Colorado’s Senate President: A voice from beyond Denver
The Fremont County Republican will be the first rural Senate President in 43 years.
From a farming community in Crowley County, Dist. 2 Sen. Kevin Grantham is ready to stick up for southern and rural Colorado upcoming legislative session, which will begin mid January.
Grantham, who represents Fremont, Teller, Park and Clear Creek was reelected to a third term in the Colorado Senate this election, is playing a bigger role in the state legislature this year. Previously, Grantham has served on the Joint Budget Committee, which is responsible for submitting a budget to the governor for approval.
But this session, Grantham will serve as the new Senate President, taking the reigns over from former President Bill Cadman, of Colorado Springs.
Having grown up in rural southeastern Colorado, Grantham has made many efforts to make sure the region is included on decisions and laws passed made during past legislative sessions. Now, as Senate President, Grantham said he will continue working to help his District as he has done before.
How could your new position effect people in places, such as Southern Colorado, that feel like they are being left out or that don’t feel like they have a voice at the State Capitol?
Well hopefully, it will mean a great deal for rural Colorado. I’ll be the first rural Senate President in 43 years, so I guess proof will be in the pudding, if we can get anything done that will favor, or at least not hurt, rural Colorado.
Some of the main focuses this year are going to be on transportation and infrastructure. That’s a statewide issue and unfortunately much of the funding has been unfairly waded toward metro areas. Now granted, they will have a lot more black top around the metro areas, so they will get a whole lot more money, but it always seems to be at expense of our rural highways. So, that is one of the focuses this year, is making sure we keep formulas fair, one way or another.
That’s just one aspect. One of the other things is another statewide issue more so, is the rules and regulatory framework in many our agencies just really do harm to our small business. What is rural Colorado without small business? We need to get our government off our small businesses backs.
As a Senator to Fremont County, you know the potential closure of Guantanamo Bay and transferring prisoners to Supermax was a big topic this past year. With the new Trump administration and your leadership, what do you see happening?
He’s been pretty explicit in his statements about maintaining GITMO as is. I would be inclined to believe that — even the given the state of our Governor’s opinion on this — even in the meantime between now and Jan. 20, I would say there’s a little chance of those prisoners being brought in. After the changeover of the presidency, I would say there’s no chance of a GITMO problem as we know it.
So, you don’t see any of this being discussed at all this next year? It was heavily discussed leading up to the election. There were a couple of town halls held in Fremont County to discuss it and it seemed to be, here at least, on everybody’s radar.
I honestly don’t think so, but that is always assuming some politicians hold to their word and that we don’t have a president that changes his mind and decides to close GITMO and move those prisoners. But, that would go against every statement he (Trump) has made on the issue. I would be very shocked if we had to deal with this again in the next four years.
There was discussion again this year about moving the State Fair away from Pueblo to somewhere in Northern Colorado. Where are you on this?
You know, it’s talked about every year. In my humble opinion, it’s been a whole lot of bluster.
They have to fix things about the State Fair that are broken and that doesn’t change with location. The idea that you can just move it to a Castle Rock or anywhere else up in the northern I-25 corridor is a far-fetched dream — that doing so will somehow be the magical fix for revenue issues at the State Fair. The problems will still exist.
What we have to do is figure out what our goals are on the State Fair and how we want to achieve those goals on statewide level. Pueblo is still, in my opinion, the best location for the Fair, historically and functionally. The grounds already exist. We have to decide what we want the infrastructure to look like there at the fairgrounds, as it is an aging infrastructure. Do we want to have a plan in place to build new and keep it there? There’s a lot of moving parts on this that will require a heavy effort to make sure the State Fair stays, or gets to be, profitable. It does great during the State Fair week, those two or three weeks of the State Fair. The problem is the greater expense of maintaining the grounds for the other 48 to 49 weeks of the year. That’s where we bleed of the money. It’s a lot of bluster. As long as I have anything to say about it, I will work to keep it in Pueblo.
Energy is a big topic for the legislature this year. Southern Colorado has a Vestas plant and some mining. How are you going to approach those topics for both the whole state, but for this area specifically?
Well, most of the mining in our state is out in rural areas. Generally, whenever we have policy coming down on the federal level or the state level that puts the screws to the coal industry or the oil and gas industry in particular, and that hurts rural Colorado.
We see that actually in several parts of the state — down in the Trinidad area and up in northern Colorado like Weld County. Every single regulation and every single rule down from the federal government or from the EPA, the Department of Interior; all eventually hurts rural Colorado.
This Energy Select Committee we are forming in the Senate is going to focus on those issues. It’s going to look at what we can do, not just on state level but on federal level to see how we can ease some of those regulatory mandates that hurt these industries and in turn some of the poorest parts of the state that can’t afford to be hurt anymore.
We want to look at an all of the above plan; a true all of the above plan, instead of this anti-coal and anti-oil and gas scheme we’ve seen these last 10 years. Wind and solar are great, they’re fine. But I just don’t think it should be subsidized by the taxpayers at the expense of other industries, which is what currently is happening on the federal and state level. If we can seek all the above, an all of the above solution, then Colorado will be better off for it.
This was a pretty big speaking point for Trump while campaigning. When he visited Pueblo, he spoke a lot about getting blue-collared jobs back to places like Pueblo. Is there anything on the state level you can see doing to back that promise, especially in rural Colorado and manufacturing hubs, such as Pueblo?
It will be interesting to see what kind of substitute plans the president-elect will have when he takes office and how he will accomplish some of those things. I know his commitment, at least to the energy sector, will be a huge help to Colorado.
If we can just get those jobs rolling again, it’ll be great; and all of these things kind of domino. When you get one sector back to work, then another sector has to be put back to work, because it has to help support that industry and then the dominoes just sort of fall. It’s the same thing with construction, when jobs start coming up then people start wanting to get of their rental house, so then the construction industry will get a boost. This is just from creating jobs in the energy sector.
Is there anything that you in particular want to see get done this year or bring back to the table?
I am always open to jumping in on any ideas that folks have on issues. I know there’s something that Rep. Clarice Navarro and I are looking at in regards to CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) — trying to fix something that is a bit of mess there in Fremont County over by Penrose.
