Colorado Lawmaker Kicks Photographer

Bruce or Britney?
Attention-grabbing poliltico embarrasses city

Douglas Bruce seems a lot like Britney Spears these days. Like Spears, Bruce seems to self-destruct in the spotlight. Bruce and Britney have issues with photographers. Britney chose to date an obtrusive cameraman; Bruce chose to kick one.

Sure, Bruce authored a useful, if somewhat flawed, constitutional amendment long ago that mostly empowers Colorado taxpayers and saves them money. For that, we give him credit. Likewise, there was a time when Britney was known for her work. She gave us “Oops I Did it Again.” For that, we give credit where credit is due.

Like Spears, Bruce has morphed into an embarrassment to himself and all his old friends. Unlike Bruce, Spears has an excuse: She’s practically a child, whose maturity was likely stilted by the turmoil of teen stardom. Bruce, by contrast, is a grown and educated man — one entrusted by leading Republicans with representing a district and making it look good.

The latest Bruce shenanigans began with his refusal to take an oath for his new legislative position until the session was well under way. Though controversial, it was an understandable political maneuver to maximize the potential length of his term. No harm, no foul.

Bruce, however, continued refusing the oath past the point of strategic gain. Why? Because he was certain other legislators were picking on him. House Speaker Andrew Romanoff gave Bruce four options for a swearing in, but none was acceptable. He wound up in a standoff with Democrat Romanoff and Republicans, refusing any swearing-in ceremony that didn’t make him a central attraction. Like a fallen pop star, Bruce seemed desperate for attention.

On Monday, fed up members of the House Republican Caucus voted 22-1 to ask the House District 15 Vacancy Committee to appoint someone else to fill the seat if Bruce didn’t take his oath by the end of the day. With that, Bruce backed down and quietly took his oath at 1:32 p.m., with only five other legislators in the chamber. He told reporters that his point had been made: House leadership had picked on him, and now everyone knew it. So take that, House leadership.

Having refused to take the oath, Bruce apparently believed it unwise to resign his seat as an El Paso County commissioner before fellow commissioners began their session Monday. They fined him $10 for an unexcused absence, though Bruce insists it was excused.

Bruce made a spectacle of himself even during the Legislature’s morning prayer. As Bruce prayed — presumably to Jesus, prince of peace — Rocky Mountain News photographer Javier Manzano took his picture. This irritated Bruce the way paparazzi annoy pop stars. So Bruce kicked him. More of a nudge, perhaps, but it was caught on tape. Bruce asked the public to imagine the stress of praying in church with a photographer snapping photos.

Mr. Bruce, the state Capitol isn’t a church. It’s public property and Manzano was permitted to work the floor, conducting important business in the public’s interest. Would Jesus have kicked him for this?

As reported in The Gazette, Rocky Mountain News Publisher and Editor John Temple was considering Monday whether to press charges over the alleged physical assault on his employee. Hmmm. Kicked on state property for conducting one’s lawful duties. It certainly sounds like a crime.

“It does not help the conservative Republican image to have someone acting in this childish manner,” said Dane Nowels, a staunch conservative Republican and vice chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party. “I think this behavior will certainly encourage individuals to primary that seat for another candidate for next November’s election. There will for sure be a primary now, and this gives more strength to his opposition.”

Residents and caucus leaders in District 15 should keep one fact in mind: Douglas Bruce — behaving like a desperate adolescent pop star — is representing you before the entire state. He’s his own worst enemy. But he’s your man. Set him straight.

House nearly unanimous on censure

Its members vote 62-1 in favor of punishing Rep. Douglas Bruce for kicking a photographer
span style="text-decoration: underline;"By MICHAEL DAVIDSON
THE GAZETTE
January 25, 2008 - 7:04AM

DENVER - The Colorado House voted 62-1 Thursday to censure Rep. Douglas Bruce, punishing the appointed El Paso County Republican for kicking a photographer.

A bipartisan committee recommended the censure, the first in the Legislature’s history, after testimony last week from Bruce, Rocky Mountain News photographer Javier Manzano and others who witnessed the altercation.

Bruce kicked Manzano after he was photographing Bruce during the morning prayer on the House floor before Bruce, a midterm replacement filling a vacancy, was sworn in.

Censure required a majority vote of the 65-member House.

Addressing the House before the vote, Bruce continued to downplay the force of his kick and again blamed Manzano for the incident. The photographer had promised to stop taking his photograph during the prayer, Bruce said, but was goaded into it by another photographer.

“I should not have believed that the photographer was going to keep his word, and I should have scurried off to the side room instead,” Bruce said. “But I made a mistake; I trusted a journalist, and I won’t do that again.”

Bruce said he was attempting to maintain decorum that had been disturbed by the media.

Bruce compared himself to the hero of the 1939 Jimmy Stewart movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” In the movie, Stewart played a freshman congressman who punches a reporter and becomes a hero after collapsing in the midst of a filibuster.

Bruce said that he, like the title character, had been “set up and provoked by the press even before he had been sworn in” and was subject to “a legislative inquisition” led by his opponents.

Bruce was cut short by House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, who invoked a House rule limiting speakers to 10 minutes.

Bruce was further angered when Rep. Al White, R-Hayden, was allowed to rebuke him before the vote.

“Representative Bruce, you’re not Jimmy Stewart, this is not a 1939 movie. This is today. Your actions were wrong,” White said.

Bruce passed out a sevenpage statement to each House member explaining his refusal to apologize to Manzano and listing past misdeeds by House members that went unpunished. In it, he referred to Romanoff as his “executioner.”

Bruce attempted to have the statement put into the official House record, but it was rejected 56-7.

“There has never been an instance of any such action being taken, and who did they take it against? They take it against the author of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights before he could even become a member,” Bruce said.

Romanoff said later that Bruce’s claim of an ulterior motive was “false — and, frankly, shameful,” and reiterated the investigation was bipartisan.

The only member to vote against censure was Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud. Lundberg said that Bruce was wrong to kick Manzano, but that his misdeed didn’t deserve the harshest punishment ever levied by the House against a member. Bruce was not allowed to vote.

“I have seen incidents that are in my opinion equal to this, and no censure, nor even formal rebuke, occurred,” Lundberg said. “This boxes us in. The next time something comes up somewhere, the standard is censure or nothing.”

Paul Weissmann, D-Louisville, co-chairman of the committee that recommended censure, disagreed that the punishment was too severe.

He said Bruce would have been given a lesser sanction if he had taken responsibility for what he did. The committee considered expelling Bruce but deemed that inappropriate.

“Early on it was decided that it’s not fair for us to disenfranchise the voters of Colorado Springs who sent him here,” Weissmann said.

The committee voted 5-1 to force Bruce to apologize to the House. That was dropped because members said a forced apology would have been hollow, co-chairman Steve King, R-Grand Junction, said.

The Colorado Legislative Council Staff was asked by Bruce to determine whether there had been an instance of a member’s being disciplined in the past. The staff found no record of such an action, but it is missing documents from 1876 to 1879.

The Associated Press contributed to this report