Colorado state Senate Republicans have sued Leroy Garcia, the Democratic Senate president, over the use of multiple computers to read a 2,000-page bill Monday, claiming the move violated the state Constitution.

A Denver District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order and has scheduled a hearing for March 19 to hear arguments in the case. The restraining order forbids Senate leadership from using a similar tactic if a lawmaker requests a full reading of a bill.

“I’m hopeful this will ensure there is a full process,” said state Sen. Bob Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed Tuesday. “It’s awful we needed to seek another branch of government to sort through this.”

Garcia, who represents Pueblo, dismissed the lawsuit as political gamesmanship.

“Senate Republicans have decided to employ unprecedented partisan tactics, abuse taxpayer dollars, and waste time that could be spent working for the people of Colorado,” he said in a statement. “It is not too late. My door is open, and my colleagues are welcome to discuss how we can come together to ensure we pass the best policy for Coloradans — like we were elected to do.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what impact the order will have on the legislative process. Even though no computers can be used to read bills, Republicans can only ask for bills to be read at length if the majority party brings them up for debate on the Senate floor.

The lawsuit is the latest development in a session that has been defined in part by the brinkmanship between the two parties in the statehouse’s upper chamber. Republicans lost its one-seat majority in the Senate after the 2018 election. Since then, the GOP has flexed what political muscles it could in order to slow down debate on bills they oppose.

On Monday morning, state Sen. John Cooke, a Weld County Republican, asked for House Bill 1172, the 2,000-page bill, to be read at length, a request that could have taken up 60 hours to accomplish. However, after about three hours of a staff member reading it, five computers were brought in to simultaneously speed-read different parts of it.

No committee hearings or other floor work can take place during the reading, so Senate work ground to a halt until the computers finished at 5:30.

The bill is noncontroversial, meant to clean up an existing statute. However, its length made it an attractive target for Republicans seeking more time on bills on that seek to reform the state’s oil and gas laws and repeal the death penalty.

The lawsuit adds another wrinkle to the ongoing debate about whether Democrats are being heavy-handed and pushing an agenda that is out-of-step with Colorado or Republicans are being obstructionist.

Democrats called the lawsuit “Trumpian.”

“Filing a lawsuit over something like this is unnecessarily divisive in nature,” said state Rep. Leslie Herod, vice chair of the Committee on Legal Services, which voted on party lines Tuesday to hire an attorney for Garcia. “It’s gamesmanship. It’s Trumpian to file a lawsuit or sue when you don’t get your way. Coloradans deserve better.”

But Republicans said their motives are to protect Colorado.

“If that’s obstructionist,” Gardner said, “I’d just say we’re trying to slow an authoritarian majority from passing ill-considered legislation without regard for the greater issues concerning Colorado.”

Also named in the lawsuit is Cindi Markwell, the secretary of the Senate. Other plaintiffs are Cooke and Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert of Parker.

The lawsuit: