House District 59 three-way race

House District 59 three-way race
Transportation a key issue for Larson

Oct. 24, 2000

By Janelle Holden
Journal Staff Writer


	Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez, talks to a man at his M&M Truck Stop and Family Restaurant in Cortez.

After just one term in office, state Rep. Mark Larson can explain complicated state laws with the skill of a seasoned legislator, and does so on a regular basis.

"This is a good job for a workaholic," Larson says with a grin. Not only has Larson, a Republican, been campaigning to keep his seat representing House District 59, but he has also spent a considerable amount of time stumping against state ballot initiatives 21 and 24.

But despite Larson’s previous political experience lobbying for transportation and business issues, he said that witnessing partisan politics first-hand in the state legislature was a real eye-opener.

"I thought I was pretty prepared," explained Larson. "But they wanted me to fit in a mold, and I didn’t.

"It’s one thing to push an agenda. It’s another thing to not be open-minded and understand the issues."

Larson, who owns the M&M Truckstop & Family Restaurant south of Cortez, serves as vice chair of the Transportation and Energy Committee, and sits on the Capital Development and Business Affairs and Labor committees.

If re-elected, he wants to continue working on meeting the $13 billion in budget shortfalls for transportation projects across the state. "Transportation really is the lifeline of our economy and to our quality of life," he explained.

Part of the problem, Larson said, is pushing the transportation commission to prioritize projects on a year-to-year basis, rather than on lengthy five-year plans, so there is more flexibility to push funding where it is needed. In addition, a crucial part of the battle is keeping Front Range legislators from hogging all of the funds for their side of the state.

During his first term, Larson said he was proud of the legislature’s efforts to cut taxes, reform education, and allocate nearly $80 million for Colorado children.

Although Larson voted to keep schools accountable for their CSAP scores, he said the teachers are not the problem, and the legislature needs to stay out of the classroom.

However, he hopes that by keeping accountability high, families will start to take a greater interest in their child’s performance. "We need to get parents involved and back into the school system," Larson explained.

Larson calls himself an "eco-realist." "We are the stewards of the earth, but we are also a species," he said. He thinks the legislature should continue to review the listing of endangered species.

Larson is passionate about reforming the initiative process that allows citizen groups to place proposed amendments to the Colorado constitution on the November ballot. "The bar is too low," he said.

Currently, to get a state initiative on the ballot, proponents have to present the language of the bill to the state title board to determine if the amendment is legal, and then present a petition with the signatures of 5 percent of the people who voted in the Secretary of State’s election. This year, proponents had to gather a minimum of 62,438 signatures of registered voters.

Larson complained that some of the groups brought in professional canvassers from out of state, paying them per signature, and then put on the ballot measures which would threaten Colorado’s tax structure and growth.

"That idiot (Doug) Bruce’s vision of government and anarchy in Colorado is certainly not my vision," Larson said.