CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
October 28, 2013 11:06 AM UTC
4 Comments
Money, along with paid lobbyists, do indeed grease our state's legislative machinery, but I'm not sure if the influence is greater here in Colorado than elsewhere around the country. Got to admit though, the SB-1 COLA theft was extremely well orchestrated and involved some strange bedfellows from both the political extremes, and has won supporters from all three levels of government – legislative, executive, and judicial, and even some public employee unions such as Colorado WINS. The taking of a contractual retiree benefit, such as our fixed, guaranteed COLA is indeed a crowd pleaser. David v. Goliath – I rooting for David!
Algernon, this is my scorecard on the fate of SB-1 in the Colorado Supreme Court just based on my political instincts:
Three reclusals: Hood, Eid, and Marquez.
Two in support of Petitioners/Cross Respondents: Rice and Hobbs.
Two in support of Respondents/Cross-Petitioners: Coates and Boatright.
What happens if there is a 2-2 tie? If the cased gets thrown back to Denver District Court, it is bound to languish for perhaps a couple of years, and the outcome does not look good for PERA retirees as Judge Hyatt has already ruled the COLA as a mere gratuity.
Hey Hawkeye, the Court of Appeals has already found that Colorado PERA retirees have a contractual right to their PERA COLA benefit. If there is a tie at the Supreme Court, then, my guess is that the Court of Appeals decision would stand, and the case would return to District Court for trial where the DeWitt standards would be applied. Then, the case would be appealed from there, after the new District Court decision. In that event, the case would require quite a few more years to resolve.
But, I don't asssume that the members of the Supreme Court will act politically, or fail to engage in a fair and impartial contract analysis. Al
Hey Algernon, I anticipate SB-1 will remain unresolved for 1 to 5 more years in the state courts, and perhaps an additional 5 years in the federal courts. One clear beneficiary is PERA, which will be able to invest the clawed-back COLA funds back into the trust fund to moderate future contribution rates for PERA-affiliated employers and current employees. To put it succinctly, PERA retirees are screwed! Younger retirees should consider going back into the workforce.
The state legislature will continue to underfund PERA by not contributing the full ARC, but they will be motivated (and even advised) to pay the statutory employer contribution rate, including the AED and SAED, as to not undermine their court case. Since passing SB10-1, they legislated a 2.5% contribution rate swap with state employees. However, if SB-1 were not being disputed in the courts, the state probably would have taken a more substantial PERA contribution "holiday" or a larger (or more prolonged) contribution rate swap with employees. Or, the state would have kept the employee contribution at 8% while reducing its employer share. Indeed, if there were no legal dispute over SB-1 why would the state care at all about PERA underfunding going forward? In actuality, state employees' contribution rate was lifted to 10.5% for fiscal years 2010-2011 and 2011-2012, whereas, the state reduced its contribution by 2.5% for those two years. The legislature used that money to support programs they felt served a greater public purpose.
By the way, is Walmart hiring? 😉