Log In


Reset Password
Opinion Editorial Cartoons Op-Ed Editorials Letters to the Editor

Roberts cannot sidestep lands issue

In the comedy “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” the governor of Texas has a solution to uncomfortable questions from reporters: He’ll “dance a little sidestep” and disappear. “Now they see me, now they don’t; I’ve come and gone.”

Charles Durning as the governor slyly segues away without having to deal with that awkward thing about expressing a position. At a recent forum, Sen. Ellen Roberts did her best Charles Durning impression, dancing around issues ranging from state control over federal lands to contraception. Her obfuscations were apparent in every long-winded answer. The assembled gathering was told how the legislative process works. We were likewise told to read bills before judging them. I guess my printed copy of Senate Bill 15-232 doesn’t count, nor apparently do the bills held by the half dozen other people in my immediate vicinity.

But we were edified further by Roberts. Unbeknownst to the rabble gathered, a legislator must take responsibility only for those bills, which she actually sponsors. Her floor votes and committee votes are just part of that voodoo contortionism that results in laws. So it was with her vote for Senate Bill 232, a bill “concerning the creation of the Colorado Federal Land Management Commission to study the transfer of public lands in Colorado from the federal government to the state.” She was the swing vote on the Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee. But remember only bills sponsored by Roberts count.

Take a short drive to Blanding, Utah, to understand why federal lands must remain in the public trust. There, four men, including a San Juan County commissioner, were found guilty of trespassing on public lands, driving ATVs into Recapture Canyon. Laws like SB 232 threaten to allow a vocal, sometimes militant, minority to assert control over lands that belong to all of us – lands that represent a priceless natural and cultural heritage. Roberts cannot sidestep this issue.

Patrick Owens

Durango



Reader Comments