour-long conversation with Senator Cleave Simpson (R-Dist 6), who is in his second term and now serving as the Minority Leader in the Colorado State Senate.

The topic of conversation was largely focused on the special session that had ended just a few days before after being called by Governor Polis to address a $700 million shortfall.  Sounding much more frustrated – and, admittedly, more partisan - than he has at any time while in office, Simpson wanted to explain his perspective on both the process and the results.

Simpson was primarily frustrated by Republicans being denied the chance to provide any input into how the Senate would respond to the shortfall.

“We weren’t told ahead of time what they had been thinking about,” he said, “and we weren’t included in the discussion once we were there. Our fingerprints are nowhere on what was decided.  We weren’t a part of that space, at all.”

Simpson further blamed the Democrats for playing a role in the budget shortfall that goes back several years.

“They kept talking about ‘the reckless Republicans passing a bill that caused all the problems’, but refused to acknowledge that, with Democrats in control of the House, the Senate and the governor’s office,  we have been overspending for years and State Republicans calling to cut spending have been ignored.

“As I said on the floor, they were all pointing their fingers at the Republicans but three of those fingers are pointing back at themselves. They need to own that.”

He then went on to say that very little was accomplished during the six-day special session other than raising taxes and cutting the [sales tax vendor] benefit for businesses. And what was accomplished was harmful.

One example Simpson cited was a 4% fee that vendors were able to keep of all the sales tax they collected for the state in recognition of the work it took to collect the tax.

That fee had a cap of $1,000 per month.

“A thousand dollars a month adds up to twelve thousand dollars a year,” Simpson said. “Small businesses like The Roast [where we were meeting] need that money. They count on it, and we took it away.”

By the end of the special session, the legislature had only addressed about a third of the $700 million deficit.

“We didn’t need a special session,” Simpson said.

Thursday afternoon, Senate Republicans released a statement [below] which echoed much of what Simpson had told the Valley Courier that morning.

A more in-depth article on Senator Simpson’s observations of legislative politics will appear in  future edition of the Valley Courier.

Thursday’s statement from Senate Republicans reads as follows.

Governor Polis has once again proved that when faced with tough choices, he’ll sacrifice Colorado’s most vulnerable before reigning in his own politically-charged, wasteful spending.

On Thursday, with the stroke of a pen, Governor Polis issued an executive order that slashed over $100 million in funding to critical programs that are lifelines for millions, such as Medicaid and higher education, all the while protecting funding for the hundreds of bloated offices and political pet projects he’s built during his time in office. This executive order comes on the heels of a special session called by the Governor for the purpose of increasing taxes on Coloradans to foot the bill for the excessive spending spree he and the Colorado Democrats have been on since 2019.

For years, the Colorado Senate Republicans have proposed solutions that would have cut unnecessary and unsustainable funding to several of the 200+ new offices and programs created under the Polis administration, while preserving critical funding for programs that actually matter, such as for health care and higher education. Unsurprisingly, these Republican solutions have been repeatedly struck down by the Democrat-majority.

“When we called on the Governor to cut spending, we meant cutting his useless pet projects, not slashing Medicaid and higher education,” Ranking JBC Member Senator Kirkmeyer said. “Time and again, this Governor has shown he has a crisis of priorities. Instead of protecting programs that millions of Coloradans depend on, he’s shielding the bloated offices he created that have done nothing to make our state more affordable.”

Senate Republicans were prepared to propose solutions that would have made responsible and necessary cuts to government spending. Governor Polis ambushed those ambitions by only including raising taxes in his call for a special session.

“While we are glad the Governor has finally realized that spending cuts are necessary, he went about it in the worst way possible,” Senate Minority Leader Cleave Simpson said. “By refusing to include spending cuts in the special session, he shut Republicans out of the process and denied Coloradans real solutions. Had he worked with us, we could have made meaningful cuts to wasteful programs and protected essential services like Medicaid and higher education. Instead, he’s balancing the budget on the backs of students and families who can least afford it.”

During the special session, the Colorado Democrats passed 5 bills that will raise taxes on Coloradans while only filling approximately one third of the $700 million budget deficit they created thanks to their overspending. Senate Republicans, by contrast, offered numerous bills that would have raised nearly $800 million in revenue over the next three years, all without raising taxes.

The Colorado Senate Republicans will continue to fight wasteful spending and stand up for the programs that matter, because Colorado families deserve a government that makes our state more affordable, not one that makes their lives harder.