And in my columns this session, I’ve tried to be as doubt-free as possible on controversial issues from abortion to guns and drugs.

But there are a couple of bills coming my way that take me to a gray-zone of uncertainty:

• HB 1195 by Rep. Penn Tate, D- Denver, is short-titled "Correcting Underutilization in state hiring."

Now when a state job is open the three top standardized test scorers are considered for hiring.

This bill would expand the pool of potential hirees to the top 10. The objective would be to increase the likelihood of finding a "protected class" applicant from among the 10. ("Protected class" includes African-Americans, women, those over 40 years old, Hispanics, those with disabilities and others.)

There are no quotas involved in HB 1195, just better odds for those "protected class" members. It applies only to state jobs that all taxpayers subsidize and does not apply to private enterprise. Yet, read on for my reservations about the bill.

HB 1195 is hardly a revolutionary piece of legislation, but I believe it is at least a handmaiden to the larger issue of affirmative action.

Which I believe is wrong-headed (even if it is soft-hearted) when it atrophies into quotas.

For the most obvious example, when treated by a physician, I want the person who was selected for medical school on merit, not mainly on some externality.

I believe that state colleges should not have funds allocated based on the demographic correctness of the student body, but the schools should be encouraged to move in that direction with active assistance and intervention if necessary, by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, which is CCHEs current policy.

Affirmative action is a very demagogic issue, as witness the shameless Jesse Helms senatorial campaign TV ad showing a white male’s left hand, wearing a wedding band, crumpling what is presumed to be a rejection notice, with ominous voiceover blaming govment and by extention, racial quotas.

Still I’m not altogether sure that affirmative action isn’t demeaning to the beneficiaries and a failed guilt trip to right long ago but very real wrongs.

This is murky territory.

• HB 1127 purports to be a benign attempt to give individual students at Colorado State University, the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Southern Colorado greater control of their decision to contribute to political, environmental and consumer groups.

These lobbying groups, notably the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, have a Naderesque orientation and are a pesky annoyance to my more conservative colleagues who are sponsoring the bill.

As it now works, every three years students at CSU, UNC and USC vote on whether or not to place a checkoff on the registration form to fund these activist organizations.

The catch is that these are negative checkoffs ... if one does not want to contribute, he or she would need to take a positive action, otherwise you pay by default.

The many students who have contacted me (ironically most from Fort Lewis College, which doesn’t have the checkoff, negative or otherwise) oppose HB 1127 saying this is their business and not the state’s.

They say the bill interferes with free elections on campus (I should note that the turnout for these elections is about 12 percent).

As I’ve often maintained in these columns: Define the issue and the vote becomes rather evident:

• If the issue is about the inequity of a negative checkoff ... the vote on HB 1127 is yes.

• If the issue is heavy-handed state interference with student elections and governance ... the vote is no.

• If the issue is legislator disdain for COPIRGs contrary point of view, and a desire to quash it ... the vote is no.

• If the issue is that state taxpayers fund these institutions of higher learning, so, by crackie, the state should be in control, not some meager 12 percent of students ... the vote is yes.

I’m still not sure what the issue is here.

Thus, unlike Pat Buchannan, on these two bills I may be wrong, but I am in doubt.