This is a strange session. It's been infiltrated by partisan politics in a way that has been uncharacteristic in the past. There have always been party-line votes. Republicans have run roughshod over Democratic agendas in the past. But it's been much more out in the open than it was this year.
Legislatures are like that.
Committee hearings are the public stages where these privately written scripts are played out. But there has been much more going on behind the scenes in 2001, and much of it influenced by party politics. It's imported and manipulative. In the end, no matter what the legislature does, there probably will be a ballot issue of some sort. The Denver Post or other copyright holders.