Just two weeks after the legislature opened with pledges of bipartisanship, the goodwill already has given way to the kind of partisan strife typically reserved for the end of a four-month session, The Denver Post reports. Underlying all the election-year tension is how to balance the state budget, which is facing a $1.3 billion shortfall in the 2010-11 fiscal year, which begins in July. The nastiness pervaded two committee meetings at which ending certain tax exemptions — essentially a tax increase — were debated.

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House Appropriations Committee:

House Finance: