July 29, 2015 10:15 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (July 29)

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• by: Colorado Pols

No, your office does not have a “trade deadline.” Let’s 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…

► “Turn-In Tuesday” contained quite a surprise; supporters of a recall campaign in Jefferson County turned in more than 110,000 signatures in an effort to oust three right-wing school board members. Recall proponents needed less than three weeks to collect — and significantly exceed — the required number of signatures to place the measure on the November ballot. Opponents of the recall will now have a difficult time challenging the signature collection process, as Westword explains:

Of course, this won’t stop opponents from making ridiculous Baghdad Bob-style arguments.

► Congressional Republicans are fidgeting over how to deal with a new challenge to House Speaker John Boehner. In a surprise move on Tuesday evening, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) offered a motion to vacate the chair — an effort to force a vote on whether Boehner should remain Speaker. As it approaches its annual August recess, Congress appears to have completely run off the rails.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Congressman Jared Polis (D-Boulderish) is working to secure millions of dollars in federal money for Larimer County, which would also benefit the Secure Rural Schools program.

► A Colorado judge awarded full worker’s compensation benefits to the widow of a Weld County oil worker who died after inadvertently inhaling toxic fumes. The decision could have broad implications for increasing safety measures in the oil and gas industry.

► The Colorado Springs Independent takes a look at Colorado’s role in continuing to secure rights for the LGBT community:

The Equality Act, recently introduced in both houses of Congress…an expansion of the Civil Rights Act, it would protect LGBT people based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender in employment, housing, education, credit, public accommodations, jury service and federally funded programs. It would expand protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identification, and protect people from discrimination who are associated with LGBT people (for instance, a lesbian couple’s children).

The Equality Act has support from various interest groups, but it’s unclear whether it will make headway in a Republican-controlled Congress. Steinberg notes there is no date set for it to be debated and voted on. But she says there are big advantages for LGBT people should it pass, even those living in states with nondiscrimination laws already on the books, like Colorado.

“If anything, the federal law is sweeping,” she says. “So it would reinforce the laws at the state level and it would protect people when they travel between states, which is no small thing, to be able to go on vacation and feel safe.”

► The Great Sand Dunes in Southern Colorado is one of 36 national parks exhibiting unhealthy levels of air pollution, according to a new report.

► The ongoing battle over whether to federal lands should be controlled by the states took an interesting turn on Tuesday. From the Durango Herald:

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., voted against many of his Republican colleagues on a measure that would allow states to gain greater control of federal public lands during a Tuesday morning business meeting of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Nearly 18,000 sportsmen have signed a petition to oppose the sale or transfer of federal public lands to the states, according to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

The group cautioned that earlier this year, the Senate passed a budget resolution that encourages lawmakers to “sell, or transfer to, or exchange with, a state or local government any federal land not within the boundaries of a national park, national preserve, or national monument.”

► RTD approved a $140 million contract to expand the Southeast light-rail line.

► Fox News continues to tinker with its formula for two prime-time GOP Presidential debates on Aug. 6. The 9:00 p.m. debate will now include the “Top 10” Republican candidates, while the rest of the field is relegated to a 5:00 p.m. “undercard” of sorts. Fox News apparently feels confident that there is an audience for a debate between six people who will not be President. 

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of 16 Republicans seeking the Presidential nomination, is beginning to get some blowback for his bullying ways.

► A mathematician at Wichita State University believes that Kansas voting machines have shown enough of a pattern of odd behavior to warrant a complete audit. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback demanded that the mathematician be thrown into the dungeon before staffers convinced him that, a) he couldn’t do that, and b) he doesn’t have a dungeon.

ICYMI

► President Obama said during a speech in Ethiopia that he believes he could win a third term in office if the Constitution did not set a two-term limit. Obama was using the term-limit example to discourage African leaders from trying to cling to a lifetime of power. 

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