Story & photo by Ann Lockhart
How has reporter Marianne Goodland survived covering the Colorado legislature for 27 years? She said “I have a life outside the legislature…a husband and a daughter and I play the harp. It keeps me grounded.” She has even played the harp on the final day on the Colorado House floor for close to 10 years.
Regarded as the dean of the State Capitol press corps, she has been a political reporter since 1998. She is chief legislative reporter for Colorado Politics (a weekly print and 24/7 online news outlet), the Denver Gazette and the Colorado Springs Gazette, which are owned by billionaire businessman Philip Anschutz.
She covers the Colorado General Assembly, state agencies, public policy and elections. “I love what I do,” she admitted to Colorado Press Women at the group’s annual meeting April 19 in Denver. The legislature and covering water are her two areas of expertise; water is a major interest of rural Colorado areas often plagued with drought. She works to cover all sides of issues.
From January to early April, her hours are fairly normal as legislators introduce five bills apiece, although some introduce many more bills. This year, legislators introduced 650 bills. “It’s a frenetic pace,” she said. “Committee hearings are kind of a joke. There’s not enough time.” In the next January legislative session, legislators try to correct mistakes in bills.
After April 1, she often has a 60-hour work week including weekends as the legislators struggle to hold hearings, debate and vote on bills before the session ends May 7. Among the issues she covered this year were gun control, tow truck and funeral home regulation, geothermal and nuclear energy and the Open Records Act. She’s also covered lawmakers who don’t live in the district they represent (nine at one point.)
“The legislature has one job—to pass a budget,” she said. Funding for Medicaid, education and corrections take 70 percent of the state’s budget. This year Colorado is about to fall off a fiscal cliff with a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, she said.
Another current issue involves a 1923 Interstate Compact between Colorado and Nebraska which allows Nebraska to build the Perkins Canal in northeast Colorado near Julesburg and Ovid to channel more water from the South Platte River to the neighboring state. It would allow Nebraska to acquire six plots of Colorado land by eminent domain to build the canal and drying up 6,000 acres of irrigated farmland.
During the off season Goodland often travels around the state. She has developed a network of sources who often come to her with story ideas. After the November election, she starts getting excited about the new legislative session starting in January.
Coming from a Wisconsin family involved in politics, she began her career doing communications and media relations for the University of Denver. She then worked for the Silver and Gold Record newspaper which was run independently by faculty and staff at the University of Colorado, until former CU President Bruce Benson cut the newspaper’s funding.
A job with The Colorado Statesman followed. She then had a legislative reporting service covering stories for seven northeast Colorado newspapers, often involving water. She worked for the Colorado Independent for a few years where she noted she had great editors. But in 2017, “They cut me loose,” she said. She was unemployed for 25 minutes until she got a job offer from Colorado Politics. She’s also a semi regular on PBS 12 shows “Colorado Inside Out” and “Devil’s Advocate” with Jon Caldara.
Goodland was named “Keeper of the Flame” in 2023, a top award from the regional Society of Professional Journalists recognizing lifetime achievement and for mentoring young journalists. She has been recognized more than 50 times with awards from the Colorado Press Association and SPJ including for her weekly humor column on the legislature called “Capitol M.” She is currently president of the Denver Press Club board of directors.
