January 30, 2020 10:48 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Thursday (January 30)

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• by: Colorado Pols

On this day in 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn-in as Chancellor of Germany. It’s time to Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio/visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Why was #CoverUpCory trending nationally on Twitter on Wednesday? Because Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) announced — after months of dodging the issue — that he opposes calling witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.

Earlier this week, Gardner said that he had “approached every aspect of this grave constitutional duty with the respect and attention required by law, and with the seriousness our oath requires.” He apparently forgot to add the part, “but only for two weeks.” Gardner really just wants this all to go away.

Meanwhile, the Senate impeachment trial continues today, with Republicans looking to wrap things up in the next couple of days as long as they can prevent four elephants in their ranks from voting to hear from new witnesses.

► President Trump’s attorneys presented a brazen new strategy on Wednesday in the Senate impeachment trial. As Aaron Blake writes for The Washington Post:

A decade after being acquitted of murder, Alan Dershowitz’s former client O.J. Simpson questionably planned a book and a TV special titled, “If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened.”

On Wednesday, Dershowitz assisted in a novel defense for his current client, President Trump: If he did it, it’s still okay. [Pols emphasis]

As The Post’s Erica Werner, Karoun Demirjian and Elise Viebeck write, Trump’s legal team advanced an exceptionally broad defense of Trump’s actions at Wednesday’s Q&A session of the impeachment trial. The most striking parts of that defense came when they entertained the idea that Trump was indeed out for personal political gain when he asked Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a political rival, and his son Hunter Biden — despite long-standing denials that he was — and suggested even that that would be aboveboard.

It was almost as if they are girding for what might come from former national security adviser John Bolton.

In a separate story, The Washington Post points out that Trump’s attorneys notably refused to answer two very important questions.

As NBC News reports, legal experts are aghast at Dershowitz’s logic:

Dershowitz argued Wednesday that if a president engaged in a quid pro quo arrangement for their own political benefit, it is not impeachable because all politicians believe that their elections are in the public interest…

…Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley, law school, said he thought Dershowitz’s argument was “absurd and outrageous.”

“It means that a president could break any law or abuse any power and say that it was for the public interest because the public interest would be served by his or her election,” he said.

And Sanford Levinson, a University of Texas law professor, said Dershowitz’s argument was “on its face, preposterous.”

And yet…Senate Republicans are eating it up.
► Fundraising reports for federal campaigns are due to be filed before the end of the day on Friday, January 31. While many candidates for federal office in Colorado have already made their end-of-year and Q4 2019 fundraising numbers public, we’re still waiting to find out results from the campaigns of Sen. Cory Gardner and Democratic Senate challenger Andrew Romanoff. If both campaigns wait as long as possible to file their reports, you probably won’t hear anything about the numbers until Saturday.

► The Colorado State Senate is again debating legislation that would end the death penalty in Colorado. House Majority Leader Alec Garnett discusses this bill and other hot items under the Gold Dome in this week’s episode of The Get More Smarter Podcast.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — now a candidate for U.S. Senate — will testify at his own ethics hearing in March (the Independent Ethics Committee apparently found an open conference room). As Colorado Public Radio reports:

Hickenlooper’s team also is drawing a national Republican group into the case. A separate document implies that an employee of America Rising Corp., an opposition research group, conducted the original public records research for the complaint against Hickenlooper.

“These are nothing more than politically motivated attacks that appear to be from America Rising, a national Republican group, and his testimony will make that abundantly clear,” said Melissa Miller, a campaign spokesperson for Hickenlooper, in a written statement.

The ethics complaint against Hickenlooper was filed by a newly-formed organization headed by former Republican House Speaker Frank McNulty.

► The oil and gas industry in Colorado is screwing taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars in their efforts to avoid paying severance taxes that are supposed to be tied to how much oil and gas is removed from the ground.

► Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is in Colorado today to tour a charter school and to visit Aims Community College. Just last week, DeVos spoke at an event hosted by Colorado Christian University in which she compared abortion to slavery. 

► Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg will visit Denver this weekend.

► The State Senate will soon vote on legislation intended to prohibit federal immigration officers from detaining suspects at local courtrooms. 

► Governor Jared Polis is still advocating for a paid family leave program in Colorado that has gotten tied up because of budget questions.

► The Colorado Hospital Association is backing away from a threat to sue the state over a reinsurance program approved by the legislature in 2019. Colorado hospitals are still reeling a bit from a report last week showing that hospital profits here have tripled in the last decade — far outpacing what consumers are paying in other states.

► Two new studies show that Denver’s air pollution is among the worst in the country. Democrats in the state legislature have introduced a bill that they hope will help the problem, as Denver7 reports:

The new bill, which hasn’t yet been assigned to a committee, would create a program that regulates emissions, requires real-time tracking of those emissions from the source, and creates community notifications alerting people of emergency hazards.

Adrienne Benavidez, a Democrat who represents a portion of Adams County, said this bill would allow them to set a new emissions standard based on the data they collect.

“They will also, once we have a health impact standard it has to be below that and we will not allow changes that do any further detriment to people’s health.”

► Speaking of air pollution…

… so I asked Williams what he plans to do.

“I will debate, I will filibuster, I’ll have bills read at length. … This won’t stand. The House Democrats better pray that this bill doesn’t get to the House chamber.”

I asked him, “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a promise,” he said.

— Alex Burness (@alex_burness) January 30, 2020

► The Denver Post looks at social equity in Colorado’s cannabis business community.

Your Daily Dose Of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

► Lawmakers in South Dakota want to make it a CRIME for physicians to treat transgendered youth in the state.

► Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner is now just a punchline for late-night television comics…and everyone else:

Today is the one-year anniversary of Gardner’s official endorsement of President Trump’s re-election.

ICYMI

► Citing the overwhelming evidence available to anyone not completely in the tank for President Trump, the editorial board of The Denver Post called on Sen. Cory Gardner to vote in favor of impeachment.

► Remember: 75% of Americans want to see witnesses called in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. That includes 49 percent of Republicans.

For more political learnings, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to give Colorado Pols a thumbs up on Facebook and Twitter.