Twitter: @SenShaffer
I’m going to be doing a live chat with Channel 2, News on the Deuce, from 7-8pm tonight. Go to Channel 2′s website to join the chat room and ask me any questions you might have.
I look forward to chatting with you.
If you can’t join the chat room tonight, please feel free to leave a comment here on the blog and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Posted by SenatorShaffer as Blog at 6:15 PM UTC []
The Senate gave initial approval to my bill that will provide expanded coverage to autistic children. For more information, click here. The Senate will have its final vote on the measure on Monday, then it must move through two House committees and be approved by the full House before heading to the Governor for his consideration. So while the vote today is a victory for autistic children and their families, the fight is not over. The legislative process can be chaotic and unpredictable, but I do believe this bill is necessary and hope it will become law.
For those of you whose lives are touched by someone who has autism, I would like to let you know about an invaluable resource, the Autism Society of Colorado. Their mission is to promote quality of life for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders and their families, and their services range from connecting people to the professionals they need, to providing child care, and more. The Executive Director, Betty Lehman, has been a tireless advocate for Senate Bill 244, and I am grateful to have had her help.
Posted by SenatorShaffer as Blog at 5:29 PM UTC []
The United States has always stood for democracy and freedom, and essential to that freedom is our judicial system. Public safety and justice are equal priorities in this state, and in an effort to preserve fairness and public safety for all Coloradans, we introduced SB 286—a bill that would address sentencing reform.
In Colorado 1 out of 29 adults are under correctional control, which has translated into $686 million of funding to Corrections this year. We only give more funding to Medicaid and K-12 education. When we face the threat of closing community colleges, we clearly need to take a look at fair and just sentencing. But we realized that with a little more than two weeks left in the session, this needs a full and fair discussion.
We need a collaborative approach and everyone must be and will be at the table for it: Governor Ritter, law enforcement, district attorneys, the public defender, and those of us in the legislature. That is why tomorrow we will offer a strike-below on SB 286. This strike-below will offer some guidance on the work the state needs from the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. We will ask the Commission to look at sentencing reform and come back to the legislature in a timely manner with proposed solutions. We need the best policies and the best long term solutions for our budget problems, including sentence reform. Let’s be clear—sentencing reform is not synonymous with sentence reductions. Reform means just that: making changes to our correctional system to help it run more efficiently and to keep Colorado safe. All of us involved will make sure we are doing the right thing for our budget, for our correctional system, and for Colorado.
Posted by SenatorShaffer as Blog at 2:58 PM UTC []