Bob the Builder: Colorado Springs legislator gets most bills passed

If you put batting averages on Colorado legislators for their work this past session, you’d want Republican state Sen. Bob Gardner of Colorado Springs on your team.

Gardner was attached to the most bills this past session, at 71, and subsequently had 57 either signed into law or sent to the governor’s desk. (If this were actually baseball, that’d be a batting average of .803)

That number beats out the next most active legislator, Republican state Sen. Don Coram of Montrose, who sponsored 69 bills.

Gardner serves as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and vice chair of the Local Government Committee and is also a member of the Appropriations, Education, and Legal Services committees. That much responsibility meant he was going to have a hand in a wide variety of legislation.

But it wasn’t all good news with Gardner’s bills.

Last month, he drew ire from teachers across the state — including a chant directed at him personally during the April 27 teacher rally in Denver — for his bill that could’ve possibly criminally punished teachers and teacher organizations for participating in strikes. That bill was postponed indefinitely by a Senate committee.

The legislature saw 721 bills introduced, and 432 of them were passed, according to a count by ColoradoPolitics.com.