Larson's phone bill

Larson's phone bill

Good try, but the speaker's supporters win the day

April 19, 2001

One way to get slapped down is to stand up. State Rep. Mark Larson found that out the hard way this week when he took a legislative beating at the hands of the House leadership.

But while Larson’s experience may have been personally unpleasant, he deserves our thanks. He was, after all, standing up for us.

At issue was Senate Bill 93, which would have created a "no-call list" for people tired of having their dinners interrupted by telemarketers. The list would have been administered by the state Public Utilities Commission and telemarketers would have been required to respect it.

All that is in the past tense because the bill was killed by the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee Tuesday on a 6-5, almost party-line vote. Larson, a Republican, was joined by four Democrats in supporting the bill.

The partisan cast of that vote, however, was deceptive. The bill was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ken Chlouber, R-Leadville, and had significant bi-partisan support.

It also had the backing of the public. Bill Kaufman, a Loveland attorney and former state representative who lobbied for the bill, said the idea enjoyed 80 percent support in recent polls.

Larson said it would have helped protect individual privacy and guard against telephone fraud, which is often aimed at the elderly. Representatives of AARP also testified for the bill.

Moreover, SB 93 would have given Coloradans the respect due their property and their time. "We’re paying for that phone line," Larson said, "If we don’t want to be bothered, we shouldn’t be bothered."

What could be simpler – or a more fundamentally conservative position?

Nonetheless, the House leadership opposed the measure from the start. Representatives from the Colorado Springs area, chief among them Speaker of the House Doug Dean, led the fight against the bill.

Larson, perhaps a bit too straightforward for the machinations of the Legislature, got sideways with the speaker for pointing out in his weekly column how Dean maneuvered to torpedo the bill. That endeared him to some Democrats, but fellow Republicans accused him of "airing dirty laundry."

All Larson really did, though, was describe how the sausage is made. Colorado Springs is home to several telemarketing companies that, Dean says, represent 4,000 jobs. In the end, that trumped Larson’s concern for people across Colorado.

Still, it was a good effort on behalf of a good bill. Larson should be proud.