March 22, 2008 11:14 PM UTC

HD-6: Tom Russell Endorses Lois Court

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• by: Skyler

I just got this e-mail from the Lois Court for HD-6 campaign. Apparently, Tom Russell, who withdrew this week from the campaign to replace Andrew Romanoff, has endorsed Lois.

Full text of the endorsement after the bump.

Earlier this week, I withdrew from the District 6 race.  My plan was to get out of politics and catch up with my teaching and law practice.  

However, as Michael Corleone said in Godfather III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”  A number of people have asked me about the remaining candidates.  Today, I am happy to endorse Lois Court, whom I will actively support in the campaign for the Democratic nomination.  I urge everyone who supported me to support and vote for Lois.

Lois Court knows that the central problem that Colorado faces today is the constitutional and fiscal mess of TABOR, Arveschoug-Bird, the Gallagher Amendment, and Amendment 23.  She analyzes the problem with just the sort of wonkish depth that I admire.  District 6 sends leaders to the legislature, and Lois has the knowledge and skills to help lead us out of the constitutional mess.

I believe a desire to fix the TABOR-related mess is a basic qualification for any candidate running for the Colorado legislature.  It’s a litmus test.  The Bell Policy Center has concluded that the 2007 fiscal situation in Colorado was as good as it gets; today, we learned in the Denver Post that the state budget will be $700 million leaner than we thought.  Any candidate (or legislator) who is not focusing on the fiscal and constitutional mess of TABOR-related constraints should, in my view, go into another line of work.

Second, Lois supports a single-payer solution to the problem of healthcare in Colorado.  Along with my good friends at Healthcare for All Colorado, I see the existing system of private-insurance-based healthcare as fundamentally broken, and I think that a single-payer system should be our goal.  Lois agrees.

Third, I am greatly concerned about consumers and injured people.  In my law practice, I represent injured people in struggles with insurance companies.  Colorado law has swung away from consumers and toward big businesses especially insurance companies.  I know that as a legislator, Lois will support consumers.

Since I entered the race, I have gotten to know Lois Court well.  We’ve sparred and kidded with each other.  I have, of course, thought very carefully about Lois, her points of view, and the positions of the other candidates.  I am very glad to recommend her as an excellent successor to Andrew Romanoff.

Best regards,

Tom Russell

21 March 2008

This definitely shakes things up a bit in the race essentially between Liz Adams and Court.