All work in the Colorado Senate came to halt Monday morning thanks to a procedural maneuver invoked by a ranking Republican.

Committee hearings, floor debates and votes were all delayed as House Bill 1172 — a 2,000-page bill revising Title 12 of the Colorado Revised Statutes — was read in its entirety.

“I’m just following the rules,” Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, said with a smile when asked about his request to read the whole bill. “We keep saying we want things slowed down, and this is the only thing we have in our arsenal.”

What Cooke wanted to slow down was the hearings and votes on the death penalty and oil and gas bills. He said he talked with Democratic leadership last week about delaying the oil and gas hearing but that he was dismissed.

Some estimated it would take 60 hours for a human to read the bill, but Monday afternoon Democrats used a maneuver of their own to cut that time drastically: After a Senate staffer read for three hours, they brought in five computers to read the bill simultaneously at a speed far faster than humans can understand.

The machines finished their work at 5:30, and Senate Democrats planned a late evening Monday to get back on track.

Cooke called the speed reading a violation of the spirit of rule, but Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, called Cooke’s request to read the entire bill a political stunt.

“It’s obstructionism pure and simple,” Bridges said.

The Title 12 bill has been laid over for second reading for more than a week at the request of Republicans. Bridges thought they were waiting for the right moment to use this bill to “gum up the works” at the Capitol.

“It’s a stunt,” Bridges said. “They are welcome to their stunts, but we will do the work.”

Hearings scheduled for Tuesday will proceed as planned.