Andrew Romanoff, the outgoing speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, will be back at the Statehouse today, helping to choose the leadership for the next session. In his last year of his last term before the state's term-limits law booted him out, Romanoff crafted a plan to take care of the state's toughest budget problems, including the strangling restrictions of TABOR, and the result was Amendment 59.

That proposal lost at the polls on Tuesday, but Romanoff has been declared a winner for his quixotic attempt. On November 12, Governing magazine will honor "Colorado's consensus-building speaker" as one of eight Public Officials of the Year, citing Romanoff for building "a bipartisan coalition to take on the politically risky task of overhauling a constitutional provision that was crippling the state budget."

"These public officials each asked tough questions," said Alan Ehrenhalt, Governing's executive editor, in announcing the fifteenth installment of the annual awards, "and when they had their answers, they weren't afraid to act."

Take that, Doug Bruce! -- Patricia Calhoun

• Calhoun: Wake-Up Call