May 08, 2015 10:51 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (May 8)

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

We’ll be happy to break down the ramifications of elections in the United Kingdom as soon as we figure out how the whole thing works. It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► With the 2015 Colorado legislative session now officially in the books, all eyes turn to Gov. John Hickenlooper and, more specifically, his writing instrument of choice. As John Frank reports for the Denver Post, Hickenlooper may veto two red-light camera bills and is taking a close look at a few more pieces of legislation. The House Speaker, meanwhile, joined Hickenlooper in voicing displeasure over the demise of TABOR reform efforts:

House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder said she will keep alive a Hickenlooper-endorsed plan to remove the fees paid by hospitals from state revenue collections to make room for more transportation and education funding within the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights spending limits.

“That’s one of the things I’m the most sorry about that did not pass out of the Senate,” the Boulder Democrat said. “We are facing a budget crisis without finding a way to address our revenues coming up against the TABOR cap.”

► The Associated Press has its own take on the 2015 legislative session, calling it “among the most sharply partisan in recent memory.”

 ►Colorado Senators Michael Bennet (D-Denver) and Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) are calling for more congressional oversight in the Aurora VA Hospital project. Once again, we remind you, that Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Aurora) is the CHAIRMAN OF THE NONOVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE under the House Veterans’ Affairs committee.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

►The editorial board of the Denver Post, which may or may not just be a table of discarded office supplies at this point, opines on the 2015 session:

Despite a few major failures, lawmakers managed to address a number of important issues with solid legislation that both the Republican Senate and Democratic House ended up supporting.

It wasn’t a great session, but it wasn’t a bad one, either.

And the fact that each chamber was able to check the worst tendencies of the other — gun bills and social conservative measures from Republicans and anti-business and nanny-state meddling from Democrats — was actually an overall benefit to Colorado.

Going after Democrats for “nanny-state meddling” is just repeating a lazy cliche. In 2015, the “nanny-state meddling” came largely from Republicans, who focused so much on social policy that the primary bill in the Senate — SB-1 — didn’t even get a committee hearing until the last week of the session.

► Rachel Sapin of the Aurora Sentinel takes a look at the recent developments in CD-6, including rumors of a pending run by Democratic Sen. Morgan Carroll. As Colorado Pols wrote yesterday, Republicans are more than a little nervous about a potential Carroll candidacy, but they don’t have anything clever to say other than to shout the words “Nancy Pelosi.”

► British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party won a surprise majority victory in the United Kingdom. From the NY Times:

The Conservatives won 331 of 650 seats in the House of Commons, a gain of 24 seats from the last election, in 2010. Their chief rival, Labour, was nearly wiped out in Scotland by the surging Scottish National Party and did more poorly than pre-election opinion polls had suggested it would in the rest of Britain. Several of Mr. Miliband’s top lieutenants lost their seats….

…The results were also a disaster for Nick Clegg and his centrist Liberal Democrats, who have been the junior partner in a coalition with the Conservatives. Mr. Clegg hung on to his seat in the House of Commons, but he resigned as party leader after results that exceeded the party’s very worst expectations….

…Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist, anti-immigration, anti-European Union U.K. Independence Party, lost his bid for a seat in Parliament, and his party won only a single seat. Mr. Farage on Friday followed through on his promise to step down as the party’s leader if he failed to win his race, a step that will deprive it of much of its visibility and volume.

It’s hard to argue that the U.S. would not be better off with more than its current Two Party system, though there are so many competing factions in the U.K. that elections there sound more like the lineup of a summer music festival.

► Yesterday marked Day 9 of the Aurora Theater Shooting trial. 

► Former Secretary of State Scott Gessler was, in fact, kind of a weasel. From the Colorado Independent:

Former Secretary of State Scott Gessler broke the rules and violated the public trust by spending Secretary of State office money for personal and political gain, the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission in 2013. Gessler appealed the decision, and today, the Colorado Court of Appeals decided the IEC was right.

“The state should not spend another penny defending former Secretary Gessler’s position that elected officials have the right to use public money for personal and political gain,” said Luis Toro, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, the group that initially filed the complaint.

Worst. Secretary of State. Ever. (Sorry Gigi Dennis)