The Colorado Index

Who is the Republican's "Smartest Person in the Building?"

Many months ago we noted that Democrats thought of state treasurer Cary Kennedy as the Democrat's smartest person in the building.  She was the author of Amendment 23, a TABOR poison pill.

Things didn't quite work out for her on Amendment 59, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

Perhaps someone else knows the answer to this question.  I don't.  Who is the Republican's smartest person in the building?  Who is their strategic thinker.  Who looks at bills that Democrats offer and can identify, not just smell the rat?  Whose hair stands on end when the Democrats try to mess over the Republicans?

Who looks at Republican bills and has the courage to tell the author that they will hurt the party?

Who does a sanity check of Republican initiatives?

Is there such a person or is it just every man for himself and every idea for itself? 

Responding to a Comment on our HB 1326 Dual Recall Post

We got the following comment on our dual recall post:

Perhaps you should spend a little time reading this bill. 1)There is no requirement for the circulator to show up in person. 2) Typically, ballot initiatives are not publically debated until the initiative starts getting its "legs"; at the same time, many people sign the petitions only because they feel the inititative process is part of a traditial process, and may not know the details of the initiative until later. This bill allows the elector to petition for removal of signature in a timely manner. I do not read this bill as being malicious to Colorado citizens; rather, I read it as establishing the rules of conduct for petitioners and circulators.

I find it particularly ironic that you would push for recall of Stephens, yet in an earlier blog you support RHINO Marostica after he pushes a bill to allow unlimited growth of Colorado government. Based on 2008 results, I'd say Stephens is one of the most popular legislators in Colorado. Given your intentions to to take on Schultheis, this may not be your finest hour.

Some history is in order here. HB 1326 was written by Terrance Carroll. Its first listed Senate sponsor is Brandon Shaffer. Those two have written laws before that do the opposite of what they appear to do, and this bill is written in a way that it can be manipulated so that it can do the exact same thing.

In 2008, Shaffer wrote SB08-054, renewing the Judicial Performance Commission law. Carroll was the house sponsor. I was involved and have written extensively about it on this blog.

One of the things that I wanted included that Schaffer did not was a requirement that commissioners who discovered judicial misconduct or unlawful conduct be required to report it. Actually, as I pointed out to Schaffer, the 4 lawyers on the commission were already required by their ethics rules to make those reports.

With the connivance of the Supreme Court, Schaffer set out to eliminate the requirement for lawyer reporting. In mid January, the Supreme Court approved a new rule which eliminated a pre-existing method for commissions to make reports on judicial misconduct. In its place it substituted a rule that was SILENT on the subject of how to make reports.

45 days later, Shaffer amended his own bill to require that commissioners make such reports but only by following the rules set out by the state commission, rules that no longer existed. Since no mechanism to make reports existed, no reports would be made, even by the 4 lawyers on the commission. It was slick but highly unethical lawmaking.

Thus, the law appeared to say exactly the opposite of what would happen. Of course Carroll and Shaffer knew what they were doing.

I tried to alert Amy Stephens, who sat on the house judiciary as to what was going on. She told me she would alert her fellow Republicans.

I went to Denver to testify against the bill. In my 3 alloted minutes, I did nothing but list the anti-public aspects of the bill, including the fact that it did the opposite of what it seemed to do. Amy Stephens stayed in the room, but half of the other Republicans went to relieve themselves while I testified. No Republican had a question after my testimony. Every one voted for the bill. I was Mr. Cellophane.

Now we have all of the same players involved with HB09-1326. Someone has stuck a neat little phrase into that bill that allows the Supreme Court to do to it what it did to SB08-054.

Permits a circulator who is not present in the state to testify by telephone or any other means permitted under the Colorado rules of civil procedure.

The way I read this, only out of state circulators can testify by telephone, and then only if the Supreme Court doesn't change the rules of civil procedure, as it has the sole authority to do.

The language in the bill is:

(3)  AS PART OF ANY COURT PROCEEDING OR HEARING CONDUCTED

 

BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE RELATED TO A PROTEST OF ALL OR PART OF 

A PETITION SECTION, THE CIRCULATOR OF SUCH PETITION SECTION SHALL 

BE REQUIRED TO MAKE HIMSELF OR HERSELF AVAILABLE TO BE DEPOSED 

AND TO TESTIFY IN PERSON, BY TELEPHONE, OR BY ANY OTHER MEANS 

PERMITTED UNDER THE COLORADO RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE.  THE 

PETITION SECTION THAT IS THE SUBJECT OF THE PROTEST SHALL BE 

INVALID IF A CIRCULATOR FAILS TO COMPLY WITH THE REQUIREMENT SET 

FORTH IN THIS SUBSECTION (3) FOR ANY PROTEST THAT INCLUDES AN 

ALLEGATION OF ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

Note that the circulator doesn't make the choice as to how he will testify in this language. The court does. Once again, since the Supreme Court has the authority to bend the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure any way it chooses, you can bet that circulators will be required to testify in person.

Because the close coordination on SB 08-054 between Shaffer, Carroll, and the Supreme Court resulted in an anti-public law that appeared to say the opposite of what it actually says, the odds are very high that HB09-1326 will suffer the same fate.

My bet is that Amy Stephens never figured out that Shaffer and Carroll made her and other Republicans look like fools on SB 54.

Now, the public is supposed to trust her to figure out what the same Democrats and the same Supreme Court are doing to Republicans on the initiative process? Not likely. She has lost her credibility in this corner.

I would ask that readers try to assume that there is some level of attempted sophistication in what I write. An assumption that I didn't read the bill I was writing about forced a more thorough explanation that made Amy Stephens look worse than I originally intended. She is a nice lady, and a well meaning legislator, but past events show her out of her depth when competing with or even trying to understand what Terrance Carroll and Brandon Shaffer are doing.

There are many more obnoxious provisions in this bill that promote fraud against petition sponsors and ordinary voters. For example, suppose someone forged a friend's signature with his knowledge. The circulator wouldn't know and couldn't stop it. Later, the whole section would be thrown out when that single forgery was proved, as it would be. 29 legitimate signatures would be discarded because of premeditated and coordinated fraud. It is exactly what unions would try to do, and why the provision is in the bill. Worse, some clever prosecutor might try to prosecute the circulator as a means of suppressing petition gathering.

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As to the other points. The commenter didn't explain why an elector who signed an initiative in good faith should have his signature thrown out while an elector who fraudulently signs with the intention of later withdrawing his signature in the hopes of disqualifying the initiative should be able to do so. You support fraud and oppose good faith when that happens.

A more careful reading of my essay on Marostica would show that I don't support what he has done and I don't oppose a primary though I think that he would likely win. I just don't want him thrown out of the party in a cycle when we will be doing redistricting.

Finally, I was presenting an option with my dual recall post. The clue you missed was the word "Maybe" in the title. If you tried to read between the lines, I never actually said that I supported what I was proposing, (though I probably would) and I didn't say what I thought the likely outcome would be...a pick up of Apuan's seat and the retention of a chastised Stephens seat. Recall elections in close districts often result in a change of party. Stephens has a Gerrymandered district that makes her less careful about protecting Republican interests regarding initiatives, but that is reality.

Even if you dislike my method, I did raise the prospect of recall for the twenty or so Democrats who co-sponsored this bill. Brandon Shaffer is not in a safe district, for example. It is something Republicans should be thinking about.

The Gazette is Back at its Old Tricks

This week, the Gazette published another piece of fiction about the courts, this time written by Daniel Cole.

He called it "Courts decide law, not idieology."  Ah Youth.  Young Mr. Cole spent too much time in school learning how the system is supposed to work, not how it actually works.

The genius of the American system lies not only in the First Amendment, which effectively guarantees that our political institutions reflect the full spectrum of political opinion, but also in those institutions where ideology is most emphatically unwelcome.

I'm thinking of three recent legal issues which beg their audience to leave their agendas at the door and think as judges rather than activists.

The courts are supposed to decide the law, but anyone who thinks that they leave their ideology at the door simply isn't paying attention.

The final legal issue raised in recent days concerns the question of whether Gov. Bill Ritter's mill levy freeze constituted a tax increase without the voters' approval, which would violate the TABOR amendment of the Colorado Constitution. Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court decided that it did not, which prompted Ritter to say, "The real winners today are Colorado's children." Plenty of other liberals who think we need higher taxes felt the same way.

The Supreme Court does not, however, exist in order to determine what's best for the children. Ritter's reaction, while predictable, offers zero insight into whether the justices reached the proper legal conclusion. By politicizing a legal decision, Ritter did a disservice to everybody who looks to the courts as a refuge from the ideological frenzy that characterizes the other two branches of government.

The Gazette has a long history of articles and editorials that pretend that black is white and white is black where the courts are involved.  Why wouldn't it be expected to publish this kind of rubbish?

A Tater Wants a Bailout

Let the videos speak for themselves:

Legislature Taking a Snow Day Today

Amy Oliver called this year's legislative session a "nightmare (that) can't end soon enough."

In 2004, when the Democrats took over, they promised to tread softly in the hopes that they could legitimize their party's right to govern.

That period is obviously over.  Republicans are paying the price of their own disunity.  The citizens are paying the price of their disunity, and it is a high price.

Democrats want to destroy the electoral college.  It will be so.

Democrats want the growth of taxes and spending to be unlimited.  It will be so.

Democrats want to destroy the initiative process.  It will be so.

Democrats want to destroy or ignore TABOR.  It will be so.

Snow days are good for the state  Let it snow!

Maybe it is Time to Think About Dual Recall Elections

It is astounding that five months after the voters rejected an attempt by the legislature to disembowel the initiative process the legislative leadership would have the courage to introduce a worse bill, HB 1326.

They, Republicans and Democrats, seem to have no respect for the will of the voters.

I'm pretty careful about the petitions that I sign, and I want my signature to count when I do sign a petition.  I don't want my will as a registered voter to be disregarded because of some technicality cooked up in the legislature that is completely out of my control.

Remember the Democrat lawyers in 2000 who went to Florida with the express objective of disqualifying soldier absentee votes?  They had the bad manners to do high fives whenever they were successful.

What about the soldiers?  They were serving overseas.  The military postal system didn't require that stamps on mail be cancelled if the military post office didn't have the manpower to do so.  Florida law required that absentee ballots be postmarked even if they arrived before the election.

A soldier serving overseas could mark and mail his ballot in good faith but not have it count due to governmental policies completely out of his control.

Now, Amy Stephens and Dennis Apuan are sponsoring a bill to set up the same system in Colorado.  A voter can sign a petition in good faith and have his signature be discarded because of some technicality completely outside his control.

On the other hand, a voter can sign a petition in bad faith and later ask that his signature be withdrawn as a means of sabotaging the petition.

Good faith punished and bad faith rewarded all in the name of destroying the initiative process.  That's representative democracy for you.  Maybe it is time that we had a non partisan dual recall election here in El Paso County to find out who Amy Stephens and Dennis Aupan represent.  My bet is that both would be recalled. 

A non partisan dual recall election would likely result in no change of legislative makeup, so it couldn't be demagogued. It would would send a message to the whole legislature to keep its hands off the petition process, a lesson that would likely be remembered for a generation.  

It would also make the bill toxic when it hits Bill Ritter's desk.

If memory serves, no recall election can be conducted until the office holder has been in office four months.  That anniversary is just over a month away.

Republican Legislative Leadership Didn't Think It Through

There is something in the water at the legislature that makes anyone elected want to weaken and make the initiative process more expensive.  Usually they try to do it via the referendum process, but sometimes they simply pass a law.

House Bill 09-1326 is the latest attempt.  I don't think it could be a lot more obnoxious.  Amazingly, Josh Penry, Amy Stephens, and Mike May are co-sponsors.

It allows whole sections of signatures to be thrown out if one signature is challenged and the gatherer fails or refuses to show up in district court to defend his work.  

I wrote the following email to Reps May, Stephens, and Senator Penry:

Reps {Mike] May, {Amy} Stephens, and Sen {Josh] Penry I don't know if your intention was to make it impossible for Republicans to use the initiative process while imposing no limits on labor unions and the four multimillionaires, but 1326 will do just that. That bill makes it a contest to see which side on any initiative has the deepest pockets. Suppose a conservative organization puts an anti-union measure on the ballot. The unions can use the provisions in this bill to challenge every petition section in the hope that the gatherer can't be found or won't drive to Denver at his own expense to defend it. The call in provision only applies to out of state gatherers. There is no real penalty for persons doing challenging, and none at all if they can successfully challenge even one signature (out of 100,000) or if even one gatherer doesn't show up. It surprises me that a western slope legislator would sign onto this. It would be cost prohibitive to bring petition gatherers from there to Denver to respond to challenges, meaning that any one who is smart will not gather signatures there. Even if a conservative organization could be found to pull the same tactic on a union petition, the unions could use their organizational power to bring the petition gatherers to Denver. To make matters worse, you want to criminalize the petition gathering process. Mark my words, those penalties will fall most heavily on conservatives, and probably won't fall on Democrats at all. Do you folks in the legislature have anyone who can sanity check a bill and figure out how or if it will benefit Democrats and cripple Republicans before you sign on? Did that person look at this bill?

Soap Opera of the Day

Colorado's ongoing Ward Churchill saga has hit its high point with his testimony yesterday and today. The Denver Post has good coverage.  

We don't usually write about Ward Churchill.  Other blogs have made their reputation on that subject, so there is not a lot of point in chiming in.

Several years ago, my family made a ten day trip following the Lewis and Clark trail.  One of our stops was in North Dakota where the party wintered.  

My memory of the history of the Mandans, the tribe that was friendly with the expedition members, is that their villages were decimated by smallpox introduced by traders, not soldiers.  It would not have been in the interest of traders to eliminate their trading partners.  Presumably, the introduction of smallpox was accidental.

Thus, the "common knowledge" that Ward Churchill is testifying to:

On smallpox being introduced to the Indians by the Army:

"I've been hearing this all my life from traditional sources and mainstream sources. It's enshrined in songs and oral traditions specific to the Mandan," Churchill said.

Churchill said he's attended several speaking engagements since the misconduct allegations arose and people are stunned when he tells them that he is accused of making up facts about smallpox being introduced by the Army, something he considers common knowledge.

...isn't all that common.  While the expedition was wintering in North Dakota, it produced steel axes that then beat them to the Pacific.  Any trader with smallpox who transmitted it to a trading partner would have seen that partner spread it far and wide.

For those interested in the history, there is a Museum of the Fur Trade in Chadron, Nebraska that is well worth the trip.  Chadron happens to have had a period fur trading post whose site is on museum grounds. If you just like to look at antique weapons, rifles and pistols, that museum has hundreds on display.

Ward Churchill might have done well to do some of his "research" there.

The Denver Post has an update since this was written.

The Funniest News of the Day

NASA held a name that module contest for its new space station module.  They allowed write-ins.  Some comedian won.  Literally.

No, it won't be the Jack Benny room.  Jack perfected a look that drew laughs whenever he made a comment.  Too many NASA people are too young to remember his 1950's black and white TV show, though.

No, it won't be the Bill Cosby room, although if anyone is responsible for paving the way to the election of the first true (as opposed to psuedo) black President, it was probably Cosby in his role of Cliff Huxtable.

To find out who won, and how, follow the link.

Stop Playing Defense - Part 2

 This is the second in a series of essays suggesting that Republicans go on the offense using the initiative process.

An obvious target for an initiative is a corrective sentence to Amendment 27:  

In Amendment 27, the people of Colorado specifically forbade unions and corporations from making campaign contributions.  Unions may not circumvent the plain language of this prohibition by using the small donor committee loophole or any other mechanism to influence Colorado elections.