As major newspapers and statewide TV stations gushed glowing coverage on the new Speaker of the House, Frank McNulty, missing from the blogosphere and main stream media was any significant discussion of House Minority Leader Sal Pace's opening day screed.
Pace had all the panache you would expect from former Congressman John Salazar's protege. His substance was grotesquely partisan (even on opening day), his style was disheveled and unhinged, and young Sal's stuttering delivery would have made even his mentor Salazar uncomfortable.
And that is saying something.
While McNulty struck tones of bipartisanship and job creation, Pace argued that "government was not the problem."
Poor Sal. Playing defense is tough and if his opening day speech is any indicator, he isn't up to the task.
Those who have followed the state budget debate over the last several years can be forgiven for having an authentic LOL moment when reading about Representative Dickey Lee Hullinghorst's pay-as-you-go legislation.
Because we did too.
Hullinghorst and House Minority Leader Sal "The Fist" Pace have been thrashing about over the pay-go measure in the press the last couple weeks, trying to posture themselves as budget hawks, while whining that they can't find any Republican support for their phony-budget austerity plan.
In short, the bill purports to require bills to have an identified funding source before they can move through the committee process.
We could spend 1500 words and 3 screen scrolls telling you why Hullinghorst is wrong and Pace is a hypocrite. But we'll leave it to this brief 3 point description.
First, Pace, Hullinghorst and every other Democrat legislator in the building over the last 4 years supported a policy of balancing the budget on the back of a Weld County-sized stampede of accounting gimmicks. Among the most favored gimmicks was using "one time" dollars to fund an expansion of permanent programs, or relying on rosy revenue forecasts to prop up new spending proposals.
We ask: is relying on bogus budget estimates to expand government programs pay-as-you-go? Is creating permanent government obligations on the full faith and credit of one-time cash fiscal austerity?
In the immortal words of Dr. Dre, Hellllll no it's not.
After 2 years of deriding the organized marches of Tea Partiers as "astro turf", yesterday the liberals returned fire on House and Senate Republicans with a march of their own, protesting GOP members of the budget committee who had the nerve to keep a school lunch program at its current funding level, rather than expand it as Democrats had proposed.
Confronted by a more than $1 billion budget shortfall, and a budget that has been balanced with accounting gimmicks for the last three years, Republicans on the budget panel are actually making the tough choices, and showing some brass doing it. While Democrats proposed to spend an additional $250,000 on the already fully funded school lunch program, Republicans said no, and will likely push to transfer the surplus money to the general budget to spare higher education and K-12 additional budget cuts.
But Sal "The Fist" Pace and his big government buddies are having none of it. Aided by the PR firm owned by Democrat operative Eric Sonderman and various other liberal non-profit organizations, yesterday Team Big Government marched on the Capitol to proclaim from the rooftops that they want to expand the school lunch program, even if it means more cuts to the state's colleges.
But let's be serious for one moment. The coalition marching on the Capitol grounds wants to expand every program, not just this one.
Somewhere, Rep. Andy Kerr is secretly smiling. Kerr, of course, was narrowly edged out by Rep. Sal Pace to be leader of the House Democrats this legislative session. Pace beat out Kerr on the strength of the argument that it was he, not Kerr, who posessed the political acumen needed to lead downtrodden Democrats back to the majority in the House.
Democrats in the State House who fell for that argument must be kicking themselves after Pace suffered a full-blown psychiatric meltdown at a rally with union activists yesterday. Apparently unconstrained by the rules of syntax or the customs of the English language, young Pace launched into a rambling, run-on laden tirade, punctuated by this whopper from the Minority Leader: "I'm willing to put my fist where I need to put it," Pace bellowed. "I'm willing to fight. I'm willing to go and rumble. . ."
UPDATE: Reps. Pabon, McCann, and Lee were nowhere to be seen at Civic Center Park today.
The Legislature is not in session today out of respect for one of our nation's greatest civil rights leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and while not all legislators are invited to participate in Denver's ceremony, most Denver Democrats usually do.
But the Denver Post reports that newly elected Rep. Dan Pabon and Rep. Pete Lee, along with veteran Rep. Beth McCann decided to head out of town and hit the slopes for some fresh powder yesterday.
Minority Leader Sal Pace better hope that these three members of his caucus make it back in time for the ceremony and parade, as skipping out on the MLK Day festivities for a ski junket would be a big no-no and further strain ties between Denver Dems and Rep. Pace.
The art of being an effective legislative minority is knowing how to pick your fights. If that is the case, then Rep. Sal Pace is off to a bad start. The new House Minority Leader tried to turn a token move by Republicans to rename committees into his Waterloo.
Pace organized a few of his least charismatic caucus members to stage a debate over the minutia of committee names during the normally ceremonial opening day proceedings.
Oh, Sal. Good grief. This is your first big stand?
Give credit to Senate President Brandon Shaffer, who had the good sense to use the first 48 hours of the new session to draw lines over education funding. Agree with Shaffer or not (and we certainly don't), he has figured out how to use the bully pulpit to push his agenda and not just make noise.
It is a skill that John Salazar's protege Mr. Pace would do well to learn, and fast, before he sets off another round of Captiol chuckling at his expense.
