It鈥檚 a four year-old mystery at the state Capitol.
Why does a bill that would deploy high-tech cameras to scan for potentially deadly wildfires fail year-after-year despite universal praise from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle?
Equipped with artificial intelligence and heat sensors, the cameras are steadily replacing an older warning system
State Sen. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, said the new technology can give firefighters a key advantage.
鈥淚t can detect just a wisp of smoke, and it鈥檚 that type of situation in remote areas that could save forests and homes and properties and lives,鈥� she said at the bill鈥檚 first hearing this year.
Colorado lawmakers have tried and failed three times in the last four years to pass a bill to purchase the cameras. They鈥檝e also struggled to explain why such a bill has not passed.
Democrats blamed Republican filibuster attempts of other bills at the very end of last year's session for its death, but that didn鈥檛 explain why Democrats didn鈥檛 schedule it for a key vote after it passed its first test unanimously two months earlier.
This year鈥檚 revived version of the camera bill unanimously passed the Senate in April. But just like last year, the bill never got scheduled for that key vote in the House appropriations committee.
Republican Rep. Mike Lynch sponsored the bill and said he wasn鈥檛 told why it was being killed before a public vote.
鈥淚f there鈥檚 backroom stuff that went on with it, I wasn鈥檛 privy to it,鈥� he said last week.
KUNC discovered there was some 鈥渂ackroom stuff鈥� that Lynch and the public weren鈥檛 aware of at the time. And it might help explain what happened.
In late March, Democrats who control the legislature privately ranked the legislation in a secret ballot process they call quadratic voting.
Democrats in the Senate, which passed the bill unanimously, ranked the bill as their no. 2 priority on a list of 25 bills requiring one time payments. On that same list, the House ranked the bill 15th of 25.
The results are anonymous though, so it isn鈥檛 clear which House members didn鈥檛 vote to prioritize the camera bill, and why.
Lynch said Republicans don't participate in the survey and aren't given the results. Only Democrats received links to this year's survey.
The results of the survey weren鈥檛 released to the public until almost a month after it was taken in response to an open records request .
Lynch says if he had known earlier that the cameras ranked at the bottom half of the House Democrats list of priorities, he would have fought harder to pass it.
鈥�I think that that's a pretty scary way of legislating,鈥� he said of the anonymous bill ranking process. 鈥淵ou know, when you start putting something into a calculation, you now have taken some of the human aspects鈥r the subjectivity out of there.鈥�
Sen. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, introduced the secret bill ranking survey to the Capitol in 2019 as a way to help Democrats decide how to spend a limited budget. He told KUNC last year that bills that rank higher tend to get scheduled for votes earlier in the session.
鈥�And the earlier something gets moved, the better chance it has of success,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f it gets held up or delayed, there鈥檚 always more risk.鈥�
Some lawmakers have downplayed the influence of the secret survey, saying it doesn鈥檛 determine what legislation lives or dies.
Bills with higher price tags that ranked at the bottom of the survey typically had funding removed, were voted down or left to die without a public vote more often than the bills that ranked at the top of the survey.
Rep. Lynch says the Democrats鈥� survey process raises questions and could help explain why his push to buy wildfire cameras suddenly died this year without a public vote.
鈥淓specially a bill that (passed) unanimous out of the Senate,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat kind of raises an eyebrow going, 鈥榳ait a minute, where was the pushback on this?鈥欌��
Lawmakers did pass several other wildfire-related bills this year, including a new military-grade firefighting helicopter and investments in flame-resistant building materials.
Rep. Junie Joseph, D-Boulder, co-sponsored the failed camera bill with Lynch.
She said it was unique because it was one of the only policies focused on preventing fires from getting out of control.
鈥�We know, for instance, the Marshall Fire actually spread pretty quickly,鈥� she said. 鈥淚magine if we had more of (the cameras)...Could we have gotten gotten to it quick, much (more) quickly."
Joseph says she鈥檚 committed to sponsoring the wildfire camera bill again next year.
鈥淚'm disappointed that community members do not have that extra tool or, you know, in their toolbox to help them when it comes to mitigating a wildfire,鈥� she said last week.
The wildfire detection camera program would have cost $2 million, while the new firefighting helicopter lawmakers ordered will cost $26 million.
Some wild-fire prone places aren鈥檛 waiting for the legislature to pay for the cameras. Officials in San Miguel County in southwestern Colorado announced they are installing four of them this year to scan for fires.
The state forester's office estimated in 2019 that 2.9 million Coloradans, or more than half the state's population,
