December 28, 2015 11:49 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (Dec. 28)

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

The Brockweiler rides again tonight as the Broncos host the Bengals. 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…

► As Kristen Wyatt reports for the Associated Press, the marijuana banking discussion heats up today:

A marijuana banking case set for arguments Monday is testing the federal government’s stated goal of addressing the cash-only nature of the quasi-legal pot industry.

But should pot sellers be able to use the nation’s banking system as long as marijuana is an illegal drug? It’s a question before a federal judge trying to weigh a Colorado-chartered bank’s attempt to force the U.S. Federal Reserve to let those pot shops access the nation’s banking system.

The case involves Fourth Corner Credit Union, which Colorado set up last year to serve the marijuana industry.

Federal banking regulators have issued guidelines for how banks can accept money from pot sales, but banks frequently say those guidelines are unwieldy. That leaves many pot shops stuck trying to pay bills and taxes in cash.

Regardless of your opinion on marijuana, it is in nobody’s best interest to force pot shops to deal exclusively in cash.

► Remember, friends: If you want to participate in party caucuses coming to Colorado in March, you must declare your party affiliation by January 4th, 2016 (we’ll keep this reminder near the top of the list for the next two weeks). For a complete list of election-year deadlines, check out this handy guide from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► The issue of fracking in Colorado made fewer headlines in 2015 than in prior years, but that doesn’t mean residents are any less interested in keeping oil and gas drilling operations away from their homes and schools. The 2016 ballot could be chock-full of fracking questions, as the Denver Post reported last week:

A Boulder County-based citizens group opposed to fracking filed a package of ballot initiatives Tuesday that would circumvent a compromise sought by Gov. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis of Boulder.

Coloradans Resisting Extreme Energy Development submitted paperwork for 11 potential ballot questions to provide mandatory setbacks for wells from homes and schools, more local control on drilling decisions or an outright ban on the process of hydraulic fracturing.

Eight of the 11 are variations of proposals for mandatory setbacks. Each of the constitutional amendments would need signatures from 98,492 registered Colorado voters to get on November’s ballot.

A review-and-comment hearing on the language of the ballot questions is set for at 1:30 p.m. Jan. 5 in Room 109 at the Capitol.

In response, the oil and gas industry warned that any drilling restrictions would result in the loss of every job in Colorado. All of them.

Meanwhile, a Colorado Pols diarist wonders if the oil and gas industry has learned any lessons from pushback in Colorado.

► Can we please stop using that ridiculous line about “running the government like a business”? We’ve tried that. It doesn’t work.

► The abortion issue looks like it will remain front and center in American politics for awhile — particularly among Republicans as they battle for the GOP Presidential nomination.

► Republican Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump says that wages in the United States are “too low.” As Yahoo.com reports:

After previously saying wages were “too high,” Trump instead stressed Monday that they were actually “too low.”

In the Monday-morning tweet, Trump also said that good jobs were “too few” and that people had “lost faith in our leaders.”

The apparent shift came after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a Sunday interview that his message would resonate among Trump’s working-class supporters.

“Look, many of Trump’s supporters are a working-class people, and they’re angry,” Sanders said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” according to the show’s transcript. “And they’re angry because they’re working longer hours for lower wages. They’re angry because their jobs have left this country and gone to China or other low-wage countries.”

Sanders added: “In fact, he has said that he thinks wages in America are too high.”

We get that Trump is continuing to stir the political pot and keep his name front and center, but practically-speaking, this should be a pretty obvious strategy: Why would anyone campaign on a premise that wages are too high in America?

► The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses are just a few weeks away (Feb. 1), but as Eli Stokols writes for Politico, it is the Feb. 9 New Hampshire Primary that may be the real turning point of the 2016 election:

Forget Iowa, which Cruz appears to be locking up. It’s New Hampshire that will cull this field. And with Christie, Bush and John Kasich making the Granite State the singular focus of their campaigns, and Rubio, should he lose Iowa, needing a top-tier finish, the fight to be the mainstream alternative to Cruz or Trump could end here.

“At the beginning of the year, we seemed to have an embarrassment of riches, and I thought it was a sign of strength of the party. And then Trump gets in and all of the sudden that strength has worked itself into something of a weakness,” said Drew Cline, the former editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state’s biggest newspaper. “He has left all of the candidates in his shadow for months. And it’s trickier for a Trump alternative to emerge when the field is just so crowded.”

If Trump wins the Feb. 9 primary a week after Cruz wins Iowa, only one or two candidates finishing behind him will likely have the momentum to carry on. If four or even five candidates split the vote of an establishment electorate that never coalesces behind one standard-bearer, there may be only hollow victories to declare on primary night because none will have the firepower to challenge Cruz or Trump in South Carolina.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses, believes that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio could be at the end of his political rope after New Hampshire.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► As we say sayonara to 2015, we’re wrapping up a busy “off-year” with our annual Top 10 Stories of the Year. Make your suggestions here.

► If you are a Virginia resident and you’d like to participate in the March 1 Republican Presidential Primary, you must first sign a pledge of allegiance to the Republican Party. What. The. F***?

ICYMI

► A tip of the cap for Meadowlark Lemon; The “Clown Prince of Basketball” died on Sunday at the age of 83.

Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!