Normally reliable on the issue of finding efficiencies and responsibly cutting military expenditures, as we've noted in this space a few times, Rep. Mike Coffman surprisingly--or maybe not surprisingly--isn't very happy with the recent push by the Department of Defense to embrace renewable energy. From Rep. Coffman's press release following President Barack Obama'sspeech on the topic in Colorado yesterday:
"No doubt, the military needs to do everything it can to reduce what it spends on the energy necessary to support our troops and they should use renewable energy sources whenever it is cost effective to do so.
"Unfortunately, so far the president's Green Energy initiative for the Department of Defense has everything to do with scoring political points with environmentalists and very little to do with supporting our war fighters.
"By forcing our military to adopt high-cost renewable energies, [Pols emphasis] while at the same time pushing for reductions in military personnel, the president will ultimately force further reductions to achieve his costly Green Energy initiative while also meeting his demands for a smaller military."
"Scoring political points?" Funny, that's not what the American Forces Press Service said in their story about the same presidential visit:
Obama recognized that DOD isn't embracing clean energy simply because "it feels good," but also because it makes economic sense.
"Our number one priority is always the security of this nation," he emphasized. And "what our military understands is that if we're smart on energy that saves DOD budgets that allow them to do a whole bunch of other things."
...Obama also noted that the Navy's F/A-18 Green Hornet is powered by a 50/50 biofuel blend. And last year, the Air Force flew an A-10 Thunderbolt entirely on alternative fuels - a first for the military.
"Overall, the Air Force is on track to save $500 million in fuel costs over the next five years because you guys have changed the way you operate. Think about that: half a billion dollars," he told the audience, drawing big applause. [Pols emphasis]
Scientific American explains another important consideration in making this switch:
The Department of Defense burns more oil than any other single entity on Earth: as much as $18 billion worth a year, or 80% of the federal governments' energy tab. So when they decide to limit that oil in favor of renewables, it's going to create a massive and instantaneous market. And while the cost in dollars is driving some of the armed forces' well-publicized moves into clean energy, there is a more sober factor: The cost in lives.
A significant share of American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan have occurred guarding fuel convoys, and resupply missions threaten operations around the world. Sierra Magazine's extensive reporting reveals just how much defending fuel resupply lines in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us in terms of lives: One out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan (and one out of 38 in Iraq) led to the death of a soldier in 2007. In 2007 alone, that adds up to hundreds dead given the 6,000 recorded fuel convoys. Between 2003 and 2010 more than 3,000 troops have been killed or wounded while moving fuel, states Lt Col Melinda F. Morgan of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. [Pols emphasis]
Saving soldiers' lives? That's something we thought Mike Coffman would care about. The fact is, the military's push for energy efficiency and renewable fuels predates the Obama administration, though Obama has expanded the program. The Department of Defense supports it to save money, effort, and lives on the battlefield--not some hippie feel-good pursuit.
Bottom line: you've got to keep it in mind at all times. Coffman's job this year is to complain.
That's the word we got from Boulder today, confirming an early report by the Colorado Statesmanback in December--Eric Weissmann, a political novice investment banker from Boulder, will announce next week that he is challenging state Sen. Kevin Lundberg in the GOP primary to take on incumbent Democratic Rep. Jared Polis in November.
Our understanding is that to the extent Republicans in the new CD-2 are taking the possibility of running against Polis seriously (more on that in a moment), they're not at all confident about Weissmann despite his potential ability to self-fund his campaign. Weissmann's background as a Mitt Romney-style "corporate raider" is a liability in Boulder and its liberal environs, and we've heard that Weissmann has been known to wax a little nutty with his rhetoric--which isn't to say that Sen. Lundberg, his only so-far declared challenger, isn't just as bad.
Either way, in the Loveland Reporter-Herald earlier this month, Boulder County GOP chairman Joel Champion claimed at least five Republican candidates are considering this race. With both Sen. Lundberg and the relatively unknown Weissmann possessing their own special liabilities, we're also watching for somebody from a bigger league to perhaps jump in.
What might possibly stop that as-yet-unnamed more credible GOP challenger from emerging in this race is the better understanding of the newly redistricted CD-2 all parties have now. Although the new district is nominally closer in terms of party representation, with Democrats only at about a 4% advantage, historical voting patterns in the new district show it was in fact solidly carried--62%--by Barack Obama in 2008, and 55% for Michael Bennet in 2010. We've said before that despite the party registration shift in the new CD-2, Jared Polis will remain very hard to beat there, and analysis of the new district bears that out quite clearly.
But who knows? Maybe Hank Brown will come out of retirement.
With the [Florida] primary coming up on Jan. 31, Gingrich and his supporters are being outspent 5-to-1 by Romney and his supporters as total spending in the state approached $20 million.
According to a Republican media buyer who provides the Post with television ad numbers, Gingrich's campaign has spent only $1,112,541 on Florida television ads.
The pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future has spent $2,164,727, despite a $5 million contribution from the wife of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who already donated $5 million to the group...
Romney, meanwhile, has spent $6,723,288 and the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future has spent $8,815,227 for total Romney-supporting spending of $15,538,515.
The fire GOP primary challenger Newt Gingrich is taking this week in Florida is truly extraordinary, from the outsized spending against him to the dredging up of footage of Gingrich disparaging Ronald Reagan(yes, really). And after Mitt Romney'sfiery performance in last night's debate in Jacksonville, the story today in all media is Romney "reclaiming the initiative."
But even if Romney can outclass Gingrich in Florida, is that the end for Newt? A poll follows.
I dedicate this Friday's Jam Fest to Mitt Romney in a fitting tribute to his primary run thus far.
Losing Two out of Three Primary Races Ain't Bad, Mitts. They want you. They need you. But there ain't no way they are ever gonna love you...
ArapaGOP, this one's for you, baby.
Cheer up, Mittsy. Look on the bright side. You won New Hampshire, you pay a lower tax rate than I do, you're über rich, you speak French and you have great hair. Party on, my man.
"I hope that we see this same kind of focused opposition to Obama once that day comes. I really do. Snerdley says, 'Oh, yeah, no doubt.' Really? Where's the evidence? Where's the evidence that anybody in our party's got the guts to go after Obama the way they're going after Newt here, the way they've gone after Perry, the way some of them have gone after Romney?"
UPDATE:Newt Gingrich's giant pulsating brain returns fire.
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CNN live from tonight's debate:
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparred Thursday with Mitt Romney over immigration policies race as tempers flared in the opening minutes of the CNN/Republican Party of Florida debate in Jacksonville...
"I'm not going to go find grandmothers and take them out of them homes and deport them," Romney said, accusing Gingrich of using "highly-charged epithets" irresponsibly. "Our problem is not 11 million grandmothers."
The Pueblo Chieftain'sPatrick Malone--known locally as "the good one"--reports:
Public Policy Polling conducted the survey during the past week in battleground districts where Republican incumbents are vulnerable. Overall, the poll showed Democrats hold the upper hand, but voters in the 3rd currently favor Tipton (46 percent) over Pace (39 percent).
The poll forecasts that Pace, a state representative from Pueblo, will gain ground as his name recognition grows. The poll showed Tipton's approval rating to be 36 percent with 40 percent of voters giving him low marks.
Collectively in the 3rd, 37 percent of voters polled have a favorable opinion of Republicans in the U.S. House, while 49 percent have an unfavorable opinion of them.
As we've always said about polls early in the election cycle, the key indicators here are that of favorability and name recognition--and more importantly, the relationship between the two. There's no question that Democrat Sal Pace has work to do building name recognition, particularly outside his home base in Pueblo. But this poll's underwater unfavorables for both Rep. Scott Tipton personally and Republicans in the House in general tell us that incumbency has only temporary benefit for Tipton as Pace builds name ID. And those voters in CD-3 tuned in to politics, a number that will only grow, are not real happy with Tipton.
PPP's Tom Jensen himself noted the poll question that may matter most this early, which for whatever reason Malone of the Chieftain neglected to mention:
In Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, 39% of voters support freshman Scott Tipton for reelection, while 54% think he should be replaced. [Pols emphasis]
Folks, if you care about polls right now at all, you look for imbalances. The gap between Scott Tipton's unfavorables and Sal Pace's low name ID will not close in a way favorable to Tipton.
Reporters are having a real hard time sorting out Mitt Romney's position on personhood. Here's a quick and easy way for journos to think about the issue, and Romney's evolving stance on it.
Romney on federal personhood. Romney has made it clear that he's currently against federal personhood. This is a flip from his position in 2007, when he stated on national TV that he favored a GOP platform position supporting a "human life amendment" to the U.S. Constitution, which would ban abortion at the federal level. When Romney said this, he believed, like he does now, that life begins at conception, so Romney's federal ban on abortion, based on his definition of "life," would have met the requirements of Personhood USA for a national personhood law. But last year at a GOP prez forum, Romney abandoned this position because now thinks adding personhood to the U.S. Constitution could set up a "constituional crisis."
Romney on state personhood. In October, Romney told Fox News' Mike Huckabee that he "absolutely" would have signed an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution establishing that life begins a conception. Later, Romney's spokespeople backed up this position by telling Politico's Ben Smith and other reporters that Romney supports "efforts to ensure recognition that life begins at conception" and that "these matters should be left up to states to decide."
Summary: Romney isn't completely clear on this issue (I'm rolling my eyes as I write that), but it's fair to say that Romney has flip flopped on personhood during his career.
That's one piece of the Florida GOP primary puzzle, as the Washington Postreports today:
The Republican presidential race turned into a pitched battle for Hispanic voters on Wednesday, with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney hurling insults over immigration policy as each looked for ways to court a critical constituency...
Gingrich lobbed the first attack on Wednesday, poking fun at Romney during an appearance on Miami-based Univision, the country's biggest Spanish-language network. Gingrich peppered his remarks with halting Spanish as he accused Romney of living in a "fantasy land" for suggesting in a debate that the country's 11 million illegal immigrants should "self deport."
Romney also stepped up his attacks on Gingrich, releasing a Spanish-language ad noting that the former House speaker once called Spanish the "language of the ghetto."
...Gingrich, for his part, has said he used inartful language in the 2007 speech in which he referred to Spanish as the language of "living in a ghetto."
So, uh, no, neither of these gentlemen have done much to ingratiate themselves with the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the United States--kind of the opposite. Florida will be the first Republican presidential primary this year in a state with a large Hispanic population. But the broader (spelled general election) importance of this community isn't going to be seen in a Republican primary, of course. And even though polls don't show particular enthusiasm for Democrats among all Hispanic voters, faceplants from either of these GOP candidates over the years on immigration should be enough to, as Darth Vader eloquently put it, "motivate them."
And remember, folks, they have to sell themselves to the same Republicans who voted Tom Tancredo for governor of Colorado in 2010 as soon as they're done in Florida! We get the feeling that may not go well either, and also hurt most well after these primaries are over.
Obama came to Colorado to expand on some of the themes of his State of the Union speech Tuesday, notably his proposals to create energy independence.
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama laid out a plan for what he calls an America Built to Last, emphasizing his desire to develop every available source of American energy. He said this includes production of oil and natural gas resources. "Today, American oil production is at the highest level in eight years and last year we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past 16 years," he said Tuesday night and again Thursday...
Obama used his Western swing to unveil what he called his Plan to Advance Safe Production of Oil and Gas Resources To Create Jobs, Enhance Energy Security, and Cut Pollution.
The plan includes the sale of new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico. In his State of the Union Address, he directed the Department of Interior to finalize a national offshore energy plan that makes 75% of the country's potential offshore resources available for development by opening new areas for drilling in the Gulf and Alaska. On Thursday, he announced that the Department of Interior will hold a new lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico to make approximately 38 million acres available, with the goal of producing one billion barrels of oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas...
"So this morning I was in Nevada talking about how natural gas is an enormous energy source for the United States. We are the Saudi Arabia of... natural gas. We've just got to develop it, and if we do it effectively, then we're going to create jobs and it's going to power trucks that are cleaner and cheaper and factories that are cleaner and cheaper."
Part of a five-state swing following his State of the Union Address Tuesday night, Obama is looking to build broad support for his energy policies in a state that's already demonstrated that environmentalists and oil and gas companies can find common ground.
Gov. John Hickenlooper has heralded last year's new rules forcing oil and gas companies to disclose more of the chemicals in the fluids they use in hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", as proof of a solution-oriented pragmatism unique to Colorado.
Obama is likely to echo Hickenlooper's view on Thursday, while outlining a blueprint to maximize America's energy resources that borrows much from Hickenlooper's predecessor, Gov. Bill Ritter, who used his four years in office to build what he called a "New Energy Economy."
We'll be updating throughout the day with coverage of President Barack Obama's visit. Coming to Colorado to celebrate our demonstrable energy success stories will be a lot more fun for the President than he reportedly had down in Arizona with Gov. Jan Brewer, who was kind of frosty.
Rep. Randy Baumgardner of Hot Sulphur Springs is bringing his tag fee repeal to a Republican House committee Wednesday. The GOP-controlled House approved the idea last year, but the lower fees were rejected in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Baumbgardner's bill would lower late registration fees from $25 a month to a flat fee of $20 total. It would also repeal an exemption from the late fee for a vehicle that has expired temporary registration number plates, tags or certificates.
Each year since the 2009 passage of the FASTER vehicle registration fee increases to pay for repair and replacement of decaying and obsolete bridges around the state, Republicans have splashily introduced legislation to repeal all or part of the program. Rep. Randy Baumgardner's new proposal to reduce late fees may be a little more restrained than other wholesale repeals attempted before, but it still won't fix the bridges that FASTER is paying to fix. The bill's fiscal note estimates it will reduce available revenue for these repair projects by $12 million per year.
As of this month according to the Colorado Department of Transportation, of the approximately 120 bridges in Colorado rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and rated 'poor,' meaning they qualify for funds under FASTER, 18 projects are now completed--with 16 under construction, 13 with completed designs, and 44 in design right now. Here's an updated list from CDOT of FASTER projects by county with anticipated completion dates.
We were thinking maybe Rep. Baumgardner will tell you which ones shouldn't be completed.
The thing is, when you run for Congress, people start looking for records of what you've been involved with politically in your past. In the case of any member of the illustrious Coors family, you can start with top-shelf conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation, for whom Coors family members and foundations provided startup capital way back in the day.
More recently in the case of new GOP CD-7 candidate Joe Coors, Jr., you find things like this:
Joe Coors' support for "personhood" is worth noting, because this particular Coors family member has been represented in biographical media reports as the "less political" of the Coors brothers, more interested in religious piety (and golf) than the rough-and-tumble of politics.
But this is different than merely stepping up one's political giving in advance of a run for office. In the case of Coors' financial support for 2010's Amendment 62 "Personhood Initiative," the simplest way to explain the political consequences is this: Amendment 62 failed in Jefferson County, the largest population center in CD-7, at a rate several percentage points higher than its statewide trouncing--over 73% against. There is really nothing less popular that Coors could have funded on the 2010 ballot.
Given the demographics of the swing district he's running in, Mr. Coors probably won't want to make his support for a sweeping abortion ban front and center in his campaign launch press conference next Tuesday. But as you know, the proponents of this initiative don't really care who it burns at the polls. In 2010, the initiative Joe Coors helped fund helped sink Ken Buck.
It seems to us financial support for this will be much harder to "Buckpedal."
(Surely Lamborn was not the only such putz? - promoted by Colorado Pols)
On KNUS radio this morning, Rep. Doug Lamborn told host Steve Kelley that he wasn't the only Member of Congress to skip President Barack Obama's SOTU speech yesterday, implying, perhaps, that he was being singled out unfairly.
"The President didn't know or care if I was there. And actually I know of others who were not there. I happen to be one who said in advance I wasn't going to be there." [laughs]
I called Lamborn's office to find out whom Lamborn was thinking of. And were the other no-shows protestors?
"There's no roll-call vote taken," Lamborn's Communications Director Catherine Mortensen told me "If someone shows up or doesn't show up, there's no record of it."
She didn't know which lawmakers Lamborn had in mind, but she did tell me that she'd read press reports that Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina had considered skipping the event.
Scott was thinking about watching the speech with his brother, but he ended up attending. His idea to be a SOTU no show was not a protest, according to local press reports.
Kelley didn't ask Lamborn how he knew that Barack Obama didn't care if he attended the SOTU, but he did ask Lamborn if he thinks he made a difference by not being there:
Lamborn said: "I did get a chance to tell people why I oppose the President so strongly...I feel better."
[A]fter Newt Gingrich's ground-shaking, double-digit beat-down in the Palmetto State, the Republican race is suddenly competitve -- and set to engage well beyond the handful of early-voting states.
It's exactly what Colorado Republicans were hoping for when they voted to move up the party's presidential caucues from March to Feburary.
"When we voted to move up, no one could have predicted the race would be as fluid and dynamic as it's turned out to be," Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call told FOX31 Denver Monday. "Not only will Colorado's voice be heard -- it could actually be decisive."
Call understands that Colorado, with its caucuses wedged in, along with a few other states, between the Florida primary and Super Tuesday, is but one of a handful of states that are becoming increasingly important to the four remaining GOP candidates.
But there's a new problem emerging for the solidly pro-Mitt Romneyupper echelons of the Colorado Republican Party as our caucuses approach next month. Romney's campaign has been on the ground in Colorado for months working to ensure, as in 2008, that he wins here. Much has been made, both privately to us and publicly, of the sophisticated modeling and well-funded field organization meant to get Romney's supporters in Colorado out to caucus.
Up until now, Romney's biggest worry in Colorado was that Rep. Ron Paul's perennially well-organized followers would deny him a clean caucus victory. This weekend, the focus will shift to Newt Gingrich as his campaign holds caucus organizing meetings around the state. Certainly the Romney campaign has had more time to organize, and has more resources.
The first step is to call everyone who pledged to support Romney, and make sure they still do...
Senate Bill 12-014 clears up a small problem we've been talking about for, well, too long:
In conformity with the 2011 change of the primary election date from August to the last Tuesday in June, the schedule under the "Fair Campaign Practices Act" for making campaign finance disclosures in connection with the primary election is changed to the second Monday in May and on specified Mondays thereafter until the primary election.
SB12-014 fixes the glitch in primary campaign finance reporting created by a failure to change this date when the date for the primary election was moved up from August to June last year. This is the same legislative error that Secretary of State Scott Gesslertried to unsuccessfully exploit to eliminate the biweekly disclosures required immediately before the primary. When his attempt failed, Gessler published a new rule last month that would have forced these reports to begin this month--months ahead of the intention of the law, and purely as a spiteful gesture.
So it's completely fine, and in fact necessary due to Gessler's spiteful behavior, that the legislature move quickly to fix the dates involved, and allow these reports to serve their intended purpose of timely disclosure--without imposing an onerous and unintended burden.
Despite this, a few Republicans were determined to make a scene: maybe to run cover for Gessler, but we don't really get that as everyone in the building understood the issue. Nonetheless, Sen. Scott Renfroeangrily Tweeted after the bill passed today:
Sad day in the Colorado Senate...First bill Democrats bring up to pass is bill to fix politicians red tape...not to help citizens or business in Colorado. Senator Brophy made great motion to lay over bill to do people's business first...it failed.
We have to assume Sen. Renfroe simply didn't look at the bill to see that it's co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Ellen Roberts, making the rhetoric about this "Democrat bill" appear kind of ridiculous. But it gets even better when we turn to that motion from Sen. Greg Brophy.
UPDATE: Majority Leader Amy Stephens fires back today with a lengthy polemical release titled "Marsha's Mandate is Health Care Hypocrisy." Full text after the jump:
Question: Why is Marsha Looper attacking Amy Stephens?
Answer: It's the best way to hide Marsha Looper's Health Care Mandate and an inconsistent conservative record.
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The mail has already begun in what promises to be a bitter primary fight between Republican Reps. Marsha Looper and Amy Stephens. You might recall Stephens as one of the GOP's most far-right members, though she apparently vacated that title permanently by drawing the ire of the Tea Party over her support for health care reform legislation that has since been dubbed "AmyCare."
John Schroyer of the Colorado Springs Gazette has the scoop on Looper's first mail piece bashing Stephens for her health care legislation support, and it's a doozy. Click to see the PDF of the piece.
The unanimous vote for House Bill 1001 in the Legal Services Committee was a stark contrast to two years ago, when a bill to do away with seniority-based job protections for teachers led to a civil war within the Democratic Party.
The bill pitted supporters of teachers unions against Democrats and Republicans who wanted to make it easier to fire ineffective teachers.
But after nearly two years of drafting rules for how to evaluate teachers, different factions appear to have agreed on a fair way to link teacher tenure to student performance.
"It truly is one of those times that everybody is aligned around a common purpose on behalf of our children," said Diana Sirko, deputy commissioner of the Colorado Department of Education.
We've noted several times how the former high drama over the passage of 2010's Senate Bill 191 teacher tenure reforms, a battle that pitted traditional Democratic allies in education against many fellow Democrats, has shifted to real cooperation as the process moved from passage of the bill to implementation of the new rules. It's become clearer as the process has moved along that some proponents of SB-191 really didn't want the teachers to cooperate as they have, because for them, SB-191 was only a baby step toward a much more far-reaching agenda.
This matters because that radical agenda is lurking, and people on both sides of the fight over SB-191 need to understand the difference between that fight and fights yet to come. Because not all education reform is radicalism, and not all reformers are radicals. But some of what we'll see very soon masked as "reform," with "reformer" proponents, are indeed...
If you can hardly believe it, there's a good reason--the Pueblo Chieftain'sPatrick Malone:
A crosscheck of ballots cast in Colorado and Kansas in [the 2010] election showed six people voted in both states, according to Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.
Half of those who voted in both states cast ballots in the 3rd Congressional District that includes Pueblo and the San Luis Valley.
"They were pretty much all over the place," said Rich Coolidge, spokesman for Gessler's office...
We've got Secretary of State Scott Gessler's full press release after the jump. We congratulate the Secretary on finding these possible six cases of double voting across state lines, but we'd say he's proving more that existing election law works as intended than anything else--not exactly the desired message for our activist Secretary of State's legislative agenda. Not to mention that good explanations may well exist for anywhere between one and six of them.
Oh, and six votes out of over 1.8 million cast in 2010...does not a scandal make, folks.
I recently opined that Judge Rappaport's Lobato ruling was a yawner. I still think the long run outcome and analysis will demonstrate that it is a yawner, especially given the storied history of education finance litigation nationally. Nevertheless, elements of this litigation hit upon an utterly fascinating question of law, especially after Attorney General John Suthers' appeal. In particular, how do positive rights rank against negative rights? And, does there exist a hierarchy among Colorado's constitutional guarantees?
Folks, take a moment to read over Senate Bill 12-085, "Concerning Reductions in General Fund Expenditures," as introduced by Sen. Shawn Mitchell last week. Pretty straightforward stuff, really, though we imagine Sen. Mitchell would prefer a longer explanation--SB12-085 is about throwing kids and poor people off insurance rolls.
Returns eligibility and services in medicaid and the children's basic health plan to the 2006 level by:
Repealing eligibility for certain qualified aliens and their children, certain children in foster care, persons in the medicaid buy-in program, and childless adults;
Lowering the income level for parents of children eligible for medicaid from 100% to 60% of the federal poverty line;
Eliminating 12 months of continuous eligibility for children;
Replacing advanced practice nurses services with nurse-midwife services...
Eliminating presumptive eligibility for children and certain persons eligible for long-term care; [Pols emphasis] and
Lowering the income level for eligibility under the children's basic health plan from 250% to 205% of the federal poverty line.
We know that a lot of people, quite possibly a majority of any given cross-section of Coloradans, will blanch at the idea of tossing poor kids and invalids off of their coverage. But this is the kind of "tough love" that Republicans in both chambers are proposing. "Sorry, kids, but those rascally Democrats made promises we fiscally responsible Republicans just can't keep."
The problem is, with at least one of those provisions above--eliminating "presumptive eligibility" for kids and others who need long-term care (bolded)--it's not just spendthrift Democrats to blame for dangling expensive promises of health care in front of needy patients, which Shawn Mitchell and his fellow Republicans must now do the responsible thing and eliminate.
We wrote last week that House Republicans got off to a rough start in the first days of the Colorado legislative session by demanding a vote on a Constitutional Convention that was never going to happen; the move was entirely political -- intended to get folks like Rep. Sal Pace and Joe Miklosi on the record on federal health care reform -- and so blatantly obvious that it was widely criticized around the state.
Yesterday the Editorial Page Editor at the Denver Newspaper, Curtis Hubbard, took House Republicans and Speaker Frank McNulty to task for ignoring their own pledge to focus on jobs instead of endless political games. Hubbard goes on to write that one of McNulty's featured pieces of legislation is an attempt to fix a problem that quite literally does not exist.
McNulty has been pushing a bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Laura Bradford that would theoretically add jobs by eliminating local regulations that he says prohibit Colorado communities to use timber produced in the state. But as Hubbard notes, no such regulations appear to exist. Neither the Colorado Municipal League nor the West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau seem to have any idea what in the hell McNulty is talking about.
McNulty says the legislation would let a Colorado sawmill add 80 jobs -- a number that is oddly specific given the fact that the bill in question wouldn't actually do anything.
This begs the question: If a tree is cut down in a forest, and Frank McNulty isn't around to hear it...can you still draft unnecessary legislation from the paper it produces?
