Since 2004, interested parties have relied on Colorado Pols for news and insight on Colorado politics and policy matters. Proposition 103 is an education funding initiative on the statewide ballot this November. If passed, Proposition 103 would restore the income and sales tax rates that were in effect in 1999 in Colorado: increasing from 4.63% to 5%, and 2.9% to 3% respectively for five years.
If Proposition 103 passes, Colorado will immediately be set upon by a fierce, probably rabid plague of squirrels. Yes, squirrels. Scary ones. Scarier, even, than the one in the picture at right.
In order to combat this squirrel attack, Colorado will be forced to import massive numbers of Squirrel Monkeys, which we presume eat squirrels (and also stuffed ducks). Over the course of three years, these Squirrel Monkeys will succeed in decimating the population of crazed squirrels...at a terrible price. You see, the Squirrel Monkeys will reproduce at incredible rates. In pictures we've seen, they can fly between trees and stuff, which means that they will soon be soaring back and forth across the skies of Colorado.
This new menace will force more Coloradans to abandon their bicycles and stick to riding in cars (but the convertible business will be destroyed). Ultimately the Squirrel Monkey infestation will expose the folly of the United Nations' sinister plan to force people to ride bicycles, thus validating the beliefs of 2010 Republican Gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes (which, frankly, is still the most unbelievable part of this entire post), propelling him to victory in the 2014 U.S. Senate race over Democratic Sen. Mark Udall.
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman is putting forth legislation to repeal a section of the 1973 Voting Rights Act that allows districts with high percentages of non-English speakers to print ballots in different languages. From Talking Points Memo:
Coffman said Wednesday that his legislation would repeal Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states or districts to provide bilingual voting materials if more than 10,000 or more than 5% of voters "are members of a single language minority and are limited-English proficient," or if the illiteracy of members of the language minority is higher than the national average.
"Among other factors," Section 203 says, "the denial of the right to vote of such minority group citizens is ordinarily directly related to the unequal educational opportunities afforded them resulting in high illiteracy and low voting participation."
As Polster VanDammerpoints out, Coffman has signed on to most major "anti immigrant" bills offered in Congress in the last year. While this would make sense for a conservative, Tea Party-loving Congressman, it doesn't make a lot of sense for someone with statewide aspirations.
Coffman has made no secret of the fact that he wants to run against Sen. Mark Udall in 2014, but he's going to have a hard time winning a statewide race by going out of his way to antagonize Hispanic voters, which he is doing with bills like repealing part of the Voting Rights Act. There's a reason why Texas Governor, and now Presidential candidate Rick Perry has been supportive of issues like in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants -- he knew he needed support from Hispanic voters in Texas.
In the 2010 Senate race in Colorado, 81% of Hispanic voters selected Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet over Republican Ken Buck; if Buck had received just 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, he would be in the Senate today. Take a look at what Mike Melanson, Gov. John Hickenlooper's campaign manager, had to say about the Hispanic vote last November. From Colorado Independent:
He said the Hickenlooper campaign saw an uptick in early voting among Hispanics this year - the first time he had seen that in a non-presidential year. He said Hispanic voters are a very strong element in Colorado and that it was a mistake by Republicans to focus on immigration in a negative way.
Either Mike Coffman wasn't paying attention in 2010, or he just doesn't really want to win a statewide race. But if he continues down this path of casting himself as a hardliner on immigration, there's no way he's going to defeat Udall in 2014. Hispanics accounted for 12% of all Colorado voters in 2010, and that number is only going to increase in the next four years. The numbers don't lie -- you just cannot win an election if you immediately lose the support of 10-15 percent of the electorate.
Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall Wednesday unveiled an updated version of the Energy Security Act he worked with Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to introduce last year. The bill aims to boost increasing military efforts to move away from dependence on fossil fuels.
"Osama bin Laden reportedly called our fuel convoys the military's 'umbilical cord.' We risk the lives of thousands of troops each year because of our dependence on fossil fuel in theater and at home," Udall said. "We owe it to our troops and the American people to find ways to use energy smarter and more efficiently."...
...The Pentagon move toward renewable energy has been characterized in the last half-decade by an urgency that doesn't tolerate usual U.S. energy politics and congressional dithering.
With an annual budget in the hundreds of billions, the military makes its own markets for all kinds of products and services, and energy is no different. Military leaders have simply decided they need to use renewables and have begun ordering technology, circumventing fraught Capitol Hill stand-offs on climate change and turf battles over whether taxpayers should be subsidizing this or that energy-industry sector.
The Independent story includes a link to a piece from The New York Times last fall, with some pretty convincing arguments:
"There are a lot of profound reasons for doing this, but for us at the core it's practical," said Ray Mabus, the Navy secretary and a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who has said he wants 50 percent of the power for the Navy and Marines to come from renewable energy sources by 2020. That figure includes energy for bases as well as fuel for cars and ships.
"Fossil fuel is the No. 1 thing we import to Afghanistan," Mr. Mabus said, "and guarding that fuel is keeping the troops from doing what they were sent there to do, to fight or engage local people."
Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet voted in favor of a failed measure last night that would have repealed taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies. As Politico reports:
Democrats said the bill on the floor Tuesday was needed to reduce unnecessary spending and help lower the debt, pointing to about $36 billion in profits over three months recently reported by Big Oil. "The administration believes that, at a time when it is working with the Congress on proposals to reduce federal deficits, the nation cannot afford to maintain these wasteful subsidies," according to a statement of administration policy.
Tuesday's outcome was never in doubt. Democratic leaders knew the measure would fail to get the necessary 60 votes to advance, but it gave them a chance to give talking points to some of their vulnerable colleagues this election cycle.
While this particular vote may have failed, Republicans are keenly aware that this issue is not good for them, and Democrats have promised to bring it up again. Polling shows that more than 80 percent of Americans blame oil companies for rising gas prices, and 74% favor cutting oil and gas subsidies.
More from Sen. Udall's office in a press release after the jump.
News has hit that Senator Mark Udall is cosponsoring the resurrected constitutional balanced budget amendment. The paper which shall not be named has a gushing editorial about it.
Needless to say, the base is rattled, and I think the Senator would do well to make the progressive case for this policy, or else every time the topic comes up the blogosphere will be a beehive being poked by a stick.
Fortunately, I don't think it's going to see the light of day in its current form for many reasons, but here are just a few:
I just received Senator Mark Udall's newletter. When I came to the part about his balanced budget amendment, I - quite literally - almost fell out of my chair. To support his amendment Udall revives a Republican talking point which is both hackneyed and a patent falsehood:
"American families have to balance their own checkbooks - and, especially in these hard times, they're wondering why their federal government doesn't have to do the same," Udall said.
Mark, for your information - in case you have become completely out of touch there in Washington - American working and middle class families have not been living within their means for years. You know - it's this little thing called consumer credit. We've been relying on credit to maintain our standards of living for nearly three decades now. We have run up trillions of dollars in debt try to stay where we are because our wages and salaries have declined in real dollars over the past 30 years.
In times of depression/recession we need the Federal Government to spend more than it brings in to stimulate demand. If your idea carries the day, we would now be in the biggest depression in our history with unemployment standing at near 40%.
A deal between President Obama and congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years has met with an angry backlash from Senate Democrats.
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in stating his opposition to the deal...
"I'm opposed right now," said Udall, who added that some provisions in the package make sense, such as extended unemployment benefits, but he questioned whether it does enough to help middle-class families given its cost.
Udall also said he opposed the proposal to set the estate tax at 35 percent for inheritances worth more than $5 million for the next two years. He would prefer a lower exemption.
Full statement from Udall's office follows: "With our debt out of control, our troops battling two wars, and American families struggling every week in the recession, extending tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires makes no sense."
We note that Udall is considered one of several key bipartisan negotiators in the Senate, and also has an interest in getting to other items on the lame-duck agenda like the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. In our view, that makes his willingness to throw down over the weakness of this compromise even more significant.
At the same time, Udall and other Democrats need to be careful about framing this debate to be solely about the national debt, because that's exactly the kind of talking point that Republicans want to hear. Republicans want to use "cutting the national debt" as an excuse to oppose everything, and Democrats would be wise to not play into that trap.
The Democratic "Unity" Rally was held this afternoon in Denver to show that things were just hunky-dorey for Sen. Michael Bennet and former challenger Andrew Romanoff (full press release from the Bennet campaign and from Colorado Democrats after the jump).
Said Romanoff:
"I am very, very proud of our grassroots team, and proud to see so many folks standing with us together in this united Democratic Party today. For not just my sake, and not Michael's sake, and not even for the sake of the Democratic Party, I'm asking you today to throw your support fully and unequivocally behind Michael Bennet for the United States Senate."
This is all pretty standard stuff in terms of the Kumbaya atmosphere, which makes it all the more curious that Colorado Republicans don't seem prepared to do the same thing just yet. Heck, GOP Gubernatorial nominee Dan Maes apparently can't even get a phone call right now from other Republicans.
It only took 18 months to finally confirm the position, but John Walsh is now officially Colorado's new U.S. Attorney. Walsh's nomination was approved by unanimous consent last night. Press release from Sen. Mark Udall's office after the jump:
The Federal Communications Commission Thursday suspended its weeks-long series of talks with Internet providers on Net neutrality, dealing a blow to efforts to produce a deal that the agency could take to Congress.
The decision to cut off negotiations marks a major political setback for Chairman Julius Genachowski, whose office reached out to stakeholders six weeks ago to strike an agreement and avoid a public battle over rules that would treat all users' Web traffic equally.
But the end to industry discussions - which a source close to the FCC talks blamed entirely on news that Google and Verizon separately sought some form of net neutrality agreement - could now force the FCC to take a more aggressive approach to solidifying its broadband authority.
FCC chief of staff Edward Lazarus stressed in a briefly worded statement that the agency has no plans to back down on Net neutrality, months after a federal court in a case involving Comcast essentially nullified much of the agency's broadband authority...
..."Any outcome, any deal that doesn't preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs, will be unacceptable," he said.
Colorado's congressional delegation has taken different positions on Net Neutrality. Republican Rep. Doug Lambornhas opposed it, while Democratic Rep. Jared Polishas been a supporter. Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter signed onto an odd letter last fall that sort-of questioned Net Neutrality. Both Colorado Senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, are supporters of Net Neutrality.
In order to combat this squirrel attack, Colorado will be forced to import massive numbers of Squirrel Monkeys, which we presume eat squirrels (and also stuffed ducks). Over the course of three years, these Squirrel Monkeys will succeed in decimating the population of crazed squirrels...at a terrible price. You see, the Squirrel Monkeys will reproduce at incredible rates. In pictures we've seen, they can fly between trees and stuff, which means that they will soon be soaring back and forth across the skies of Colorado.
This new menace will force more Coloradans to abandon their bicycles and stick to riding in cars (but the convertible business will be destroyed). Ultimately the Squirrel Monkey infestation will expose the folly of the 
