TV Is In The House...

According to Andrew Romanoff's blog, the Colorado Legislature will go live tomorrow.

Statehouse Goes Live Tomorrow!

Statement from Speaker Romanoff Announcing "Colorado Open House"

"At 1 o’clock tomorrow afternoon, we will catapult this Capitol into the 21^st Century. For the first time in the history of Colorado, our legislature will go live – on television and on the Internet.

We’re launching “Colorado Open House” – live video coverage of the House of Representatives. This program will appear on the World Wide Web, at www.coloradochannel.net, and on Comcast Digital Cable, on Channel 165. Both the cablecast and the webcast will be archived, so that viewers can search past programs.

This is the next big step in a long journey. We began roughly a decade ago with audio broadcasts of the House and Senate. Starting tomorrow, House floor debates will be televised. Next year, we hope to add the Senate, and, eventually, committee hearings as well.

Our goal is to make Colorado’s government the most transparent, the most accountable, the most citizen-friendly in America. Too many citizens just don’t have the time to come to the Capitol in person, so we’re bringing it home. We’re bringing the statehouse to your house.

That’s important, because this is a statehouse, not a clubhouse. This is the people’s house. We encourage Coloradans to tune in or log on to “Colorado Open House.” It’s the ultimate reality TV show.

No one’s likely to confuse us with “Entertainment Tonight.” This is more like “Education Today.” If you want to find out which Hollywood celebrities are sleeping together, you should probably change the channel. What most Coloradans want to know is whether they’ll have a place to sleep or a job to go to when they get up in the morning. That’s what keeps most of us up at night – wondering whether our kids are going to get a good education, how we’re going to afford to fuel our cars or heat our homes this winter, and what we’re going to do if somebody in our family gets sick.

That’s what this program – and this building – are all about. I’m not the star of “Colorado Open House,” and neither are my colleagues. The stars of this show are the people we represent: their schools, their jobs, their quality of life. Those are the ratings we care about."

Posted by Staff at 7:39 PM
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