UPDATE: The liberal online media and their sibling “think tanks”, who get a huge amount of cash from anti-payday lending groups, are all hot in the drawers over the House asserting its prerogative to rewrite the rule. Progressives really can’t come to terms with the fact that voters rejected their stranglehold on the Legislature. We say: Get Over It and Learn to Compromise.

Brandon Shaffer finally stormed out of one too many meetings, intent on holding the Capitol hostage to his control. As we mentioned last night the Capitol was governed by one-state Pyongyang politics for years and Democrats are struggling to adjust to the new balance-of-power reality. But Shaffer has had a particularly rough time adjusting to sharing the sandbox. 

Speaker McNulty finally had enough with Shaffer's incompetent leadership of the Senate and decided to cross the legislative finish line rocking his steel-toed boots. Sine Die will now come with either Shaffer learning legislative compromise or killing a rules bill in spite.

Shaffer could actually look to his own party in the House to see the bipartisan support the legislation, without Shaffer's interference, has for passage. From the Denver Post's political fabricator reporter, Tim Hoover:

The amendment Republicans pushed Tuesday night onto the annual rules bill essentially resurrected the [$75] origination-fee issue as a rule.  

Two Democrats, Reps. Edward Casso of Commerce City and Sue Schafer of Wheat Ridge, initially supported attaching the amendment but later flipped their votes.  

Because the Senate had already passed the rules bill, the House would be sending it back with the payday-loan amendment, meaning the Senate could either accept the House change or simply adhere to its earlier position.  

House Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, said that if the Senate didn't accept the amendment, that would kill the bill.

There is no way that a $75 origination fee amendment, which was supported by two liberal Democrats in the House, is a legitimate excuse to kill an entire rules bill and force a special session at a cost of $21,000 a day to taxpayers.

We know John Morse has no problem charging that kind of money for his "hard work" outside the legislative session, but with Shaffer intent on running for Congress, we wonder if he'll want to explain to voters why he wasted more of their money. Not a good way to start convincing people you belong in Washington.   

With the intellect and temperament of a bar rooom bouncer, it's not going to be easy for Shaffer to bow to reality and compromise, but for his political future he must. Pushing flower shop regulation, cutting up the Eastern Plains, and risking wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate of twenty large a day — all in the last week of the session — is no way to begin a campaign for the 4th Congressional District.

Don't worry Brandon, we'll make sure to let your future voters know about your long list of legislative accomplishments.