What a telling week this may turn out to be in the race for Colorado’s governor and state legislature. In the wake of an overreaching decision from the state Supreme Court:

1. Marc Holtzman’s campaign slips further into irrelevancy by clinging to judicial activism in order to stay alive. His lawyers – one of whom argued before the Supreme Court to have Defend Colorado Now’s initiative removed from the ballot – are calling on a judge to loosely interpret the law to allow him on the ballot in the first place.

2. Bill Ritter’s campaign may want to reconsider its very loud and leadership-lacking “no comment” on this very important and momentous issue.

3. Bob Beauprez, the Republican choice for governor, has been out in front on the immigration measure. He quickly and decisively condemned the decision and called on Governor Owens to call a special session.

One final note. Observe the different political analyses with which the two major dailies ended their respective stories, and decide for yourself which is more accurate. First, the Denver Post:

It’s unclear what party has more to win or lose in a special session because immigration issues cross party lines.

And compare with the Rocky Mountain News:

[Political consultant Katy] Atkinson said the issue has united the Republican Party, torn apart by an ugly gubernatorial primary and other issues.

“There are a lot of people who are genuinely ticked off by the ruling,” she said. “I don’t see how this helps Democrats at all.”

If handled right, the issue works best for the Republican Party and for the state of Colorado, and Bob Beauprez has taken charge.

For a more astute explanation, read Peter Blake’s column today. Spot on.

It is contorted decisions like the one the Colorado Supreme Court made yesterday regarding the anti-illegal immigration initiative that undermine citizens’ respect for the judiciary. As has been proven again and again, naked partisanship no longer ends at the courtroom door.

And inevitably, when the exalted robes stretch common sense and logic to play partisan politics, it settles nothing. Instead, it ratchets up the pressure of frustrated citizens and elected representatives. Thus today we read in the Denver Post that Republican House Minority Leader Mike May is calling for a special legislative session to address the issue. As the article points out, it is indeed a longshot that such a session would win the needed two-thirds approval.

Since the illegal immigration issue is not going away, we can only hope there is some way Defend Colorado Now can regroup and successfully press its case.

The larger point is not the substance of the immigration issue itself, but the blatant judicial usurpation that threatens Constitutional rights, as the editors of the Rocky Mountain News so eloquently argued today.

With even keener wit and insight, Joshua also quite ably deconstructed “Exhibit A” in the case for the “postmodern judiciary,” and the frightening tyranny that looms behind yesterday’s decision. With the single-subject rule construed so broadly, the high court can almost at whim accept or reject initiatives in the place of a popular vote, and according to its own timing.

Perhaps ironically, the state Supreme Court signed off on John Andrews’ other initiative – the one for judicial term limits. The case for judicial term limits has been made even stronger today by the hollowness of some opponents’ arguments, like Democrat Secretary of State candidate Ken Gordon:

Ken Gordon, a lawyer and majority leader of the Colorado Senate, called the idea of term-limiting judges “crazy” and said judges must be protected from political whims.

“This is anti-judicial sentiment that is stirred up by certain political elements, and I think it is unjustified,” Gordon, D-Denver, said. “A judge’s job is frequently to protect somebody’s rights. And rights are frequently unpopular.”

Gordon may want to rethink his position that the status quo keeps judges “protected from political whims.” I am not prepared to say whether the judicial term limits initiative is the answer, but the current state of affairs bodes too much harm to do nothing indefinitely.

While the Marc Holtzman for governor campaign touts a Denver Post article that says a judge has placed their candidate’s name on the ballot, they probably won’t bring too much attention to the rest of the story: one-half of Holtzman’s legal team confesses the narrow chances of finding enough signatures to qualify his candidacy. Here’s the long and the short of it:

…[B]ecause the ballot-certification deadline was Friday, a judge ordered that Holtzman be placed on the ballot in case his appeal is successful. If it’s not, the judge said, his votes simply won’t be counted.

Despite all its bluster, does it sound like the Holtzman campaign is really confident about its chances? Or do you sense more of an air of desperation?:

[John] Head, one of the Denver attorneys representing Holtzman in the lawsuit, said the campaign believes it has 1,541 valid signatures in the 1st Congressional District and 1,513 valid signatures in the 7th Congressional District – about 500 fewer than Head believed Holtzman had Friday.

Head also was concerned when The Denver Post pointed out that some of the names in a court document filed Friday do not match rejected signatures provided by the secretary of state.

For example, Carla Johnston and James Johnston both appear in Exhibit E of the filing but are not in a list of rejected signatures. James Williams appears 18 times at five different addresses in the Holtzman exhibit, but there is no James Williams on the secretary of state’s list.

“You raised questions about it,” he said. “I need to verify if we operated under some faulty logic, and it doesn’t hold up.” [Emphasis added]

And this little factoid:

The Denver Post could not systematically verify the Holtzman campaign’s filing because the campaign declined to provide an electronic version of the exhibits. [Emphasis added]

And last but not least, the piece de resistance:

Head said the campaign has hired private investigators and is using databases to further narrow the signatures to confirm they are registered voters living in the two districts. [Emphasis added]

Mismatched signatures? Keeping their exhibits from the public eye? Hiring private investigators? I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again: this campaign is hanging on by the narrowest of fraying threads, exhibiting greater and greater desperation, and is well against the odds of finding enough valid signatures to get on the ballot. Even if the near-miraculous feat of validating Holtzman’s candidacy is achieved, it has to be apparent to any open-eyed observer that he cannot win the Republican primary. At this point, he can only serve to divide the party and squander its resources going into an important election this fall.

But the Holtzman team has resisted any chance to take the gracious and reasonable approach. How many more legal challenges do they plan to make? If the judge finds an insufficient number of signatures to qualify his candidacy, will they do the right thing then? I fear rejection as high as the Colorado Supreme Court wouldn’t be enough for them.

Sigh… enough already.

From Peter Blake’s Saturday column in the Rocky Mountain News:

Hillman, who served as interim treasurer while incumbent Mike Coffman was in Iraq, is running against Cary Kennedy. She’s best known for spearheading the campaign for Amendment 23 in 2000. It substantially boosted state spending on public schools and made sure it couldn’t be cut for years.

Indeed she likes to make funding for education a major platform in her campaign. In addition to promising fiscal responsibility and effective management of the state’s investment portfolio – the usual issues in a treasurer’s race – she talks about the importance of not cutting school funding. “People all over the state respond to that,” she says.

And she likes to point out that she supported Referendum C – “because it gave Colorado a true and honest balanced budget” – while Hillman did not.

Hillman is unapologetic about his efforts to cut education funds during the state’s recent economic downturn.

“I believe in getting more from your tax dollars rather than more of your tax dollars,” he says. “I don’t think any part of the budget should be isolated from economic reality.” The state funds that went into education had to be cut from other parts of the budget, he notes.

Both treasurer candidates are campaigning nearly full-time, although Hillman is also trying to keep his farm near Burlington going.

Although Kennedy has never run for office before, and doesn’t enjoy Hillman’s higher profile, she’s been able to match him in fund-raising. She had $130,000 in cash at the end of May; Hillman had $126,000. “She knows how to shake the Democratic money tree,” Hillman said grudgingly.

Kennedy has been able to keep expenses down by running her campaign out of her Denver home. Hillman has a small office in Highlands Ranch.

One question to ask Cary Kennedy: what have we gotten for the bigger per-pupil spending increases of Amendment 23, besides rewards to the union and the bureaucracy?

Mark Hillman is the experienced and fiscally responsible candidate in the race for State Treasurer.

Eight months of high-quality speakers, challenging exercises, and tremendous fellowship culminate today with graduation for the 2006 class of the Leadership Program of the Rockies.

Are you interested in becoming a conservative leader with greater insights into the benefits of free market capitalism? I highly recommend you apply for next year’s class. You won’t regret it.

The Left-wing propagandists at Progress Now have returned to doing the bidding of the teachers unions and their legislative cronies, as they are now calling on Colorado’s Commissioner of Education William Moloney to resign. In his nine years as commissioner, the eminently experienced and qualified Dr. Moloney has been a champion for parents and students in his ongoing work to promote sensible and effective reforms.

At the last State Board of Education meeting, a group of superintendents showed up to present a newly published report that said the Colorado Department of Education was not providing sufficient leadership. The next day the Democrats on the State Board of Education went a step further and called on Moloney to resign.

It appears to me an act of aggressive desperation on the Democrats’ part. Currently, the State Board is made up of 4 Democrats and 4 Republicans, with Moloney additionally serving as a non-voting member. The odd, eight-seat formulation expires this year – with wealthy Democrat Jared Polis’ at-large seat scheduled to disappear. Also, the Republicans have a legitimate chance to pick up a fifth seat with a strong challenge from Lee Kunz in the 7th District. A majority Republican Board will not be friendly to the union or much of the anti-reform establishment.

So when Progress Now makes it appear that there is a widespread sweeping call among the state’s education leadership for Moloney to resign, please note they are omitting important details about the partisan nature of the effort. It appears that the propagandists and the Democrats they cite have reached their wits’ end with a Commissioner more beholden to parents and students than unions and bureaucrats. Too bad for them.

But intelligent, discerning readers of mine tend to take what the Lefties at ProgressNow say with a grain of salt, anyway. After all, they have a bad track record when it comes to facts and education.

Update: I just received a phone call from a prominent figure involved in this story who disagreed with my portrayal of the Commissioner. I may have overstated my case a bit, but it doesn’t change the main point of this post.

For the sake of clarification, Commissioner Moloney may not be the boldest and most innovative of education reform leaders. My impressions of him – both firsthand and from others – are that he has done a decent job and has been generally sympathetic to positive school reforms. In all fair-mindedness, though, I remain open to looking at documented evidence to the contrary.

Nevertheless, you still have to look at the source of who is calling for his resignation – Senator Windels and Representative Merrifield – and they most certainly are not friends of reform. I am only left to surmise that the union-funded Democrats are aggressively seeking an opportunity to replace Moloney with someone less friendly to school choice and accountability reforms.

If they want their calls for resignation to be taken seriously, Progress Now or someone else ought to lay out the evidence in full public view, not just some high-minded quotes from elected officials.

The media manipulating mass murderer responsible for the deaths of many Americans and Iraqis, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been terminated along with several other Islamofascist terrorist masterminds by a precision military strike today. Good news! While certainly not the end to insurgent violence in Iraq, it is a major blow to the enemies of freedom there and a small step forward for the new democratically-elected government.

The best take comes from Blackfive: by Froggy, by Uncle Jimbo, and by Blackfive himself. Other good sources are Austin Bay and Iraq the Model.

Meanwhile on the Left, as the Daily Kos sighs “Finally” at the news, some of the moonbat Kos Kid commenters reveal their true tinfoil hat colors. One Christopher Day gives us a peek into the Democrat playbook:

Zarqawi was quite probably a psy ops job in the first place, so what does that make his “death”?

Keep your eyes on the prize:

Gay marriage?
Haditha.

Flag burning?
Haditha!

Brangelina?
HADITHA!

Zarqawi?
HADITHA!!!

Then there are the words of the naive Johann that remind us why we don’t want these people in charge of our foreign policy:

While I may agree with you that “This is the one monster who deserved to die.” This method violates everything my America stands for. It violates the rule of law and invokes the rule of force in what should be a criminal, not a military, matter. To give Al-Queda status by declaring that this is a war, rather than arrest and prosecution for crimes committed, the Bush Administration has given Al-Queda much more status than they deserve.

To be fair, a few of the commenters are sharing the rest of the nation’s joy at the news. Hopefully they can keep their less stable brethren from slipping off into serious depression.

Someone else can deconstruct the rest of the lies and lunacy, but I need to move on for now.

Joseph A. Klein. Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom. Los Angeles: World Ahead Publishing, 2005.

Having served several times as a delegate at my county and state Republican assemblies, one of the resolutions frequently voted on is: “The United States should withdraw from the United Nations.”

No proposed resolution at my recent county assembly received a smaller vote than that question – 51%, less than the two-thirds needed to be ratified. The globalist-socialist United Nations does not poll very well in the United States generally, but an especially politically conservative group of Colorado Republican activists was basically split on the question of whether we should disassociate entirely from the internationalist body.

My biggest surprise in turning the pages of Global Deception was that author Joseph Klein would likely cast the same vote as I did: No.
(more…)

Stephen Paulson of the Associated Press reports:

Embattled GOP gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman said today a judge will have to decide whether he gets into the August primary, but he stopped short of saying he would file a lawsuit or seek a court order.

Apparently the Holtzman campaign doesn’t have much of a case to make an appeal with the Secretary of State. As the campaign’s top deck starts to disappear below the water line, inquiring minds want to know: are there enough lifeboats on the RV?

For the few conservatives who are still in distress concerning whom to support for governor, I bid you come to shore and to join your fellow conservatives supporting the state’s best political hope this November: Bob Beauprez.

I may be considered anathema among many fellow Christians and social conservatives, but I agree wholeheartedly with fellow RMA blogger Michael (second time I’ve linked and quoted him in one week…wow!):

I believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman. I believe marriage is a Sacrament, instituted by God, affirmed by Jesus, and not particularly subject to the whim of judges in the state of Massachusetts or any other state.

However, the Constitution has granted the right and duty to decide licensing details to the several states. And it is in that forum that such decisions should be made–not Congress.

If the Senate were really interested in this issue, it would dedicate this week to passing a long slate of judges out of committee, to the floor, and through confirmation, rather than alter the Constitution to deal with this one, limited issue.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which is destined to fail anyway (getting a simple majority of support in the Senate will be very difficult, and 67 votes are needed for passage), is an unnecessary and wasteful step to take, in my opinion.

On the other hand, supporters of traditional families in Colorado should look to sign the Colorado Marriage Amendment (CMA). I share the convictions of Dennis Prager but believe that the FMA is an imprudent tactic, since such a provision is not suited for the United States Constitution. The Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 is entirely appropriate and most effective to prevent any state from having to recognize a “same-sex marriage” performed in another state.

For those who are unconvinced, here are some more in-depth sources to investigate. Begin by reading LaShawn Barber’s “The Nationalization of Marriage” from July 2004, which has plenty of links. Lest you doubt her strong Christian moral credentials and wonder how she can balance them with opposition to the idea of an FMA, also read her latest post.

You may also want to check out Dale Carpenter’s policy paper for the Cato Institute or – if you don’t have time to read – listen to him discuss the FMA on a brief podcast.

Last night, our friends at ProgressNow wrote:

The Senate is poised to vote on the Musgrave/Allard Federal Marriage Amendment this week. This is a transparent political move designed to pander to their extreme right base and distract the rest of us from their failures on issues like spiraling national debt, skyrocketing healthcare costs and a quagmire in Iraq.

I commend to their reading a fine and thoughtful article today by Dennis Prager, who sanely should be considered very close to the middle of the political spectrum. A key excerpt of the article:

That most liberals cannot understand conservatives’ views about marriage as anything but bigotry and/or pandering is part of a narcissism that characterizes much of the Left. The very definition of narcissism is an inability to see the world through the eyes of another. Whatever conservatives’ flaws, far more conservatives understand liberals’ views on same-sex marriage. Most opponents of same-sex marriage appreciate that liberals feel bad about gays’ inability to marry a person of the same sex. In fact, as a proponent of a marriage amendment, I not only understand the liberal desire to enable people to marry someone of the same sex, I feel genuine compassion for gays on this matter.

But such empathy for ideological foes is all but absent from the narcissistic world of the Left. To virtually every liberal writer and spokesman, only liberals mean well, only they are sincere, only they are compassionate, and only they are intellectual, rational and tolerant.

And another excerpt to consider:

Some of those who want a constitutional amendment to define marriage as man-woman are indeed bigoted against gays, regarding them as something less than fully human. But most people who want to maintain marriage as male-female consider homosexuals to be just as much created in the image of God as anyone else. But though it is painful for us to see a perfectly decent homosexual unable to marry a person of the same sex, we are nevertheless more preoccupied with:

(1) Giving every child the opportunity to at least begin life with a mother and father; (2) Honoring the will of the great majority of Americans, secular and religious, liberal and conservative, to preserve the man-woman marital ideal, and not allow a judge to single-handedly destroy that ideal; (3) Preserving the ability of teachers and clergy to tell the story of marriage to young children in terms of a man and woman and not confuse the vast majority of kids who are forming their vision of marriage and sexuality.

These preoccupations are neither bigoted nor radical. They are, in our view, civilization-saving.

Read the whole thing.

Fellow RMAer Michael writes:

The [Holtzman] campaign always seemed a bit . . .Quixotic . . . in nature. Marc has never held elected office, and other than among D.U. alums, is not exactly a household name in Colorado. And while there is a certain charm to the underdog, there is also something sad about refusing to notice reality, and something potentially very harmful to continuing this campaign.

However, I still believe Marc Holtzman has a lot to offer Colorado. He should start working within the Party to implement some of his ideas about youth movement, and to fundraise and oherwise assist GOP candidates to take back the state legislature, which could do a lot to move his fiscal ideas forward. He could build his name and reputation, maybe hold some lesser elected office, and poise himself for another run at the Mansion in four or eight years.

Well said: why does it have to be governor in 2007 or nothing? Read the whole post.

It’s time for Colorado Republicans to put the bungling behind them and unite behind Bob Beauprez. Holtzman came up 743 signatures short (despite the Denver Post‘s faulty math) – though there’s sure to be a recount in the coming days. The Secretary of State certifies the primary ballot by next Friday.

What do I mean by “bungling”? First and most obvious, the Holtzman campaign’s ground game. Expecting more than 40% at the State Assembly, they were shocked to find out they only got 28% and didn’t make the ballot that way. More recently, Holtzman’s team turned in 21,000 petition signatures but had a high rate of rejection. It would appear the names or signatures were not given careful scrutiny – a big no-no.

Second, and to a lesser extent, the Republican state party’s handling of the Holtzman debacles. Chairman Bob Martinez overstepped his bounds and unnecessarily fueled the underdog’s “anti-establishment” fire by calling on him to drop out of the race. While some narrow, diehard and disaffected Holtzman supporters may believe the state GOP “machine” is out to crush them, the sad truth is that the party’s apparent problems stem more from incompetence than conspiratorial mischief. That includes the State Assembly, and how the new credentialing and voting procedures were implemented.

Maybe Holtzman could have been the guy to turn the state GOP leadership into a well-oiled, effective machine. But the way his own campaign has operated now gives observers reason to doubt that. Especially when your brand-new (and maybe shortest-lived ever) campaign manager gives the following quote to one of the two biggest newspapers in the state:

Bob Gould, who began as Holtzman’s campaign manager last week, said the lack of signatures was not the fault of the Holtzman campaign. Gould said the problem could be errors made by the people validating the signatures, including many temporary workers hired by the secretary of state.

Gould also said valid signatures could have been thrown out because the person who circulated the petitions had only recently registered as a Republican – another requirement on a candidate’s petitions.

Like his boss, Gould vowed to fight.

“I can tell you our approach is going to be a scorched-earth policy,” Gould said. [emphasis added]

Sigh. Memo to the Holtzman team: Go ahead and challenge the results line by line. The burden of proof rests with you. If that doesn’t work, file a challenge in court with your anti-TABOR, pro-union Democrat lawyer. If that doesn’t work, run an “us-against-the-world” write-in August primary campaign. If that doesn’t work, run as an independent. Then hope for a spot in Governor Ritter’s cabinet.

Each further step that Holtzman takes down this road of self-aggrandizement only loses that much more hope of future good will among fellow Colorado Republicans of good will. It’s time to listen to some common sense. Let’s put the bungling behind us and focus on keeping the governor’s office in GOP hands come November.

And maybe the rest of us can spend a little less time dealing with politics during the beautiful Colorado summer.

Update: Should have checked my email inbox first. Here’s the account from the Holtzman campaign that wasn’t covered in the papers this morning:

According to the notice sent to us tonight, over 4,000 names were thrown out immediately – that is to say, without even looking at the voter rolls. There are a couple of reasons this might occur: (1) the notary was insufficient or (2) the “circulator” of the petition was not correctly registered as a Republican with the Colorado Secretary of State.

We believe, as of now, the later [sic] has occurred.

Though we had thousands of signatures collected by volunteers, later in the process, we also had professional petitioners assisting us in certain congressional districts.

That firm has assured us all of their petitioners were registered republican voters, however, if those folks were newly registered, that voter information would not yet be registered with our Secretary of State.

We are in the process of validating the voter information of the professional gatherers (through local Clerk and Recorder offices), and believe our challenge will be found successful in the next few days.

Or the professional petition-gathering group may have dropped the ball. We’ll have to wait and see if the Holtzman campaign has a legitimate case here … there may be more to this story than meets the eye.

Two breaking news stories this afternoon for a quick read:

Associated Press, “Colorado Candidate Fined for Illegal Ads”

Rocky Mountain News, “Holtzman Not on Ballot”

For Marc Holtzman, this would have to qualify for the classic definition of “bad day.”

The latter article suggests a serious disagreement about the judgment that the gubernatorial candidate didn’t have enough signatuers on his petitions to qualify him for the November election. While he turned in 21,000 signatures (expecting a certain margin of invalid markings, of course), keep in mind that candidates for statewide office have to gather 1,500 Republican registered voter signatures from each Congressional district, and the Denver Democrat stronghold of the 1st CD might have done Holtzman in. We may have to wait for the post mortem for more details.

Although with an apparent appeal in the works – compliments of an anti-TABOR, pro-union Democrat lawyer – (and failing that, dare one imagine an against-all-odds write-in campaign?), this saga ain’t over yet.

Update, 8:34 PM: A press release from the Beauprez campaign responds to the news:

DENVER, CO – Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez today made the following statement in response to the notice of insufficiency given to the Holtzman campaign by the Colorado Secretary of State:

“Marc has run a spirited campaign and I have appreciated his contribution to the debate,” said Beauprez. “I look forward to working with Marc to ensure a united Republican Party and a victory this fall.”

“I’m gratified and excited to be the Republican nominee and we’re looking forward to a positive, issue-based campaign with our Democrat opponent in this race,” concluded Beauprez.

Update II, 9:55 PM Joshua also has some remarks on the matter.

What is needed is a strong, clear, well-articulated, and definite statement from the Secretary of State’s office to explain just where and how Holtzman fell short of the ballot. If they don’t have the justification to make such a statement, the Republican underdog may have a legitimate case. If the Secretary of State has a clear and strong case but doesn’t articulate or explain it well as soon as possible, it will only feed into the discord and talk of conspiracy. That’s what I’ll be looking for in tomorrow’s news reports.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office has validated Senate District 22 Republican candidate Justin Everett‘s petition signatures, with an astonishingly high certification rate – 1,297 of 1,354 submitted signatures were accepted, or 95.8% (compared to about 80 percent for rival Kiki Traylor)! One big reason for that is Justin personally acquired more than half the signatures himself by going door-to-door to meet voters: truly grassroots! Here is an excerpt from his official announcement:

After speaking with voters in our district, it was clear that our message of immigration reform, improving the educational opportunities for our children and practicing true fiscal responsibility represents the opinions of our community. Now we’re in a position to truly win this race.

Only 1,208 of our opponent’s (Kiki Traylor) signatures were accepted out of her 1,500 submitted. That means she had over 5 times more signatures rejected than we did. We had almost 100 more valid signatures from good Republicans in our District. The difference was that we went to the voters in their homes, while her campaign waited for voters to come to her at the supermarkets. Our other opponent received a mere 116 votes at the assembly. We are the campaign with the grassroots support in our District.

After sitting Senator Norma Anderson resigned at the beginning of 2006 to allow her handpicked vacancy committee to anoint Kiki Traylor as a successor, Justin took the high road and bypassed the committee / caucus / assembly process. With today’s news, his plan for victory by connecting with the voters appears so far to be working.

The three-way race is now on for the Republican nomination in the safe Republican district in south Jeffco, and it’s sure to be interesting. Stay tuned.