We hope your abbreviated holiday week is…well, abbreviated! 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…
► Presidential candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky is holding a big-ticket fundraiser today in Denver with Colorado’s budding (pun intended) marijuana industry:
Paul becomes the first major-party presidential candidate to publicly court donations from the pot industry. Though legal weed businesses owners have been active political donors for years, presidential candidates have shied away from holding fundraisers made up entirely of marijuana-related business owners.
Paul has joined Democrats in the Senate to sponsor a bill to end the federal prohibition of marijuana for medical reasons. The senator also backs a federal drug-sentencing overhaul.
And at $2,700 a throw, they’ll be paying top dollar for Sen. Paul’s time.
► Speaking of the weed, Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is kicking off his own presidential campaign. Christie drew jeers from Colorado politicos on both sides of the aisle after he vowed to shut down our state’s retail marijuana industry–and before that, Christie helped sow dissent within the Colorado Republican Party by backing eventual loser Bob Beauprez in last year’s gubernatorial primary. All told, we don’t see Christie carrying our state in next year’s caucuses.
► Also, Ted Cruz says you can ignore the U.S. Supreme Court when you don’t like what they say! That seems certain to end well.
► We’re not sure exactly how you celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday weakening the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate mercury emissions from power plants, but the energy industry’s always-enthusiastic surrogates are ready to try:
“It’s great the Supreme Court would be looking realistically at this. . . . Maybe somewhere along the line it will bring some common sense in terms of energy,” former Pueblo state Senator George Rivera said.
As a state senator, Rivera regularly voiced concerns about the higher costs of electricity resulting from the closure of coal-fired power plants and other government environmental mandates.
Translation: hooray mercury emissions? Fortunately, Colorado is already ahead of the feds in reducing mercury emissions, so yesterday’s ruling won’t leave our state choking. Sorry, other states.
Get even more smarter after the jump…
IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…
► Colorado’s Attorney General Cynthia “Shakedown” Coffman has joined with other conservative AGs to sue the Obama administration over the Clean Water Act. Again, clean water…sucks! There’s a winning message.
► Rep. Diana DeGette is hopeful her bipartisan bill to expand medical research and expedite new treatments and medicine can make it through the Republican-controlled Congress.
► The Colorado Supreme Court’s rejection of Douglas County’s religious schools voucher program continues to resonate on both sides of the debate. Is the next stop the U.S. Supreme Court, or is the ruling based on Colorado’s constitutional ban on state funding for religion the final word?
► Legal wrangling continues in the lawsuit by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association against the city and county of Broomfield or their moratorium on “fracking.”
► Environmental organizations are protesting greater sage-grouse management plans, calling them inadequate to the job of preserving the species’ habitat and too deferential to oil and gas drilling.
► Opponents of the controversial Wolf Creek ski area residential development are in court trying to stop a land swap agreement reached with the Forest Service. Will Texas tourists finally get their Southern Colorado trap, or will ecologically sensitive Wolf Creek Pass be preserved?
OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK
► Rep. Gordon “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt had a lot to say at this year’s Western Conservative Summit. Unfortunately for his fellow Republicans, people listened.
ICYMI
► Greece is going to hell and dragging us all with them. Naturally, we blame Obama.
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The Supreme Court has sent back down the TABOR case for reconsideration to the 10th Circuit after vacating the earlier 10th Circuit judgment that the lawmaker plaintiffs had standing to sue.
This might be no big deal, the Court may want the Circuit opinion to come to the same conclusion but reflect the recent decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, or it might be instructive to the Circuit Court in a more negative way for the lawsuit, as Arizona State Legislature was also supportive of direct democracy (Phoenix Rising was thinking along these lines yesterday).
Thanks for the h/t, though the news isn't really good. That they sent it back with a reference to the Arizona case probably means the Supremes are thinking along my line of reasoning. The 10th Circuit is, of course, free to come to a different conclusion and allow the suit anyway, but with the reference to the Arizona case in the reexamination notice, the court is more likely to see it as "initiatives are Republican, too".
Yeah, after giving it a couple reads, I'm now inclined to agree with you on that. Going with the Guarantee Clause is a whole different beast than Arizona (which dealt specifically with elections). Colorado's TABOR case has the potential to unravel the entire I/R process in this country (which might actually be a good thing), and I don't think SCOTUS is willing to do that – unless Kennedy decides to become an originalist all the sudden.
How long has the fight over small waterways been going on now? The Supreme Court first ruled on "Waters of the United States" in 2001, and things have pretty much been in limbo since then – much to the delight of the industries who want to pollute without EPA oversight.
The new rule provides clarity, and should reduce regulatory delays and uncertainty. Colorado should stay on the sidelines.
Although I feel it could've been far more substantial, Barack Obama will have a solid legacy as America's first Black President. He was the one who had to follow George W "Shrub" Bush and clean up after the two failed and highly political wars, he was the one who took the fight to al Qaeda and bin Laden (something Dubya talked about, until he didn't), and Obama was the one who saved an economy hanging by a thread that was jeopardized by the insane greed and lawless irresponsibility of the Titans of Finance, many of whom should be in jail right now rather than collecting more profits from a system they rigged and which produces almost nothing of true value.
Here's the Republican legacy, besides doing NOTHING to help any of the major problems facing our nation (and I hope our senior senator, who dreams of bipartisanship and ponies on a regular basis, finally realizes this):
Republicans show no sign of calming their hatred or suppressing their fear. They can hardly govern in the best of times (All policy for everything = Tax Cuts), and no one should rely on them to act sane at any time in the near future.
Klingenschmitt should not have a tax exemption for his PJIN program. Period. So yeah, coming after your tax-exempt status, GK – but as a taxpayer, not as a "gay activist".
Right Wing Watch highlighted one of GK's more disgusting proclamations – that the Charleston church shooter was a "left wing activist", who was "targeting Christians". The ever-courageous Klingenschmitt waited until he found a right wing black preacher for cover to make these outrageous statements for him.
Klingenschmitt also interviewed and lionized the white extremist who provoked the Arizona mosque standoff. Apparently, he sees no contradiction to his Christian theology in this.
Meanwhile, black churches are burning again…