DENVER – The Colorado Senate passed the state budget with a 30-5 vote Thursday, an overwhelming show of bipartisan support for a bill full of small partisan battles.

The long bill, House Bill 1405, spends nearly $26 billion, but Colorado’s 100 lawmakers only have direct control over $8.69 billion in cash and general funds.

Because Colorado’s General Assembly is divided – Republicans hold the Senate and Democrats hold the House – the budget was drafted this year by a Joint Budget Committee split evenly between the two parties.

Despite that, only five Republicans in the House supported the budget. In the Senate, four Republicans and one Democrat voted against the budget.

The budget now heads back to the House, where it can consider changes the Senate made. On many issues, including an amendment to ban the purchase of fetal tissue for research and one stripping funds from Colorado’s clean air programs, a joint conference committee will be called to resolve the differences.

Here’s how El Paso County Senators voted Thursday:

Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs

Vote: Yes

Why: “This budget funds schools in our districts and even provides an increase. It stopped a significant cut to higher education. … This budget eliminated some wasteful spending. … This budget protected severance taxes for rural Colorado and this budget puts real money into ignored infrastructure and roads. It is a budget that we can be proud of in spite of its shortcomings. I am proud to vote aye on this budget.”

Issues: Cadman emphasized that many of the state’s budget woes are self-inflicted through spending by past and present lawmakers. On the Senate floor, he held up 10 years worth of Medicaid legislation: “We still tell our constituents that K-12 is a priority. And it’s not and it hasn’t been. But don’t pretend we don’t have the money. We spent it, and this is what the receipts look like now – a program that will have one in four Coloradans on it.”

Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs

Vote: No

Why: “We are expanding spending far more than we should be at a time when Coloradans are hurting. I want to see us do more to reform to control spending.”

Issues: “I’m obviously disappointed that we are funding the LARC program,” Hill said, referring to $2.5 million in the budget for family planning that includes long-acting reversible contraceptives like intrauterine devices. “I wish we had done more to get control on Medicaid costs and I want to see us do more to fund education in away that actually follows the student.”

Sen. Michael Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs

Vote: Yes

Why: “We have to have a balanced budget. That’s probably the major job we have as legislators. My voting for it doesn’t mean that I’m happy with it or that we accomplished as much as we could have, but the alternative would be to not fund any of the services that people demand and expect of us.”

Issues: “I would have liked to have seen, of course, greater funds put toward education, buying down the negative factor and to do more for college tuition.” The negative factor is what the state has fallen short of in funding K-12 education programs from a Constitutional mandate that it keep pace with enrollment and inflation.

Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs

Vote: Yes

Why: “We are getting very close to passing a balanced budget on time, and I think we are pretty fortunate the process we have in Colorado to work together to do that. Not every state has the Joint Budget Committee process like we do, so we have a pretty good screening process prior to the budget coming in. That screens things out that are unacceptable to all the different factions.”

Issues: Lambert is a long-time member of the JBC, and one point chaired the committee. Part of his job during budget hearings is to help keep the JBC’s work intact. “We budget to the revenue that we have and if we were less than that, then there would probably be people passing amendments trying to spend that money anyway. We’ve seen that in the past.”

Sen. Kevin Grantham, R-Cañon City

Vote: Yes

Why: “The very fact that we didn’t have to make the draconian cuts to the budget that the first floor and the executive branch wanted to make: $20 million in higher education, a vast increase in the negative factor, and many other things that we were able to avoid.”

Issues: Grantham is also on the JBC. “The House Republicans are correct. It is growing and it’s growing exponentially and it’s growing too fast. And that’s something we have to work on, but we are going to have to change current law to change that.”

Andy Cross