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Some years ago I happened to be chatting with the only other member of CARP. That's the Colorado Association of Red-bearded Pundits, and that other member is Bob Ewegen. Thanks to the hair-lightening ravages of age, the organization should change its name to something like GOAT, for Grizzled Opinion And Tergiversation, but vanity has precluded that adjustment.
Bob and I were talking about our legislature, and he observed that rural legislators seemed more familiar with urban issues than urban legislators were with rural issues.
That shouldn't be any surprise, I pointed out, because rural legislators spend a goodly portion of each year in the city, since that's where the General Assembly meets. But urban and suburban legislators can go about their careers without ever venturing into the hinterlands of Colorado.
This could change. Last week, the House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing in Glenwood Springs, 160 miles and a couple of mountain ranges away from Denver.
The hearing was about legislation that would compensate
landowners for damages caused by drilling for natural gas,
which is happening all over Garfield County. Kathleen
Curry, the first-term Gunnison Democrat who chairs the
committee, said The role of our committee is to get
input from citizens. This prevents a lot of people from
having to drive seven hours to give one minute of
testimony.
They were testifying about the complications of the
split estate,
which happens when the ownership of a
given parcel is divided -- one entity owns the surface, and
another owns the mineral rights.
Most of these split estates in the West go back to the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916. The first Homestead Act, passed in 1862, provided for 160 acres -- a good family farm on the east side of the 100th Meridian, but a route to starvation on this side, unless it was irrigated, in which case it was more than a family could handle before farms got mechanized.
Uncle Sam experimented with variations over the years, and the 1916 law recognized that some land was good only for grazing. To make the homestead worth the trouble, the size was increased to 640 acres, a full square mile. But the federal government reserved the mineral rights; the homesteader got only the surface rights.
Some of those homesteads remain ranch land; others have been subdivided into smaller parcels. But in general, the rights to the oil and gas under the surface are owned by the federal government, which can lease the rights to private companies, which can build roads, drill wells, spill chemicals, run noisy compressors and otherwise annoy the surface owners -- many of whom found it convenient to attend the Glenwood Springs hearing last week.
Rep. Keith King, a Colorado Springs Republican, said the out-of-town hearing set a bad precedent since it could offer a way to stack the audience, say by moving a hearing to Colorado Springs when the topic is emergency contraception.
The Capitol is neutral ground, according to Joe Stencel,
a Littleton Republican, whereas the Glenwood hearing was
on her turf. It sounds innocuous, but this is very
self-serving.
It does sound rough to leave the gold-domed state capitol and all those comforting oil and gas lobbyists, who are paid to be there, to listen to mere citizens who testify on their own time.
There is some merit to the opposition, although the best reason to oppose migratory legislative committees is our state land board. It meets all over Colorado in various locations, and so it's very difficult to keep an eye on it. Roving committees could present the same problem.
But in moderation, travel would improve our legislature.
We could require each house and senate committee to spend
one week of each session holding hearings in one county
seat at least 100 miles from Denver, from Springfield to
Julesburg to Craig, Aspen, Walden and San Luis. Some towns
could use the economic boost from free-spending lobbyists,
and our General Assembly would get more of a feel for the
entire state, thus giving urban legislators the how
others live
view that the rural legislators
automatically get.
To be sure, some would find reason to oppose this, just
as they criticized the Glenwood hearing. Rep. Mark Larson,
a Cortez Republican, called it pandering to
voters.
That sounds terrible, but when you think about it, just whom should our legislator be pandering to, if not voters?
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