November 05, 2015 11:10 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Thursday (Nov. 5)

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Secretary of State has released early (and unofficial) voter turnout numbers; enjoy the spreadsheet. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Governor John Hickenlooper has asked the Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether or not Attorney General Cynthia Coffman can enter the state into a lawsuit over the objections of the Governor. From Mark Harden of the Denver Business Journal:

The Clean Power Plan, adopted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in August, is intended to cut carbon dioxide emissions nationwide by 32 percent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels, with coal-fired power plants the main target. States were given flexibility in how they will meet the goals.

The governor, a Democrat who supports the power plan, believes that Coffman, a Republican, overstepped her authority in joining the 24-state suit. He argues that he, not Coffman, “has the ultimate authority to decide on behalf of the state when to sue the federal government in federal court,” Hickenlooper’s office said in a statement.

The filing says that the governor is not raising an issue before the Supreme Court over the merits of the suit against the Clean Power Act, but rather with what he perceives as a challenge to his authority as governor.

“The attorney general has filed an unprecedented number of lawsuits without support of or collaboration with her clients,” said Jacki Cooper Melmed, chief legal counsel to the governor, referring to Hickenlooper and past governors as clients of the state’s attorney general.

► National media outlets were keeping an eye on Colorado to see how voters responded to high-profile school board campaigns. Local media outlets were a bit less cognizant, for some reason. As we wrote yesterday:

As our state’s foremost bellwether suburban population center, what happened in Jefferson County is hugely prophetic for the direction of Colorado politics. Democrats have finally broken the curse of off-year elections going famously badly for them, and established critical momentum going into next year’s general election in a county whose voters can swing the entire state. Without a doubt, Democratic campaigns at every level of American politics are looking at these results and thinking big.

As for our local media? They can either tell the story of this new reality, or be left behind by it.

Meanwhile, in Jefferson County, Superintendent Dan McMinimee sent out a “please don’t fire me” letter to Jeffco employees about 15 minutes after the polls closed on Tuesday. Marianne Goodland of the Colorado Independent writes that voters in three Colorado school districts gave “the middle finger” to the Koch Brothers.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Retired neurosurgeon and famous lunatic Ben Carson made a song about his campaign. It’s not really a rap song, but it does have a nice hip hop beat behind Carson talking.

Elsewhere, Carson is standing by his comments that scientists and archeologists are wrong about the purpose of the Egyptian pyramids. This is the same guy who is confused by gravity.

► Senator Michael Bennet (D-Denver) is calling for an investigation to help determine why the Army is handing out so many misconduct charges for mentally ill troops.

► A Denver District Court has ruled that money collected by the Secretary of State’s office for business registrations is a “fee” and not a “tax.” Suck it, TABOR.

► The City of Lakewood still doesn’t know who will serve as its next mayor. As the Lakewood Sentinel reports, Adam Paul leads Ramey Johnson by the slimmest of margins:

As of Wednesday morning, Adam Paul was eking out a 398-vote lead over Ramey Johnson for the Lakewood mayor’s seat. Given the close vote count, Johnson said she was not yet ready to concede.

“We ran a very hard campaign,” Johnson said, “and I’m proud of all the grassroots work we did.”…

…More than 45 percent of Jeffco voters cast ballots this year. In Lakewood, 20,320 voted for Paul, and 19,922 for Johnson. Numbers for turnout in Lakewood, specifically, were unavailable.

According to the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder’s office, that margin of victory would not currently trigger a mandatory vote recount. But Beth Clippinger, assistant to the Clerk and Recorder, cautioned that countywide between 5,000 to 7,000 ballots remain to be counted.

“At this point, I wouldn’t see anything changing, but you never know,” Clippinger said.

While voters await a final decision in Lakewood, residents in Manitou Springs won’t know who will serve as Mayor for another two weeks. As of Wednesday, Nicole Nicoletta had a 10-vote lead over Coreen Toll.

► Is the national media misreading the 2015 election results? A Colorado Pols reader makes the case.

► Colorado Republicans are not too happy that Jefferson County voters overwhelmingly voted to recall three right-wing school board members. That’s still not a good reason to talk ill of Jeffco voters, however. 

► Denver residents approved Measure 2C, which implements a permanent tourism-related tax hike to overhaul the National Western Complex (among other projects). As Fox 31 reports, some Denver residents are concerned about where the city will come up with some of the expanded revenue required under the ballot measure.

► The Internet tubes were a big winner at the polls on Tuesday. As Dennis Webb reports for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel:

Colorado Mountain College this week won voter approval to provide broadband services, joining a fast-expanding number of local jurisdictions gaining such authority in Colorado…

…The communities of Delta, Paonia, Hotchkiss, Crawford and Cedaredge also all voted in favor of measures allowing the communities to be involved in providing broadband and telecommunications services, according to this week’s election results. A 2005 state law prohibits local governments from offering such services unless local voters opt out of that restriction.

The Minneapolis-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit research organization, said Wednesday that 43 cities, counties and school districts in Colorado approved opt-out measures this week. They join nine others in which voters did so in Colorado in 2014, as communities seek to address concerns such as lack of adequate high-speed Internet access.

 

► The Colorado Springs Independent has more on a 911 call related to four shooting deaths last weekend in Colorado Springs:

Police Chief Pete Carey has yet to speak to the community via news conference about what is possibly the worst multiple shooting the city has seen. But in a news release, he “commends” the actions taken by dispatchers, police, fire and EMS personnel on the morning of Saturday, Oct. 31.

The release also explains that the initial 911 call regarding Harpham — reporting a “suspicious male walking into a building carrying gasoline cans and a rifle” on Prospect Street — was ultimately handled as a Priority 2 call, typical for a critical situation “with potentially dangerous circumstances but no apparent imminent life threat.”

That call was received at 8:45 a.m. According to the release, no officers were available to respond. When an officer became available about one minute later, he responded to a different Priority 2 call, at a senior residential facility.

Ten minutes later, the woman who initially called to report Harpham again called 911 — this time to report that Harpham had shot the man we now know was Andrew Myers.

It wasn’t until 8:57 a.m. that all police officers available responded.

Local and national media outlets are questioning whether Colorado’s open carry laws may have played a role in the slow reaction to a 911 call.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Local radio host Craig Silverman is still ranting about Republican “elitism” in the decision to change the way the GOP handles its caucus process for Presidential candidates.

► Republican Presidential candidate Jeb! Bush is “guaranteeing” a victory in the New Hampshire Republican Primary. Given the sorry state of the Bush campaign, supporters might have been happy if he had just guaranteed that he would still be a candidate on February 9th.

ICYMI

► Train horns! (shhhhhh…)

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