Author Archives: Colorado Pols

The GMS Podcast: Rep. Chris Kennedy Gets More Smarter

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  by: Colorado Pols June 18, 2020 at 6:27 PM MDT

Assistant House Majority Leader Chris Kennedy (D-Lakewood)

This week on The Get More Smarter Podcast, hosts Jason Bane and Ian Silverii marvel anew at the ever-sinking poll numbers for President Trump; discuss the state of the debates in the U.S. Senate Primary between Democrats Andrew Romanoff and John Hickenlooper; and have a good laugh at an absurdly-bad new television ad from our second favorite U.S. Senator from Colorado, Cory Gardner.

But first, we wrap up the very weird Colorado legislative session that finally adjourned this week with State Rep. Chris Kennedy, the Assistant Majority Leader in the State House of Representatives. Warm up those brains and find out what happens next with several big policy ideas that were shelved because of the coronavirus outbreak and related budget troubles.

If you missed last week’s episode featuring polling guru Andrew Baumann, click here.

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Hit us up at AngryRants@getmoresmarter.com.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn

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Update: Colorado U.S. Senate Primary

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  by: Colorado Pols June 18, 2020 at 4:02 PM MDT

Um, okay

There are 12 days to go until the end of the 2020 Primary Election in Colorado. Here’s where things stand this afternoon in the marquee race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.

Andrew Romanoff’s campaign is touting (touting?) the results of an internal poll showing that it trails former Gov. John Hickenlooper by a 12-point margin. As Justin Wingerter of The Denver Post reports, Romanoff’s campaign is not “fully sharing” these poll results, but the former House Speaker’s campaign claims the numbers show that he is “gaining quickly” on Hickenlooper.

If this poll is accurate — and keep in mind that Romanoff’s campaign is obviously sharing its “best case scenario” numbers — it would mean that Romanoff needs to pick up at least one point per day by June 30 in order to turn the Democratic Primary into a nailbiter. We have no doubt that Romanoff has closed on Hickenlooper to some degree after a tough couple of weeks for the former Governor, but getting to within 12 points of your opponent with less than two weeks left in the campaign seems like a strange reason to pump your fist.

According to an email sent out by the Romanoff campaign this afternoon, “Since our last poll in this race, Andrew has gained 20 points while John Hickenlooper has lost 17.” When was this poll conducted? According to Ernest Luning at the publication formerly known as the Colorado Statesman:

That’s down from a 49-percentage point spread between the two Democrats in an internal October poll conducted by another firm for the Romanoff campaign. That survey showed Hickenlooper, who entered the race in late August, ahead 68% to 19% among likely primary voters, the campaign said.

John Hickenlooper and Andrew Romanoff

Romanoff’s email later says that “Hickenlooper’s 49-point lead has fallen to just 12.” This could be from the same October poll mentioned earlier, but it could also be a reference to a September 2019 PPP poll that asked respondents to choose one of seven Democrats running for U.S. Senate at the time (Hickenlooper, Romanoff, Dan Baer, Mike Johnston, Alice Madden, John Walsh, and Angela Williams). These numbers make some sense if Romanoff’s campaign is comparing a recent head-to-head poll to a similar multi-candidate poll last fall…but if that’s the case, then we’re also talking about two entirely different questions. It’s the difference between comparing answers from a multi-choice test to a “true or false” quiz.

Regardless…if Romanoff does get close to Hickenlooper by June 30, it will be on a shoestring budget.

Hickenlooper announced today that his campaign raised $3.7 million between April 1 and June 10, a record amount for a U.S. Senate candidate in Colorado over a similar reporting period (Hickenlooper’s campaign finished the reporting period with $5.9 million in the bank). Hickenlooper doubled the amount raised by Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who brought in just $1.87 million. This marks the second consecutive reporting period in which Hickenlooper has substantially outraised Gardner.

Romanoff’s campaign, meanwhile, raised $710,000 over that same time period, leaving his campaign with $792,000 cash-on-hand. Romanoff’s bank account will essentially be empty on July 1, which does not help his “electability” argument against Gardner.

Hickenlooper’s campaign recently went up on television with its third different ad of the month, while Team Romanoff can really only afford to extend the buy on the only ad it has put up on television thus far. By the time the votes are counted, Republicans trying to meddle in the Democratic Primary may end up outspending Romanoff’s campaign entirely.

In hindsight, we almost could have replaced this entire post with that last sentence.

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DACA Ruling Exposes Colorado Republicans

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  by: Colorado Pols June 18, 2020 at 1:44 PM MDT

Clockwise from top left: Cory Gardner, Ken Buck, Doug Lamborn, and Scott Tipton.

The United States Supreme Court issued its second bombshell decision of the week following Monday’s decision in favor of LGBTQ workplace protections.

The Washington Post reports on today’s big ruling to preserve DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), which was announced by then-President Obama six years ago this week:

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the program protecting undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children, a reprieve for nearly 650,000 recipients known as “dreamers.”

The 5 to 4 decision was written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and joined by the court’s four liberals. It was the second, stunning defeat this week for the Trump administration, as the Supreme Court begins to unveil its decision in marquee cases.

It will likely elevate the issue of immigration in the presidential campaign, although public opinion polls have shown sympathy for those who were brought here as children and have lived their lives in this country. Congress repeatedly has failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) wasted little time this morning pretending that he is an advocate for immigrants. State Senator Julie Gonzales (D-Denver) was equally swift in calling bullshit on Gardner’s word salad:

Back in September 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security formally rescinded the Obama-era DACA decision at the behest of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The response from Colorado Republicans at the time was nothing if not consistent: All GOP members of the state’s Congressional delegation celebrated the move and stated unequivocally that the Trump administration was making the right legal decision (the same argument that the Supreme Court just dismissed):

♦ Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Cortez):

“President Obama circumvented the Constitution when he unilaterally created the DACA program without going through the legislative process. Today’s announcement by Attorney General Sessions shows this administration’s commitment to the rule of law.”

♦ Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley):

“We’re a nation of laws, and our immigration system must reflect that principle. I opposed President Obama’s DACA action because I believed it was wrong and unconstitutional, that ultimately Congress has the responsibility to craft our nation’s immigration laws. President Trump made the right choice by giving Congress time to pass legislation that secures our border from future illegal immigration while also addressing issues like DACA.”

♦ Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs)

“After eight years of the Obama administration dismantling our immigration laws, I’m encouraged by the President’s commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration, securing our borders, and reversing the unconstitutional DACA program. I have always opposed any type of amnesty and will continue to do so.”

♦ Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma):

“I have long said that we need to have a legislative solution to fix our broken immigration system – this also includes children living in this country without documentation who were brought here by no fault of their own. I’m currently working with my colleagues in Congress about the next legislative steps we can take to ensure these children continue to have the opportunity to be in this country. We are in this situation today because the program was created through executive action by the previous administration instead of through Congress. We now have the opportunity to fix this issue through the legislative process.” [Pols emphasis]

Trust me, I’m on it!

Soon afterward, Gardner did sign on as a co-sponsor of The DREAM Act, which was quite the departure from his previous positions on immigration reform — notably a 2013 vote to prevent DACA from being implemented. As Blair Miller wrote for Denver7 in September 2017:

In 2013, both Coffman and Gardner, who was then a member of the House of Representatives, voted in favor of an amendment from Rep. Steve King of Iowa to the Homeland Security appropriations bill that prohibited DACA from being implemented. [Pols emphasis]

The House did not consider the so-called “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill passed by the Senate that year, which contained DACA protections as well. Bennet was one of eight senators–four Democrats and four Republicans–who helped craft the bill.

Gardner moved up to the U.S. Senate in 2015, and he has since regularly claimed that he is working hard to get immigration reform measures passed in upper chamber — though nothing ever seems to happen in that regard. In fact, Congressional Republicans have done precisely JACK SQUAT about immigration reform in the nearly three years since the Trump administration tried to smother DACA with a pillow. President Trump himself later derided efforts to protect immigrants from what he called “shithole countries.” And what did Colorado Republicans have to say about those remarks in January 2018? As The Denver Post reported:

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Ken Buck said the Windsor Republican does not have a response to the matter.

Email messages Friday to representatives for U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, and Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, were not returned.

But let’s get back to Gardner, who swears up and down that he is totally working every day on getting something done in the U.S. Senate. “I’ll continue to work across the aisle to deliver certainty for Dreamers in a way the Court cannot,” said Gardner today. This is similar to what he told constituents in August 2019:

Gardner affirmed that he sponsored the Dream Act (without mentioning the Dream and Promise Act), and said, “I fight each and every day to find those six votes [that would pass it].

In June 2019, Democrats in the House of Representatives did what Gardner only talks about in passing the American Dream and Promise Act. The bill was read in the U.S. Senate on June 10, 2019 and promptly shelved by Senate Republicans.

If Gardner is not flat-out lying when he says that he is working “each and every day” to advance protections for DREAMERs, then his repetitive comments prove that he is completely ineffective in actually getting something done on the issue.

When it comes to immigration reform, Gardner is either lying or impotent. It really is this simple.

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Trump Wants “Very Fine People” To Get The Message

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  by: Colorado Pols June 18, 2020 at 12:28 PM MDT

Media Matters for America posted a story today that has quickly turned into another major controversy for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign–much like scheduling a rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa, an “error” so outrageous that it calls into question how it could have possibly been in error at all:

Since June 3, the Trump campaign has been running Facebook ads fearmongering about “antifa.” On June 17, the campaign added an inverted red triangle to some variations of the ad — a symbol the Nazis used to designate political prisoners…

On June 17, the campaign ran 88 ads on the Facebook pages for Trump, Pence, and Team Trump with an inverted red triangle. The red triangle was used for political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

…Historian Jacob S. Eder, an expert on the subject, told The Washington Post that the ad is “a highly problematic use of a symbol that the Nazis used to identify their political enemies. … It’s hard to imagine it’s done on purpose, because I’m not sure if the vast majority of Americans know or understand the sign, but it’s very, very careless to say the least.”

The Washington Post updates that the ads have been pulled by Facebook for violating their prohibition on hate speech and symbols:

“We removed these posts and ads for violating our policy against organized hate,” said Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman. “Our policy prohibits using a banned hate group’s symbol to identify political prisoners without the context that condemns or discusses the symbol.”

But the ads on the president’s page alone, which began running on Wednesday, had gained as many as 950,000 impressions by Thursday morning. Identical ads on Pence’s page had gained as many as 500,000 impressions.

Although the Trump campaign issued a perfunctory denial that the image was intended to represent the Nazi prisoner badge for a “political prisoner” such as a communist, there’s really nothing else it reasonably could be. And unlike the pink triangle which was politically reclaimed by LGBT activists during the AIDS crisis, evidence that the red triangle has been similarly appropriated by Antifa is thin at best.

And in this context, that would probably just make it worse.

It’s also true that Nazi symbology is not generally well known by the American public beyond the most basic of designs like the swastika, and a fair number of voters would see this ad and not have any idea what it originally stood for.

We submit to you that the targets of this ad may be, very precisely, the voters who know exactly what every Nazi symbol means. That’s a small but as we know in Colorado busy segment of the politically active population. There’s just not a satisfactory alternative explanation for the use of this specific image, and it appeals to an electoral niche known to be highly supportive of Trump.

And there have been so many such “coincidences.”

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John Bolton Beclowns BFF Cory Gardner, Again

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  by: Colorado Pols June 18, 2020 at 9:53 AM MDT

John Bolton.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports on the fallout from disclosure of highly damning new allegations about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy in a book finally coming out next week written by former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Guess who doesn’t want to talk about it? You already know the answer:

Senate Republicans are unmoved by the stunning allegations in former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book, saying Bolton’s accusation that President Donald Trump sought reelection help from Chinese President Xi Jinping did not change their minds against calling him as a witness in the impeachment trial…

“The House didn’t think it was important,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican up for reelection in 2020, repeating a criticism Senate Republicans leveled frequently during the Senate trial.

Asked about his reaction to Bolton’s allegations that Trump told Xi it was the right call to build concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims, Gardner interrupted the question to say, “I haven’t read the book.”

As has become the rule trying to pin Sen. Cory Gardner down on any question adverse to President Donald Trump, both of these answers are so inadequate it’s hard to know where to begin. Whether or not the House thought it was “important” to include these allegations in the impeachment case against the President has no bearing on the facts of the allegations. This non-denial “process argument” that if the House didn’t include it in impeachment it doesn’t matter betrays outright contempt for the truth.

Not to mention that Gardner was not any more interested in hearing from Bolton then either:

As for the morality of encouraging the government of China to build concentration camps to house their own citizens? Gardner is the chairman of the East Asia subcommittee of Senate Foreign Relations. Why would Cory Gardner, or for that matter anyone with a conscience, need to read a book to know building concentration camps is wrong?

Because Bolton has singled out Sen. Gardner for support after his departure from the White House, claiming Gardner has a “remarkable understanding and knowledge of the threats we face” in the foreign policy arena in obvious contrast to Trump, Gardner’s refusal to address Bolton’s increasingly dire allegations about the Trump administration’s corrupt foreign policy stands out all the more. It’s the exact opposite of the “constancy and resolve” Bolton once lauded Gardner for.

This latest cop-out is another heavy blow to Gardner’s basically non-existent credibility, sure to add to Gardner’s tanking approval ratings and underscoring his double-digit deficit in polling. Trump makes enemies of his former allies regularly–and when that happens, underlings like Cory Gardner must make a choice.

Gardner chose Trump once again.

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How Casper Stockham Beats The High Cost Of Living

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  by: Colorado Pols June 17, 2020 at 2:58 PM MDT

Casper Stockham.

As Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, Casper Stockham, a perennial placeholder Republican candidate who has run a couple of times in Denver’s deep blue CD-1 and more recently in a losing primary bid vs. Steve House in CD-6, has come up with a great reason to keep running for office despite never coming close to winning.

Casper Stockham has literally turned the business of running for office into a profession:

Casper Stockham, a Republican candidate in three different Colorado congressional districts over the last six years, has paid nearly a quarter of the money he’s raised since 2015 to a company he owns, campaign finance documents show. [Pols emphasis]

In the last year, in addition to paying $8,350 from his campaign to UBG Online LLC, a Colorado company Stockham owns, the ride-share driver and motivational consultant has spent $1,900 from campaign funds at Walmart, nearly $1,300 for E-470 tolls, just over $1,000 for car repairs, $872 with Amazon and $339 with Comcast…

While congressional candidates are allowed to pay themselves a salary while campaigning, that’s not how Stockham is accounting for the campaign funds he’s apparently pocketing outright–instead paying a company owned by himself in addition to what looks like some of his rather obviously non-campaign business expenses incurred as an Uber driver.

Federal Election Commission rules allow candidates to pay themselves a salary while they’re running for Congress or the presidency, though they’re required to limit the compensation to the lesser of what they made before running or what they would make if elected — $174,000 annually for members of Congress, or $14,500 a month. Candidates also have to explicitly pay themselves a salary, with appropriate withholdings, and disclosure in FEC reports.

But really, who’s got time for that? Much easier to make yourself your campaign’s prime contractor! And while it’s easy to imagine racking up $1,300 in freeway tolls as an Uber driver, we have trouble with the idea that those charges were accumulated running between campaign events. Likewise with the car repairs…you get the idea. There’s no way this passes Federal Election Commission muster.

For several years now it’s been a bit curious to us what exactly Stockham’s game is, since it’s clearly not winning elections. Some people run in no-win races for the personal gratification of seeing their name on a ballot, or to build name recognition and a base of support for a future run for an attainable office.

In Stockham’s case, it’s a much more basic motivation–getting paid.

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John Salazar, Ministerial Alliance Back Hick After Tough Stretch

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  by: Colorado Pols June 17, 2020 at 11:43 AM MDT

John Hickenlooper and Andrew Romanoff.

Two new stories today highlight what former Gov. John Hickenlooper’s supporters hope is the start of a righted narrative for the candidate who has for months been cited as the presumed frontrunner in the Democratic Senate primary to take on Sen. Cory Gardner in November. The first is a switch of support by former Congressman John Salazar from support for underdog Andrew Romanoff to Hickenlooper, as reported by Ernest Luning of the Colorado Springs Gazette:

Former U.S. Rep. John Salazar, an early endorser of Democrat Andrew Romanoff’s U.S. Senate campaign, threw his support Wednesday behind John Hickenlooper, Romanoff’s primary rival, calling the former governor the best candidate to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner.

“I’m proud to announce my endorsement of my friend John Hickenlooper,” Salazar said in a statement. “He’s someone who knows how to bring people together to get things done on behalf of all Coloradans, and he’s the right choice to defeat Senator Gardner and bring change to a broken Washington.”

Losing Rep. Salazar’s support is a substantial blow to Romanoff’s campaign, who is already struggling to attract support from Latino voters due to his principal responsibility for an anti-immigration special session of the state legislature while he served as Speaker of the House. And as CBS4’s Shaun Boyd reports, another important constituency to any Democratic primary is reaffirming their support for Hickenlooper–with what can only be called a justifiable warning:

The Ministerial Alliance considered pulling its endorsement but Demmer says the African American ministers decided to stand by Hickenlooper because he’d stood by them.

“Testimony after testimony, that when I needed somebody to be there, John Hickenlooper was there. He believes black lives matter, he’s just sometimes not articulate,” said Demmer. “I think that our message to the governor is we’re with you but you’ve got to stop fumbling because if you fumble too much it will cause us to lose the game.”

Gov. Hickenlooper entered the Democratic Senate primary with powerful advantages in terms of name recognition, positive approval with a large swath of Colorado voters, and campaign experience to run and win a marquee U.S. Senate race. With the incumbent down by double digits and the political environment trending heavily against the GOP in 2020, Republicans need a perfect storm of destruction for Democrats in order to have any hope of saving Gardner’s seat.

On the ground in Colorado, this has manifested in the form of perhaps the most blatant opposite-party primary meddling we’ve seen here since Democrats took power in the state 15 years ago. Republicans have made absolutely no secret of their preference to run against somebody other than Hickenlooper, and have thrown the kitchen sink one-sidely in the primary in a clear broadcast of their own desired outcome. The latest transparent indicator of this came this week as Republicans shifted ad buys that would have originally begun after the June 30 primary to the present in order to influence Democratic primary voters.

Over the past few weeks, Republican targeting of Hickenlooper cheered on by his primary opponent has become extremely intense, and at this point no one can argue that Hickenlooper has responded well in every situation. Self-inflicted wounds from Hickenlooper’s poor handling of what turned out to be relatively minor ethics commission fines over travel he took as governor stand in contrast to the swift apology Hickenlooper offered over a video that “resurfaced” this week of Hick making a regrettable analogy about Roman galley slaves six years ago. As governor, Hickenloooper’s periodic gaffes and fumbles drove his staff crazy–even as it contributed to an authentic public persona that has in the end paid more political dividends for Hick, at least locally, than it has hurt him.

Hickenlooper immediately apologized. Brother Jeff was baffled again. The slavery reference, he says, was clearly about ancient Romans.

“This is political correctness at its worst. This is a teachable moment. Slavery not just the purview of black people,” said Brother Jeff…

All of this leads to the inevitable question–how much will this admittedly very rough patch of the campaign hurt Hickenlooper in the long run? At this point, Hickenlooper’s built-in advantages of high name ID and years of positive approval from voters remain the decisive factors in our view. Once Hick wins the primary, and he remains by every available metric the most likely winner, he will have the much-needed chance to reset his message around preventing Donald Trump and Cory Gardner from winning another term in office.

Be assured, no one wants to get to that part faster than John Hickenlooper.

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Get More Smarter on Wednesday (June 17)

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  by: Colorado Pols June 17, 2020 at 10:23 AM MDT

Happy World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought…day. Please celebrate responsibly. Now, let’s Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio/visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

BECAUSE CORONAVIRUS…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
 http://covid19.colorado.gov

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

 

► Senate Republicans have finally countered a police reform plan put forth by the House of Representatives. It’s a bit light.

Via The Washington Post (6/17/20)

Senate Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a policing reform bill that would discourage, but not ban, tactics such as chokeholds and no-knock warrants, offering a competing approach to legislation being advanced by House Democrats that includes more directives from Washington.

The Republican proposal, which Senate leaders said would be considered on the floor next week, veers away from mandating certain policing practices, as the Democratic plan does.

Instead, it encourages thousands of local police and law enforcement agencies to curtail practices such as chokeholds and certain no-knock warrants by withholding federal funding to departments that allow the tactics or do not submit reports related to them.

The legislation also requires local law enforcement agencies to report all officer-involved deaths to the FBI — an effort pushed by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is spearheading the GOP bill, since 2015 — and it encourages broader use of body-worn cameras for officers.

On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order outlining new policies to deal with police brutality — as he offered effusive praise for law enforcement officials. From CNN:

Speaking during a discursive noontime event in the Rose Garden, Trump initially sought to adopt a unifying tone as he announced an executive order that, among other steps, creates a federal database of police officers with a history of using excessive force.

But later he veered from that topic and that tone to assault his political rivals and tout the stock market’s recent rally.

It was a performance that laid bare the balance Trump faces as he continues to embrace a hard line “law and order” mantle, which he believes benefits him politically, even as he confronts a national reckoning over systemic racism in police departments and outcry over violent police tactics.

Don’t feel bad: We also had to look up the meaning of “discursive.”

Denver7 looks at how Trump’s executive order compares to legislation passed in Colorado over the weekend:

“The federal executive order is more of a guideline,” said Andre Andeli, a lecturer in the criminal justice and criminology department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

 

► As The New York Times reports, China is shutting things down again as a new wave of COVID-19 infections is spreading through the country:

With a fresh outbreak of coronavirus infections tied to a market — 137 cases after an additional 31 were reported on Wednesday — Beijing has started living through a milder, and so far limited, version of the disruptive restrictions that China enforced earlier this year to stifle its first tidal wave of infections. Residents in the capital have been sharply reminded that even in China — with its array of authoritarian powers — the virus can leap back to life, triggering new rounds of limits on their lives.

The new outbreak in Beijing has brought embarrassment and a tough response from the Chinese Communist Party. Officials had been proud to the point of gloating in recent weeks about their success in stifling the pandemic in the country. Now the virus is back.

Here in the United States, Texas, Florida, and Arizona set new records for daily COVID-19 cases on Tuesday. Vice President Mike Pence says not to worry…so, yeah, you should probably start to worry a little.

 

► The Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate held their final pre-Primary debate on Tuesday. As The Denver Post reports:

Racial justice was a big topic during the debate, given the protests that have been taking place on the streets of Denver and multiple other cities following the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man who was pinned by the neck under a white Minneapolis police officer’s knee.

Both candidates conceded that they had not done enough to address the issue during their time in politics. Hickenlooper said despite efforts to reform police conduct in Denver when he was mayor of the city during the 2000s, “we didn’t go far enough and I regret that.”

Romanoff echoed those sentiments, saying “none of us have done enough.”

 

If you’re looking for political news that isn’t about Coronavirus, it’s available right after the jump…

 

(more…)

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Mike Pence Says Stop Worrying About COVID (So Worry)

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  by: Colorado Pols June 16, 2020 at 1:39 PM MDT

Masks are for wussies.

The Hill’s Brett Samuels reports that Vice President Mike Pence is done with all this Debbie Downer talk about a second wave of that silly old news people call the COVID-19 global pandemic:

Vice President Pence on Tuesday blamed the media for stoking concerns of a “second wave” of coronavirus in the United States, insisting in an op-ed that the Trump administration’s response has been successful even as infections are climbing in several states.

The vice president, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that panic over a rebound in coronavirus cases is “overblown” while touting the administration’s handling of the pandemic.

“Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and the courage and compassion of the American people, our public health system is far stronger than it was four months ago, and we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy,” Pence wrote.

As readers know, every time the Trump administration has declared that this pandemic is overblown or past tense, they’ve been totally right! Although in this case, talk of a “second wave” may itself be a little off base since:

Experts have disputed that the country is facing a second wave, instead expressing concern that the country never fully got past the first wave of infections. [Pols emphasis] There have been more than 2.1 million cases in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University data, and more than 116,000 people in the country have died from the virus.

CNN reports that in the process of declaring COVID a done deal, Pence is getting the most basic of facts backwards:

During a White House roundtable Monday, Vice President Mike Pence claimed that Oklahoma – where President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign rally Saturday – has seen a decline in the number of coronavirus cases.

“In a very real sense they’ve flattened the curve,” Pence said of Oklahoma. “The number of cases in Oklahoma has declined precipitously.”

Facts First: Oklahoma’s number of newly reported positive cases has been increasing since late May, not steeply declining. A record 225 new cases were reported in Oklahoma on Saturday… [Pols emphasis]

Although COVID-19 cases are in decline in almost two dozen states including Colorado, cases are growing rapidly in some of our neighboring states as well as California–which as Sen. Jim Smallwood can tell you is “droplet-bonded” with the rest of the West. Meanwhile, the latest prediction from the often-cited Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has revised the estimate upward to 200,000 Americans dead by October 1–a number approaching the worst-case range of predictions from late March.

By this point, a majority of Americans understand that when the Trump administration tells you not to panic, it’s time to…well, not panic, because that’s never the right response.

But it means the news is bad.

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Militia Shooting In New Mexico Spikes Tensions

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  by: Colorado Pols June 16, 2020 at 10:13 AM MDT

UPDATE: Reuters reports that the alleged shooter is a former Albuquerque City Council candidate:

Albuquerque police have arrested a former city council candidate and charged him on Tuesday with shooting and critically injuring a protester in a group that was calling for the removal of a statue of a Spanish conquistador, local press reported.

Stephen Ray Baca, 31, was booked into a city jail on a charge of aggravated battery in the shooting, which occurred on Monday, Albuquerque Police Department spokesman Gilbert Gallegos told the Albuquerque Journal.

Here’s more information about the shooter we’re working to confirm:

—–

The Albuquerque Journal reports on a shooting yesterday apparently perpetrated by a member of a local right-wing militia group during a protest confrontation in that city over the removal  of a statue of Juan de Onate, known as the conquistador of New Mexico:

One man was shot in Old Town as a protest over the “La Jornada” sculpture in front of the Albuquerque Museum erupted into violence Monday evening.

The shooting occurred during a clash following a peaceful protest to remove the controversial sculpture, a monument that features conquistador Juan de Oñate. The FBI is assisting in the investigation, according to an APD spokesman. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, meanwhile, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the shooting…

“Although we are still learning more about the situation, I am horrified and disgusted beyond words by the reports of violence at a protest Monday night in Albuquerque,” Lujan Grisham said late Monday in a statement. “The heavily armed individuals who flaunted themselves at the protest, calling themselves a ‘civil guard,’ were there for one reason: To menace protesters, to present an unsanctioned show of unregulated force. To menace the people of New Mexico with weaponry — with an implicit threat of violence — is on its face unacceptable; that violence did indeed occur is unspeakable.” [Pols emphasis]

For those unfamiliar with the Spanish colonial history of New Mexico, a brief primer on the brutal conquistador Juan de Onate:

Oñate, who arrived in present-day New Mexico in 1598, is celebrated as a cultural father figure in communities along the Upper Rio Grande that trace their ancestry to Spanish settlers. But he’s also reviled for his brutality.

To Native Americans, Oñate is known for having ordered the right feet cut off of 24 captive tribal warriors that was precipitated by the killing of Oñate’s nephew. In 1998, someone sawed the right foot off the statue – an incident that weighed in the decision to stash away the statue.

In short, Native Americans in New Mexico have a similar revulsion to the legacy of Juan de Onate as African Americans have for statues of Confederate leaders in the South. The long struggle in our neighboring state to the south to come to terms with its own brutal colonial history under Spanish rule is in every way a common cause with the Black Lives Matter movement.

To the armed militia groups showing up with disturbing regularity at protest actions around the country now, from “Reopen America” rallies to the George Floyd protests, it’s the same fight too. The “weapons effect” principle that the simple existence of weapons in any setting makes their use more likely was just waiting to be validated–and Albuquerque happened to be the place it happened first. In Colorado, local armed militia types have been deterred by the ban on open carrying weapons in the city of Denver, but the arrest of one with pipe bombs and another whose trunkload of assault weapons was seized by Denver police make it clear how perilous the situation has become.

Following this long-dreaded but predictable act of violence, things can go one of two ways: toward escalation, or de-escalation. We can only hope the fearful ramifications of this incident result in the latter.

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Gardner, Republicans Campaign in Democratic Primary

5
  by: Colorado Pols June 16, 2020 at 9:07 AM MDT

The June 30 Election is two weeks away, and Republicans are spending a lot of time and effort…in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is spending big money on this new television ad in a very obvious attempt to weaken former Gov. John Hickenlooper in his race for the Democratic Senate nomination against former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

At the same time, Republican incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner is up with an laughably-bad new ad of his own that is critical of Hickenlooper but ripe for mockery:

Republicans are interfering in a Democratic Primary for very obvious reasons: They would much rather run a General Election race against Romanoff than the two-term former Governor. Last month, two separate polls showed Hickenlooper beating Gardner by 18 points in a potential fall matchup. Romanoff doesn’t have the resources to do much on television, so Gardner and the NRSC are doing it for him in hopes up driving up negative reactions to Hickenlooper.

Gardner’s campaign would probably have been better off just letting the NRSC ad run by itself and not getting involved with their idiotic “Frasier” impression, but you know what they say about desperate times…

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Republicans Will Need More Than ‘Yay, America’ in 2020

9
  by: Colorado Pols June 15, 2020 at 2:14 PM MDT

Via Gallup (6/15/20)

Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign was all about how America was totally the best country ever (or would be, if he were elected). The infamous “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogan has since morphed into the logically-inconsistent “Keep America Great” or “Transitioning to Greatness” tagline(s) as Trump’s re-election campaign steams forward.

Is America already “great” or are we still “transitioning to greatness”? New polling numbers from Gallup show that actual Americans don’t really believe that either message is accurate. In fact, Americans are less enthusiastic about ‘Merica! than they have ever been, which is not good news for Trump and other flag-draped Republicans.

As Chris Cillizza explains for CNN:

Just over 4 in 10 Americans (42%) said they were “extremely proud” to be an American, the lowest number to say so since Gallup began asking the question in 2001. The total of people saying they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American — 63% — was also the lowest ever measured by Gallup. [Pols emphasis]

The pride numbers have been falling since 2013 — although the drop accelerated considerably following 2016. At that point, more than 8 in 10 people said they were “extremely or “very” proud to be an American, with 52% falling in the “extremely proud” category. Those numbers have plummeted in the four years since.

These numbers are down significantly among Republican respondents, with 67% saying they are “extremely” proud of America (compared to 76% in 2019). What gives?

The effects of Donald Trump as president could also be playing a role in the declining numbers among Republicans. His handling of the government’s response to the pandemic has been uneven at best, and his calls for the police to “dominate” the streets during protests against police brutality and systemic racism were roundly criticized by even many within his own party.

The idea of an America in decline, or at least one in which fewer people are willing to say they are extremely proud to be a citizen of the United States, suggests that Trump’s promise of an American rebirth if he was elected president isn’t working.

President Donald Trump, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma)

President Trump is still going to hold his ‘Yay, America!’ political rallies — including one this weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma — and that message will no doubt continue to resonate with his rabid base of supporters. But for moderate voters who will decide the outcome of the 2020 election, it’s hard to argue that this approach can bear electoral fruit in November (though it’s still probably better than “The President Isn’t That Bad“).

But Trump isn’t the only Republican hoping to wrap himself in the American flag this fall. Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) has also been counting on a ‘Yay, America!’ sentiment to carry him to re-election in November. Earlier this year, Gardner suggested that Sen. Bernie Sanders, then one of the frontrunners for the Democratic Presidential nomination, didn’t actually like America. When Gardner spoke at President Trump’s Colorado Springs rally in February, he went heavy on the ‘Merica! rhetoric:

I believe in America. I believe in the power of this great nation. And I believe in all of you. And I just have one message for all of you and to our friends and allies around the globe. When it comes to America, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

This is a theme that Gardner has been pushing for quite awhile now. His re-election campaign rolled out a sappy “I believe in America” video last summer, featuring Gardner wielding his peak “say a lot of words but don’t actually say anything” powers. He also went heavy on this approach when he was addressing the Senate last September about his push to move the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado:

The only reason to oppose this move is if you don’t care about the people of the western United States, or you don’t think somehow the people of the western United States are smart enough to figure out how to run public lands, or to manage public lands.

If you don’t agree with the decision to move the BLM to Grand Junction, then you must hate America! This was silly in September 2019, and the latest polling numbers from Gallup indicate that it will be an even tougher sell in September 2020.

As relationship experts will tell you, true love is about embracing another’s flaws and faults as much as it is about seeking positive traits. You can still love America and push for it to grow and change…but that’s a narrative that makes much less sense for Republican incumbents.

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LGBT Ruling Shocks Gorsuch Haters, Proves Kavanaugh Fears

14
  by: Colorado Pols June 15, 2020 at 11:33 AM MDT

Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Politico helps us sort through another historic victory for LGBT Americans at the U.S. Supreme Court today:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the key federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace protects gay, lesbian or transgender employees from being disciplined, fired or turned down for a job based on their sexual orientation.

Two of the court’s Republican appointees, Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts, joined the court’s Democratic appointees to deliver the surprising, 6-3 victory to LGBT advocates. [Pols emphasis]

Writing for the court’s majority, Gorsuch accepted arguments that the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment also effectively banned bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity, even though few if any members of Congress thought they were doing that at the time.

“Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees,” Gorsuch wrote.

It’s a decision being hailed as the most important victory for LGBT rights since the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that invalidated state bans on same-sex marriage like Colorado’s Amendment 43 passed in 2006–and Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s role not just in voting to uphold discrimination protections for LGBT Americans but writing the majority opinion for the decision is scrambling a fair number of political circuits this Monday morning. Not least in Gorsuch’s native state of Colorado, where despite fierce resistance to Gorsuch’s confirmation from the state’s progressive majority and a record of judicial decisions that certainly justified their concerns, today his opinion is being celebrated by many of Gorsuch’s former opponents.

Not so for the other Supreme Court Justice confirmed during the administration of President Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, who sided with the court’s two longtime arch-conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to argue the losing opinion that employers should be allowed to fire LGBT employees. Where Gorsuch has Coloradans feeling unexpectedly proud, responsibility in Colorado for Kavanaugh’s throwback opposition on this historic question rests with just one politician, the only Coloradan to vote in favor Kavanaugh’s confirmation–Sen. Cory Gardner. Gardner hasn’t said anything yet about today’s decision, and we don’t expect him to lest he offend either one side or the other of the coalition he needs to have a chance at re-election.

All told however, in an era of political cynicism here is a moment to oblige even the most cynical to recalibrate.

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Get More Smarter on Monday (June 15)

2
  by: Colorado Pols June 15, 2020 at 11:32 AM MDT

Happy Global Wind Day. Please celebrate responsibly. Now, let’s Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio/visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

BECAUSE CORONAVIRUS…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
 http://covid19.colorado.gov

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

 

► The Washington Post reports on a monumental Supreme Court ruling today:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees, a major gay rights ruling written by one of the court’s most conservative justices.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s liberals in the 6 to 3 ruling. They said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “because of sex,” includes LGBTQ employees.

“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear,” Gorsuch wrote. “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.”

Gorsuch and Roberts were joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

 

► The Colorado legislature will wrap up the 2020 session today, and it looks like a police reform bill will be the main takeaway of the session restart. From The Denver Post:

Colorado passed one of the most comprehensive police reform packages in the country Saturday, setting limits on police use of force and mandating data collection to make sure cops who are fired from one agency don’t get rehired by another.

Gov. Jared Polis has said he will sign the historic bill into law once it reaches his desk.

“This is, in my estimation, the largest single advancement of individual civil rights and liberties for Coloradans in a generation,” said Denver civil rights attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai.

Among the biggest changes, Colorado’s Senate Bill 217 bans the use of chokeholds and carotid control holds, limits when police are allowed to shoot at a fleeing person and requires officers to intervene in cases of excessive force or face criminal charges. The bill requires all officers to use body-worn cameras and departments to release the footage within 45 days, and it allows for officers to be held personally liable for civil rights violations.

Colorado lawmakers have a few more items on their agenda for Monday before the adjourn for the year. Colorado Public Radio and The Denver Post take a look at other important decisions made over the weekend.
 
► The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has withdrawn its approval of an anti-malaria drug touted by President Trump as a treatment for COVID-19.

 

► Dear Leader Trump is trying to convince everyone that he is NOT the wobbly old man that he appeared to be while visiting West Point over the weekend. As Chris Cillizza explains for CNN, Trump has turned his health into a story — wobbling at the podium and shuffling meekly down a ramp afterward — because of his own past actions.

Trump claimed on Twitter that he was just being careful in descending a ramp because it was slick from rain that didn’t exist:

 

If you’re looking for political news that isn’t about Coronavirus, it’s available right after the jump…

 

(more…)

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At Least He’s Not Your Legislator, Double Duty Edition

2
  by: Colorado Pols June 15, 2020 at 9:38 AM MDT

State Sen. Steve Huffman (R-OH).

AP reported via KDVR FOX 31 late last week and the local similarities oblige us to mention:

The American Civil Liberties Union called for state Sen. Steve Huffman to step down from office Thursday following his comments that were made during a hearing for a resolution to declare racism a public health crisis.

Huffman caused controversy after he questioned Angela Dawson, executive director of the Ohio Commission of Minority Health, on Tuesday over why the COVID-19 rates for black Ohioans were higher than other populations.

“Could it just be that African Americans – or the colored population — do not wash their hands as well as other groups? Or wear masks? Or do not socially distance themselves?” Huffman asked during Senate testimony. “Could that just be the explanation of why there’s a higher incidence?”

GOP Sen. Steve Huffman of Ohio managed to offend with one statement as much as two of Colorado’s favorite “freak right” Senate ideologues–Sen. Rob Woodward’s recent regrettable employment of the words “colored people” along with a incredibly ill-timed knee-on-neck analogy, and Sen. Vicki Marble’s infamous monologue about “problems in the black race” with eating too much chicken.

Outdoing our local embarrassments takes effort, and we want to acknowledge the effort.

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Making The CORE Act Stick To Cory Gardner

7
  by: Colorado Pols June 14, 2020 at 10:11 AM MDT

Sen. Cory Gardner, Rep. Scott Tipton.

Scott Miller at the Vail Daily reports on a renewed effort by Colorado Democrats in support of legislation to protect 400,000 acres of public land in Colorado–legislation presently getting the brush-off from Sen. Cory Gardner as he tries to focus attention on the Great American Outdoors Act that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has allowed in his infinite election-year generosity to receive a vote:

The Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, a large public lands bill now languishing in the U.S. Senate, was the focus of a Friday campaign event held by John Hickenlooper, the former two-term Democratic governor running this fall for the Senate…

The panel for the call included Hickenlooper and a trio of Democrats representing Colorado and New Mexico in Washington D.C.: Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, and Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District. Neguse’s district includes a portion of Eagle County and other mountain counties, along with Boulder and Fort Collins.

…The bill has broad local support from county commissioners, outdoor businesses, conservationists, and ranchers, including the counties of Eagle, Summit, San Juan, Ouray, San Miguel, Gunnison, and Pitkin and the towns of Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Ridgway, Crested Butte, Ophir, Telluride and Basalt. The bill will preserve approximately 400,000 acres of public land in Colorado, including nearly 100,000 acres in the White River National Forest and wild areas across the Continental Divide in Summit and Eagle counties.

Although the bill to fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund got much of the attention last week, and not undeservedly being legislation overwhelmingly supported including by Sen. Cory Gardner’s Democratic counterpart Michael Bennet, the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act (CORE Act) with its specific protections for public lands in Colorado is getting the shaft from Republicans from President Donald Trump on down despite very broad local support.

Although Gardner is counting on the relatively controversy-free Great American Outdoors Act to triangulate off the abysmal Republican brand on environmental protection running in a state that places a high value on conservation, the CORE Act is a potent counterargument that Gardner’s support for low-hanging environmental protections is a veneer over the same old servility to the fossil fuel industry and other for-profit interests.

In the Grand Junction Sentinel Friday, Colorado Democrats pressed the attack:

Colorado Democratic Party spokesperson Eli Rosen said in a statement Thursday that Gardner is trying to “greenwash his abysmal environmental record just in time for the election. Gardner has worked in lockstep with President Trump against new Colorado wilderness, to roll back protections for clean air and water, and to undermine efforts to combat climate change. While local leaders in Colorado have worked for more than a decade to pass the CORE Act, Gardner continues to be a puppet for his party leaders and refuses to deliver.” [Pols emphasis]

Prompting another noncommittal sidestep from Gardner:

“I’m not holding it up. I’m not objecting to it,” Gardner said. [Pols emphasis] “We’ve given some suggestions that we think can make it better, but it’s Senator Bennet’s bill in terms of that.”

Because Republicans are already and pretty much irrevocably considered the party of “drill baby drill” and climate change denial, Gardner starts from a major disadvantage in terms of winning over any swingable voters for whom the environment is a high-scoring issue. Much like Gardner’s call for “over-the-counter birth control” to distract from his career-long support for banning abortion even in cases of rape or incest, the strategy is intended to conceal, or at least redirect the conversation from, the much bigger liability.

As is so often the case, the proof is in what you don’t do.

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Landmark Police Accountability Bill Passes House 52-13

24
  by: Colorado Pols June 12, 2020 at 3:40 PM MDT

Rest in power, George Floyd.

That’s the word from the Colorado House today as the extended 2020 legislative session winds down–Senate Bill 217, landmark legislation to ban chokeholds and end qualified immunity for police officers who brutalize the public, has passed by a lopsided–but not unanimous–52-13 vote. Among the “yes” votes, we note with some surprise, is GOP Minority Leader Patrick Neville, though a majority of his caucus in the end could not be persuaded to replicate the near-total support for the bill shown by the Senate. And as Michael Karlik of the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, second-reading debate yesterday in the House turned quite nasty before the end:

Rep. Kerry Tipper, D-Lakewood, told [Rep. Rod] Bockenfeld that Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Shrader emailed the county’s legislative delegation to thank them for amending SB217 in consultation with law enforcement.

“That’s because you blackmailed him,” Bockenfeld said, according to Tipper.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, glared silently at Bockenfeld when it was her turn to speak. “There’s no blackmail that happened in the lobby. This is a good bill,” she said. “And shame on you for implying that in the well.”

Rep. Larry Liston, another Republican “no” vote, went directly for the third rail:

“I’m not justifying anything that that officer or the other three did at all. I want to be very clear about that. But [Pols emphasis] George Floyd was no angel either. In and out of prison.” Liston added, “irrespective of that, he didn’t deserve any of that.”

So why mention it at all? Liston doesn’t have to tell you. You already know.

But in the end, despite the determination of a majority of the GOP House minority to sound a discordant note into the history books, the story of Senate Bill 217, and the historic reforms this bill makes to the power of police to use force with impunity against the public, will be a story of landmark success that transcends partisan politics. Rep. Rod Bockenfeld claims that police were “blackmailed” into supporting the legislation, but the reality is that cops and even a large number of Republicans understood this time, along with the Democratic proponents who drove this bill from impetus to passage in less than two weeks, that a major change had to come.

Colorado rose to meet a massive challenge that was done waiting.

It’s a rare enough event that it feels weird. But it’s why everyone with a heart gets into this business.

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Get More Smarter on Friday (June 12)

10
  by: Colorado Pols June 12, 2020 at 10:09 AM MDT

President Trump will be 74 years old on Sunday. If you lived in Florida, you could celebrate on a Trumptilla (the downside, of course, would be that you lived in Florida). Now, let’s Get More Smarter. If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example). If you are more of an audio/visual learner, check out The Get More Smarter Show or The Get More Smarter Podcast. And don’t forget to find us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

BECAUSE CORONAVIRUS…

*Colorado Coronavirus info:
CDPHE Coronavirus website 

*Daily Coronavirus numbers in Colorado:
 http://covid19.colorado.gov

*How you can help in Colorado:
COVRN.com

*Locate a COVID-19 testing site in Colorado:
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

 

► Colorado lawmakers may or may not be nearing the end of a strange, two-part legislative session. The Denver Post has more on the progress of what has become the most-watched bill of the year:

A House committee amended Colorado’s police accountability and reform bill to give law enforcement more time to implement some changes and added a ban on carotid control holds before voting to support the bill at midnight Wednesday.

The approval came on a party-line vote, with all four Republicans on the House Finance Committee voting against Senate Bill 217, despite near-unanimous support in the Senate. [Pols emphasis] It followed hours of testimony by people who’ve had family members killed by police in Colorado.

One of law enforcement officials’ biggest objections about the bill has been that agencies need more time for training on the changes, so lawmakers set a September deadline for new use-of-force regulations to take effect. The new policies include a requirement to incrementally use force if other methods don’t work.

Other parts of the bill — including a ban on the use of chokeholds and limits on when police are allowed to shoot at a person who is running away from them — would take effect immediately if the bill is signed into law.

The four Republicans who voted against the bill: Reps. Rod Bockenfeld, Richard Champion, Janice Rich, and Shane Sandridge. Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg was the lone ‘NO’ vote in the State Senate.

On the topic of police accountability, Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor is promising to take a closer look at tactics employed by the Denver Police Department (DPD). The Denver School Board voted to phase DPD out of its schools altogether.

 

► Congressman Ken Buck (R-Greeley), who moonlights as the State Republican Party Chairman (or vice versa), is being investigated for ordering a Republican official in El Paso County to falsify vote totals from the caucus process.

 

► Governor Jared Polis is keeping a close eye on nearby spikes in reported cases of COVID-19. From Colorado Public Radio:

Colorado is closely watching some nearby states, as the number of COVID-19 cases in Utah and hospitalizations in Arizona continues to jump. Those spikes are alarming, Gov. Jared Polis said during a press briefing Thursday.

“A rising cause for concern,” he said. “We’ve seen no evidence yet of that leading to increased transmission on our side of the border, but we watch that and we worry.”

Colorado has confirmed 28,647 cases of COVID-19, according to the state’s latest numbers. Officials have also reported 1,583 deaths related to the disease to date. But the state has seen a downward trend in hospitalizations for 11 of the last 14 days.

In Arizona, a surge of hospitalizations means the state is nearing capacity on ICU beds. The state has confirmed 31,264 cases of the disease and 1,127 deaths. Arizona’s stay-at-home order ended after May 15. Colorado’s went through April 26.

Officials in San Antonio and Houston believe a second wave of COVID-19 is hitting already. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown announced a one week “pause” in reopening the state after a surge of new cases — including two deaths on Thursday.

 

► You should be receiving a Primary ballot in the mail this week. For more information on the Primary Election and to track your ballot, go to GoVoteColorado.com.

 

If you’re looking for political news that isn’t about Coronavirus, it’s available right after the jump…

 

(more…)

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Endnotes: The Ridiculous Hullaballoo Over Senate Bill 163

5
  by: Colorado Pols June 12, 2020 at 9:53 AM MDT

Measles.

In today’s The Spot newsletter, Denver Post political reporter Alex Burness offers some useful context as the battle over Senate Bill 163, legislation to improve Colorado’s bottom-in-the-nation childhood immunization rates, comes to a successful conclusion for proponents:

[I]t has taken a Democrat-controlled General Assembly two years to muster support to pass a bill that allows parents to… still not vaccinate their kids.

This year’s bill preserves the right to nonmedical exemptions. You just have to take an online education course first. The opponents aren’t happy about that, but the bottom line is that no parent is going to be forced to watch a needle be plunged into their kid, even after this bill passes.

Other states have stricter policies; some allow no exemptions except for medical reasons. Colorado lawmakers have concluded that this is not a legislative option here, which is a credit to A) the governor’s stated “pro-choice” stance on vaccines and B) the fervent activism of the vaccine bill’s opponents.

Burness argues that the passage of SB-163, even though opponents have vowed to mount a repeal ballot initiative campaign to prevent the law from taking effect, betrays a hard limit on the ability of today’s lawmakers to take effective action even on an issue with overwhelming majority support–due to the fierce opposition of a small but vocal minority. Vaccines are not the only issue for which this appears to be the case. Even though the public strongly supports common-sense gun safety laws that our state is a model for today, passage of those bills resulted in a backlash from the passionate minority of gun rights activists that led to the successful recall of two Democratic Senators in 2013 and the resignation of a third.

One of the biggest problems with both this year’s modest vaccine bill as well as 2013’s gun safety bills is that the opposition was (and is) completely untethered from the facts about the legislation. Just as Republican lawmakers told the public in 2013 that the gun bills would “effectively ban gun ownership,” many of the protesters who turned out against Senate Bill 163 believe the bill does away with non-medical exemptions from school vaccination requirements. Although a majority of the public would support doing just that according to polls, SB-163 does not eliminate exemptions available for any or no reason.

There were a lot of variables involved in the drafting of this legislation, not least of which is a governor reticent to impose “medical mandates” on families. Gov. Jared Polis is expected to sign SB-163 precisely because it does not coerce anyone to get any vaccine. The gulf between perception and reality with this bill among its opponents is not the fault of Gov. Polis, however, and the Republican lawmakers who have eagerly embraced the “anti-vaxxer” movement in opposition to this bill are the ones making no attempt to give opponents factual information.

With that, we’ll ask our readers: is there any way to prevent the tail from wagging the dog? Will the fringe always wield disproportionate influence simply because of their ability to yell louder and longer? And will passing a modest reform now make further reforms that would still enjoy broad public support harder to pass later?

These are all questions worth answering as the dust settles on this particularly crazy fight.

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