Video: State Bill Colorado
Michael Maurer, director of the Legislative Council, tells top legislative leaders Monday about an expenditure that will make television a reality for Colorado’s Senate.

By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
DENVER — The Colorado legislature’s top leadership on Monday committed to televising and webcasting proceedings of the Colorado Senate in 2010.
Colorado’s House has been televised for two years. But the Senate, the smaller and some would say more traditional body, got a slower start because it lagged the House in fundraising.
But come January, the cameras apparently will be rolling.
The Senate banked approximately $110,000 a year for the past two years and used that money in the latter part of the last fiscal year to buy the necessary equipment for broadcasting on Comcast Channel 165 and on the Internet. A remaining $15,000 expenditure for installation and training was approved Monday by the legislature’s top six leaders at a meeting of the so-called executive committee of the Legislative Council.
After the installation and training expenditure was announced and approved, Senate President Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, declared, “With that, there will be a consensus that we’ll be live with television in the Senate.”
Shaffer said after the meeting that he envisions that the Senate television will be much the same as the House’s. It’s believed that the annual operating costs will be covered through a $110,000 appropriation for each chamber.
The television system is operated by a Denver nonprofit, Deproduction, and it will expand its staff to television the Senate as well, Shaffer said.
The thorniest question Shaffer couldn’t answer: Because the House and the Senate tend to meet at the same time, who’s gets preference when it comes to live cable coverage?
“That’s a good question,” he said. “We’ll have to work that out.

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