April 22, 2015 12:01 PM UTC

Doug "Mr. TABOR" Bruce Strikes Again--Literally

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• by: Colorado Pols

Former Republican Rep. Doug Bruce, author of the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, has been in the news a great deal lately as allegations of shady real-estate deals and unmaintained rental properties pile up around himself and his associates. Bruce’s handoff of property for which he owes the city of Colorado Springs thousands of dollars in a court judgment to city councilwoman Helen Collins has caused a significant scandal, recently compounded by revelations about blighted apartment buildings in Kansas City owned by Collins and “managed” by Bruce.

Earlier this month, Bruce was in court for multiple alleged probation violations stemming in part from the above-described events. “Mr. TABOR” was convicted in 2011 of felony tax evasion, and among other offenses his business dealings with Helen Collins may well constitute violations of the terms of his release. Bruce has his next court hearing in June to face those allegations.

But as the Denver Post’s Jesse Paul reports, Bruce’s court visit on April 10th has netted him fresh legal troubles of a different kind:

An arrest warrant for assault has been issued in Denver for Douglas Bruce, the author of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, after an incident following a court appearance earlier this month.

The warrant was signed by a judge and issued out of the county’s court on Sunday, records show. The court clerk’s office says the warrant is for a municipal assault offense.

Bruce is accused of assault at the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse on April 10 where a video shows him grabbing a cell phone out of the hands of Dede Laugesen, executive director of Colorado Springs Government Watch. Bruce was leaving the courthouse following a hearing in which prosecutors accused him of violating his probation in his 2012 tax evasion conviction.

During Bruce’s brief tenure as the representative of Colorado House District 15 back in 2008, he was given a rare censure by the House after kicking a Rocky Mountain News reporter on the opening day of the legislative session. That incident was a major factor in the later GOP primary against Bruce won by Rep. Mark Waller.

As we’ve said on a number of occasions, Doug Bruce is not a nice man.

In a perfect world, the ongoing legal problems faced by the author of the Colorado GOP’s most treasured constitutional amendment, TABOR–especially his felony conviction for the highly ironic crime of tax evasion–would be a major credibility problem for anyone tasked with defending his handiwork. TABOR’s many Byzantine government-throttling provisions, which can’t even be undone in one initiative due to the subsequent passage of the state’s “single subject” rule for ballot measures, were carefully crafted to hobble the most basic functions of government Coloradans rely on. Nobody knew in 1992 that TABOR was written by what we know now is a criminal mind–and today, no Republican can admit this either, since blind support for TABOR is an article of faith in GOP circles.

But we’ll say it again: the author of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is a convicted criminal. A criminal felon tax evader. A criminal slumlord. And pending how this latest assault case turns out, a criminal thug too.

We’re grateful to have no political obligation to defend this man, and we’re sorry for those who do.