Key bills up for debate as clock ticks on legislative session

Six percent of registered Democrats and Republicans participated in the Super Tuesday Caucuses.

Calls for a presidential primary began in earnest with the low turnout and after GOP frontrunner Donald Trump railed against Republican leadership in the state, calling Sen. Ted Cruz’s Colorado sweep a ‘voterless victory.’

Many voters argue the process is too slow and messy.

Annabel Kirwan was a precinct captain in Colorado Springs.

“I found the process very unorganized,” Kirwan said. “There is too much room for mistake.”

A bill that aims to boost turnout, raise the state’s importance in the primary phase and potentially give the vote to unaffiliated voters, the largest voting bloc in the state, has bipartisan support.

“The delegates would be representing the entire Republican electorate in Colorado, not only the few who have the time and the means and the knowledge to attend the caucus,” Daniel Cole with the El Paso County GOP said.

“For the people who work full time like myself you can go anytime during the day to vote,” Kirwan said. “It reaches a far more number of people and it’s pretty cut and dry.”

But, money could be the ultimate hurdle.

The parties pay for caucuses. State taxpayers would be on the hook for a presidential primary. The tight budget was the main reason lawmakers voted to do away with the primary in 2002. If a primary were to return in 2020, Secretary of State Wayne Williams estimates that cost to be in the neighborhood of $5 million.

Lawmakers will also decide whether to allow full strength wine and beer in grocery stores, something Colorado store shelves haven’t seen since Prohibition.

Pot related legislation could make way for parents to give their children Medical Marijuana to use at school.

None of Colorado’s 178 school districts currently allow kids to medical marijuana on school grounds.

The gavel comes down on the session May 11.