Cheri Gerou says she’s pretty good at figuring out how to make a person laugh, but for the four years they’ve been together in the state’s House of Representatives, that hasn’t been the case with Crisanta Duran.
“I know that there’s a sense of humor in there somewhere — I just haven’t been able to find it,” Gerou, R-Evergreen, said.
And there’s been little that Duran, D-Denver, has ever found funny about Gerou. About a month ago, she even threatened to file ethics charges against her colleague.
Duran is the chair of two powerful House committees, the Joint Budget and Appropriations. Unfortunately for her, Gerou, herself a former chair of the JBC, serves on both.
Watching the two go about their paces, the parrying and thrusting, has made for some entertaining viewing, perhaps something worthy of television cameras and a time slot on Bravo — “The Real Politicians of Denver.”
“It’s no secret there’s no love lost between them,” House Speaker Mark Ferrandino said.
In TV Land, the season finale would have come a couple of weeks ago, when the House finalized passage of the 2014-15 budget, a $23 billion package that, from the Democrats’ view, was less about fire and flood recovery and substantial boosts to K-12 and higher education, and more a personal referendum on Duran. How else would you explain, they say, the fact that the budget received great bipartisan support in the Senate, with half of the Republicans in that body voting for it.
Meanwhile, in the House, there was just a single non-Democratic vote — which came from Gerou, who had pledged solidarity with the other five members of the JBC who crafted the budget.
As recently as last Friday, Gerou admitted that, over the course of the session, Duran had “improved markedly” in her role as committee chair. Of course, a couple of weeks before, Gerou, in a meeting of the Republican caucus, told her party members that it may have been Duran’s “inexperience” that led to what they considered a subpar budget.
“Every chair has a different approach; we are where we are because of the way the chair has managed the budget,” Gerou said at the time. “I can’t defend it. Did I like how it happened? Absolutely not.”
But the Republicans had expressed their unhappiness with Duran before that. As was the case in the final vote, when the budget was initially presented, Gerou was the only member of the minority party to vote for it. That tally came after some Republicans indicated that Duran had talked down to them in presenting it.
“Sometimes,” Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs, said to Duran, “how we do things in here is just as important as what we do.”
Indeed during the debate, while the Republicans complained on the floor about a muddled and confusing process, it was clear that they were speaking directly to Duran.
“We’ve seen behavior this year that isn’t traditional,” Ferrandino said.
Ethics charges threatened
Duran and Gerou went at it about a month ago during a meeting of the Appropriations Committee. When Gerou made a joke about helping to pass one representative’s bill if it would help one of hers get passed, Duran threatened to file ethics charges. At one point during the meeting itself, Duran posted a tweet wondering if she should buy a gun for self-defense, adding at the end that she was — just in case Gerou was wondering — joking.
Neither lawmaker can definitively point to how the friction began. Duran recalls being especially offended in the summer of 2012 when Gerou, then the chair of the JBC, led an intense, sometimes testy hearing with Metropolitan State University of Denver and its president, Stephen Jordan.
At the time, the school was considering creating a special tuition rate for students who are in the country illegally. Metro is housed in Duran’s district, and she was strongly behind the plan. However, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers opined it was likely illegal. That led to pointed questions from Gerou.
But after federal law changed, enabling Metro to proceed with its tuition rate plan, Gerou voted in favor of it.
“We’re not elected to get along”
For her part, Gerou says most of the problems stem from what she perceives as Duran’s tendency to “bully.”
“If she follows the rules, then she can control me,” Gerou said. “But if I see someone being a bully regarding what goes on on those committees, then I’m going to push back against it.”
To that end, in the presentation of the budget, Gerou insists she had at least five Republicans ready to vote for it, but that she lost those votes because of Duran.
“If she was trying to antagonize our members, she did a fine job of it,” Gerou said at the time.
Ferrandino said he doubts that there were any Republicans on board.
House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, says Duran’s approach before the tally was taken didn’t impress.
“We wouldn’t vote no because we don’t like one person, but I know that on more than one occasion, the chair of the JBC tried to make it personal by coming to the well and lecturing our caucus,” DelGrosso said.
Ferrandino counters that the comments are indicative of how Duran has indeed been singled out.
Asked if she’s been hurt by what’s transpired, Duran smiled and shook her head.
“I’m disappointed by it. I think the budget was a huge success and the fact that it’s a victory for every community in Colorado speaks for itself,” she said. “Every argument, every disagreement they presented was never about substance — it was never about policy, it was always personal.
“That’s OK. We’re not elected to get along, we’re elected to serve the people of this state and represent their interests, and from that standpoint, I feel really proud of the work we did.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292, acotton@denverpost.com or twitter.com/anthonycottondp
