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B.J. Nikkel

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B.J. Nikkel
Member of the Colorado House of Representatives
from the 49th district
Assumed office
22 January 2009[1]
Preceded byKevin Lundberg
Personal details
Political partyRepublican

Betty June "B.J." Nikkel[1] is a state representative in the U.S. state of Colorado. Nikkel was appointed to the Colorado House of Representatives in January 2009 by vacancy committee to fill the vacancy caused by Kevin Lundberg's elevation to the Colorado State Senate. She was sworn in on January 22, 2009. On November 2, 2010, Nikkel won election to the seat by a 60.2% majority.

Nikkel represents House District 49, which includes all of rural Larimer County, Colorado, including the towns of Wellington, Berthoud, and Estes Park, as well as the town of Windsor in Weld County.[2]

Biography

Nikkel has been a Republican political activist and a senior staffer for former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave,[3] serving as a district director for the congresswoman. Nikkel was also elected as a delegate to the 2004 Republican National Convention.[4][5] She has also worked as a public relations consultant,[6] and, at the time of her election to the legislature, was senior development director for the National Guard Association of Colorado.[7] Nikkel has also served on the State Commission on Judicial Performance,[8] the Larimer County Youth Services Advisory Board[9] and has written a regular editorial column for the Fort Collins Coloradoan.[10]

Nikkel is married; she and her husband, Phil, have two sons: Jonathan and Christopher and live in unincorporated Larimer County near Loveland, Colorado.[7]

When Nikkel was sworn in she took over the committee assignments for her predecessor on Health and Human Services and State, Military and Veterans Affairs Committees. After the 2009 session ended, Nikkel was reappointed to serve on House Judiciary Committee and remained on State, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. She was also appointed to serve on the Colorado Channel Authority which oversees the televised proceedings of the legislature. Rep. Nikkel was also appointed to serve on the Joint Select Committee on Child Welfare as a result of children dying while in the care of the state and was charged with investigating these tragic deaths in a series of special hearings.

With the November election, Colorado Republicans won back the Majority in the House of Representatives from Democrats.

Rep. Nikkel was then elected by her peers in the House Majority to the fourth highest leadership position in the House of Representatives as House Majority Whip. She ran unopposed for the position and as such will help lead the legislative agenda for the new House Republican Majority.

Legislative career

2009 appointment and legislative session

Nikkel's appointment to the state house stemmed from a series of vacancies beginning with state senator Steve Johnson's election as a Larimer County commissioner in November 2008. Given Rep. Kevin Lundberg's expressed interest in being appointed to Johnson's state senate seat, Nikkel expressed interested in assuming Lundberg's house seat shortly after Johnson's November election.[11] Nikkel had previously expressed interest in succeeding the term-limited Lundberg in 2010.[10]

Describing herself as a "conservative centrist"[7] and "a proud, unabashed and fiscally conservative Republican," Nikkel was appointed to the vacant seat over Windsor resident Ray Walter by a vote of 8-2 of a Republican party vacancy committee on January 17.[3] Nikkel was sworn in as a state representative on January 22, 2009,[1] boosting the percentage of women serving in the General Assembly to 40 percent, the highest proportion of all U.S. state legislatures.[12]

Although Nikkel was appointed to the legislature after the start of the 2009 session, she sponsored four bills that year and successfully passed three of them in spite of being in the minority party. Subsequently, she passed six bills during the 2010 session. Ultimately, in total she passed 9 bills during her first two years in office. Rep. B.J. Nikkel's broad success and ability to build consensus as a freshman legislator in the minority party has been widely acclaimed. She is viewed as a rising star in the Republican Party.

Nikkel's Legislation Rep. Nikkel worked with the Department of Military and Veterans affairs to sponsor House Bill 1290 which increased the amount of money in the tuition assistance program for members of the Colorado National Guard.[13]

House Bill 1306 – “Youth Corrections Reporting Requirements” was sponsored by Nikkel and would have increased accountability over state youth corrections facilities, which reportedly had problems with correctly reporting child abuse within the facilities. [14] It would have made it a crime for counselors at youth detention facilities to ignore abuse allegations and for administrators to alter reports. The bill was fought by the Colorado Department of Human Services which oversees youth corrections and was killed in committee.

Nikkel worked on a third bill which passed both the House and Senate and was signed by the governor. House Bill 1291 – “Veterans Information Resource Clearinghouse" provides a one-stop shopping information resource center including a website and "800" phone number for veterans to help them easily find all the information they need on various public, private and government programs that have been vetted, and the services available to them. Rep. Nikkel worked with United Veterans Committee on the bill.

Rep. Nikkel cites House Bill 1288 - “The Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act” as her "most important bill of the legislative session." [15] The Transparency Act puts the state’s checkbook online so taxpayers can view expenditures and revenues. Nikkel, who is called "Miss Transparency" by some said that Transparency in state government will help the state save money by allowing taxpayers to track government waste, fraud and abuse. Nikkel also said she believes "taxpayers have a right to know how and where the state spends our taxpayer dollars without having to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for Colorado Open Records Act requests." The bill passed both houses unanimously and was signed by the governor. [16]

Ultimately, Nikkel saw passage of three of the four bills she sponsored during the 2009 Legislative Session which were signed by the governor after the end of session. A Windsor Beacon editorial cited her accomplishment as a freshman in the minority party as being "pretty impressive when you consider that Nikkel just began her State House career in January without being elected." [15]

During the 2010 Legislative Session, Rep. Nikkel successfully passed six bills. They are: HB10-1140: Construction of National Guard Readiness Centers – Working with the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs on this legislation. The bill creates Readiness Centers in various locations around the state for Colorado Army and Air National Guard. This bill funds and will create Readiness Centers for the Colorado National Guard in Windsor, Grand Junction and Alamosa. Several hundred jobs will be created from the projects in these cities. Passed House State, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee Feb. 25, 2010

HB10-1288: Commercial Broker’s Lien – This bill create create a Commercial Real Estate Brokers’ Lien. Commercial real estate brokers who have difficulty collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars of fees owed to them will have the ability to file liens on properties after attempts at recovery and mediation occurs.

HB10-1259: Conforming Annexation Act to State Constitution – this bill helped conform provisions of the state annexation act to the state constitution so that they are uniform and annexation statute now requires that the constitution must also be referred to (in addition to statute) in annexation cases.

HB10-1161: Livery License Plate – Creates a Livery License Plate for Luxury Limosines.

HB10-1078: Exclusion of Private Information on State’s Transparency Online Project and providing Appeal Process on Excluded Info – Concerns the exclusion and protection of private information on the state’s transparency online project (TOP) I created last year through passing a bill that put the state’s expenditures and revenue data online. This bill also creates a process for appealing exclusions of other information.

SB10-41: Technical Modifications to Statutory Provisions of Campaign Finance Working on this legislation at the request of the Secretary of State’s office. The bill harmonizes legislation and cleans up language in a bill passed in 2009 and conforms the registration requirements for issue committees involved in recall elections to the requirements of other types of issue committees for campaign finance reporting purposes. Also allows the Secretary of State to require electronic filing of campaign finance reports.

All in all, Nikkel was extremely successful in getting 9 bills passed in her freshman term in the minority party.

References

  1. ^ a b c http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/live_from_the_colorado_legislature/archives/2009/01/its_official_sh.html
  2. ^ "State House Map". COMaps. Retrieved 2007-03-14.
  3. ^ a b [1][dead link]
  4. ^ Giroux, Gregory L. (2004-08-26). "Republican Convention: Colorado Delegation". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  5. ^ "Foundry3". Media.www.collegian.com. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  6. ^ http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/News/2009/jan/15/news-local/lundberg-moves-senate
  7. ^ a b c http://reporterherald.com/print.asp?ID=20973
  8. ^ "Commissions on Judicial Performance - Commissions on Judicial Performance". Cojudicialperformance.com. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  9. ^ "BCC Minutes for 09/04/01". Co.larimer.co.us. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  10. ^ a b "Larimer GOP Newsletter Archive - The Republican Party of Larimer County, Colorado". Larimergop.org. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  11. ^ http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:PoyWFOI8VM0J:www.coloradoan.com/article/20081109/UPDATES01/81109005/0/COLUMNISTS31+"nikkel"+"musgrave"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=15&gl=us
  12. ^ Bartels, Lynn (26 January 2009). "Colorado's percentage of women lawmakers is tops in U.S." Rocky Mountain News. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
  13. ^ Dailey, Kathryn (2 February 2009). "Bill and the bill known as the Colorado National Guard Financial Aid Act, raised the cap on financial (tuition assistance) for guardsmen from $650,000 a year to $800,000 a year. The bill, which was opposed by the Colorado Education Association, was supported by Gov. Ritter and Director of Higher Education Department, David Skaggs and passed nearly unanimously. The bill was signed by the governor". Loveland Reporter-Herald. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
  14. ^ http://www.koaa.com/aaaa_top_stories/x777901914/Lawmakers-debate-bill-for-youth-camp-counselors-to-report-abuse
  15. ^ a b [2][dead link]
  16. ^ Denver, The. "Work together on open government". The Denver Post. Retrieved 2010-09-30.

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