While the budget shortfall is the main focus this session, there is still other business to take care of. This is a hectic time for legislators. Some of what we’re considering:

During the holiday season many of us gave gift cards to friends and family. Did you realize that the card companies are not all consumer friendly?  Right now giant card companies and merchants are able to chip away at the value of the card by deducting fees and costs for non-use. I’m proposing with my SB 155 TP forbid the practice of hidden charges like fees for checking the balance or a fee for activating the card. If this bill passes gift cards will retain their full value and consumers will be able to receive cash back when the balance falls below $5.

My SB 118 authorizes the Department of Human Services to obtain a fingerprint-based criminal history record check on a person who provides care to a child who is related to him or her if the child's care is funded with moneys from the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP).

HB 1047 establishes a uniform style for statewide ballot titles for initiated and referred measures beginning in the 2011 election. These changes include:

• presenting key points of the ballot issue as a bulleted list rather than in paragraph form;
• expanding the "Yes" or "No" response to a ballot issue to "Yes, for the
• amendment/proposition" or "No, against the amendment/proposition"; and
• replacing the phrase "and, in connection therewith" with the word "that" before the
• bulleted section of the ballot title. What a concept! Shouldn’t it have been this way all along?

Pinnacol Assurance, Colorado’s leading Workers’ Compensation insurer, is a quasi-governmental agency worth several billion dollars that now wants to “buy out” the state’s interest and become independent. One of their conditions of sale is that the legislature pull any bills directed at them this session. First of all, I believe that state oversight of something as important as Workers’ Comp is a must to make sure that every injured worker gets just compensation. Secondly, their proposal regarding having the 8 bills pulled (one of which involves accountability) is illegal!

Do you remember when, in 1970, Denver won the bid for the Olympics and everyone was ex-cited except for the citizens of Colorado? Concerns about a rise in taxes prompted them to re-ject the bid in the fall of '72, and the games were moved to Austria. This was the first and only time in history that citizens have refused the honor of hosting the Olympics. Did we do the right thing?

Don’t forget my Town Meetings the third Thursday of each month through April.