January 04, 2016 12:06 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (Jan. 4)

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Brockweiler hits a snag, but the Denver Broncos are still the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs. 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…

► Colorado business leaders are pushing again for an overhaul of the so-called Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, or TABOR, that has handcuffed Colorado’s budget for decades. As John Frank reports for the Denver Post:

An organization backed by prominent Colorado leaders is moving toward ballot initiatives in 2016 to roll back the state’s TABOR spending caps and make it harder to amend the constitution.

A possible third ballot question from Building a Better Colorado may allow the state’s 1.3 million unaffiliated voters to play a larger role in selecting candidates at the political primary level…

…The move to eliminate the inflation-plus-population revenue limit in the  Taxpayer’s Bill of Rightslikely would include a provision to direct surplus money that would have gone to taxpayer refunds to certain priority areas, rather than give state lawmakers free rein to spend it.

Reeves Brown, the director of the Building a Better Colorado group, says polling conducted in December showed strong support from voters for removing the troublesome “revenue caps” created by TABOR.

► A group of heavily-armed terrorists (let’s call it like it is, shall we?) continue to occupy a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. If you missed the Saturday takeover, Rolling Stone has a Q&A to help you catch up with the news. Militia members are upset because two Oregon ranchers were convicted of federal arson charges for allegedly setting fire to a huge swath of land in order to cover up illegal poaching activities. The Oregonian has a good deeper dive of the issues behind this terrorist occupation.

Ammon Bundy, the son of Nevada rancher and armed lunatic Cliven Bundy, is among a group of about 150 armed white dudes holed up in the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon. Twitter users quickly responded to the terrorist takeover over the weekend, labeling the group #YallQaeda.

Republican Presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are both speaking out against the militants. “Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds. But we don’t have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others,” said Cruz.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Colorado Latino voters are part of a long study intended to gauge their mood entering the 2016 election cycle. From Mark Matthews of the Denver Post:

The research firm Latino Decisions and the immigration activist group America’s Voice plan to focus their efforts on 10 states that have large Latino populations and are expected to feature competitive Senate races next year.

At the core of the project are three waves of polling in each state.

“Each wave will have state-specific samples of 400 likely Latino voters with releases planned for late winter, August and October,” according to a release announcing the project.

Among these 10 states, Colorado is considered a “Tier 1” contest, along with Florida, Illinois and Nevada.

► Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew will be in Denver this week for a finance town hall meeting. Lew is promoting efforts to highlight the importance of saving for retirement and creating better access to banking services for low-income Americans.

► Republican activists continue to shake the trees over perceived problems with the State Republican Party. You can ignore some of the complaints.

► As tradition goes here at Colorado Pols, we’re finishing up our annual look at the Top 10 political stories of the year.

► Fracking should be back on your ballot in 2016.

► Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s nominee for President in 2012, is taking a dump on the Presidential hopes of fellow Republican Jeb! Bush. As the Washington Post reports, Romney says he told Jeb! in a meeting last January that he didn’t think the former Florida Governor could defeat Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

► Megan Schrader of the Colorado Springs Gazette profiles Senate President Bill Cadman as the longtime Republican legislator prepares for his final session at the State Capitol.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is back in Iowa today to campaign in advance of the Feb. 1 caucuses, and the “Big Corn” lobby is waiting to attack.

► Longtime Denver newspaper columnist Penny Parker, who filled the “society” pages for the Rocky Mountain News and later the Denver Post, died at her home in Denver over the weekend.

ICYMI

► Today is the deadline to affiliate with a political party in Colorado in order to participate in the March caucuses. The Colorado Independent takes on the Herculean task of trying to explain this caucus stuff.

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