It is irresponsible to assume that the Colorado Supreme Court will overturn the decision of the District Court that your property tax proposal from last year is unconstitutional.
A new analysis by Legislative Council shows that the cost of doing nothing to address this possibility, before the budget goes into effect on July 1, 2008, will be $272 million! The price of inaction is too great.
Serving in the justice system, you saw how difficult it is to win on appeal, and must recognize the need for a plan of action should the appeal fail.
It was unwise to ignore the opinion of Colorado Attorney General John Suthers: It is reckless to ignore both the attorney general and our District Court.
We are writing to request that you notify the legislature of your plan to address the unbalanced budget situation created by your unconstitutional property tax hike. As our governor, you have the power to make cuts to the budget or to call us into a special session.
If you refuse to act, we strongly believe you owe the people of Colorado an explanation as to why you are so certain that the Supreme Court will overturn the existing ruling.
We cannot help but wonder if you know something that the rest of Colorado does not, that causes you to be so confident that the Supreme Court, tasked with upholding justice and not agendas, will come down on your side….
According to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website, the election committees of Commissioners Alice Nichol and W.R. “Skip” Fischer received $1,000 from Jerry Rhea, president of Quality Paving Co. According to a Channel 7 news investigation last month, Rhea is a friend of Adams County Public Works Director Lee Asay. Asay was placed on administrative leave after the investigation found he awarded $12 million in no-bid contracts to Rhea’s company.
Rhea’s contributions to the commissioners’ campaigns were legally recorded with the Secretary of State and Nichol and Fischer both said their committees will keep the funds. They said the fact that the money came from Rhea will not affect their decision-making processes as commissioners.
“I think the bottom line is: Was there something improperly done by taking a contribution? And, absolutely not,†Nichol said. “There were no promises made with any contributor, whether it be him or anyone else.â€
In the Adams County case, there is at the very least an appearance of corruption. But rather than take the officials’ word that there is no “pay-to-play” scheme, government contracting reform would require Rhea to forfeit the right to make political contributions as long as he held the no-bid contract.
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter “wrote a thank-you note to Chicago Democratic donor Fred Eychaner for his $250,000 contribution, and got Safeway and Amgen on board in a trip to Washington.”
If you want to know how bad a state the national Republican Congressional campaign is in, look no further than my own backyard: Colorado’s 7th Congressional District. Once a nationally targeted toss-up swing district defended by Republican incumbent Bob Beauprez, the GOP cannot find anything approaching a credible candidate to square off against the first-time Democrat incumbent Ed Perlmutter.
According to the Colorado Statesman handed out at Saturday’s Republican State Convention, the GOP’s candidate for the 7th is none other than (drumroll, please) … John LeGrew. “No information was available to the Party as of press time,” it reads under his picture.
No offense or anything, I’m sure Mr. LeGrew is a nice guy and all. But just who is he?
Near as I can tell, John LeGrew has a record of distinguished military service as a veterinary surgeon with the 13th Light Dragoons in the British Army during the Crimean War. Okay, I know that was 150 years ago. So maybe the namesake is a direct ancestor?
Seriously, I can’t find any record of a living person with the name John LeGrew. I have no idea who he is, but would gladly accept clues to his identity in the comment section.
I also had to let you know how difficult it was to resist the temptation to make a lame pun about the Republican 7th Congressional candidate having already been where I am now (LeGrew as the past tense of DeGrow. Yes, I said lame). Yet rather than a candidate of the past or the present, maybe someday soon Republicans here can field someone with a vision for the future: Summoning Will Grow…. Mr. Grow….
A little diversion from the usual subject matter of the blog. But I just wanted to take the time to point out that the Stanley Cup is back where it belongs: Hockeytown. ‘Nuff said.
National Education Association President Reg Weaver announced today that he will ask the 9,000 locally elected delegates to the Association’s Representative Assembly to take a formal vote to recommend that NEA’s 3.2 million members support Barack Obama in his bid to become President of the United States….
The contrast between Obama and McCain on issues that matter most to NEA members – the economy, education and health care – is indeed stark. Obama opposes using public tax dollars to provide financial support to private schools. McCain is already on record with votes supporting vouchers.
While I wouldn’t exactly phrase the issue the way the NEA does, such unsurprising rhetoric only evokes an equal and opposite reaction from me.
While Gov. Bill Ritter has eagerly insisted that he will appeal a Friday court ruling establishing that a mill levy freeze amounts to an unconstitutional tax increase under Colorado law, members of the state Board of Education, a defendant in the case, remain undecided about whether they will formally join in support of Ritter’s challenge.
It appears the District Court ruling may have emboldened the two Republicans on the State Board to change their mind. The Board meets in executive session tomorrow:
Vice Chairman Bob Schaffer, R-Fort Collins, introduced in April a motion for the board to take a formal position, by way of public vote, on whether the department would “defend the lawsuit or [agree with] the claims against the state.â€
Schaffer’s only support came from Littleton. Fellow Republicans Randy DeHoff, D-Littleton, and Chairwoman Pamela Jo Suckla, R-Slickrock, sided with Democrats and voted to defend the lawsuit. At the time, Suckla said, “It is not in the best interest of this board to debate the issue and the case’s merits in a public forum. That is not our job.”
Littleton believes that Friday’s ruling will be enough to persuade Suckla and DeHoff to change their positions. Hudak did not disagree.
Switching from their original votes would mean the State Board would NOT appeal the legal decision to protect the rights of taxpayers from Bill Ritter’s unconstitutional property tax increase.
And Ritter, who intervened to become a defendant in the case, would be defending it all alone.
Union members in Colorado and across the nation stand to gain from newly proposed federal rules that would provide a clearer picture of how union leaders are spending their hard-earned dues money. If you’re a glutton for punishment, there’s the official 103-page document with the new rules.
They require that unions specify the costs of benefits being provided to officers and employees.
Under the present system the cost of benefits is only reported as one big lump sum. The new regulations will allow union members to see how much they are paying in benefits for each officer and employee. This will discourage union officials from attempting to hide the cost of excessively generous benefits.
They also require that unions provide the identity of those to whom they sell assets.
This will allow union members to spot transactions where union officials are buying union assets at big discounts.
And, they require unions to report travel and entertainment expenses for union officers and employees that are paid “indirectly” by the union.
This will allow union members to get a much more accurate idea of how much the union is spending on this sort of thing and discourage union officers and employees from attempting to hide the cost of “business” meetings in luxurious resorts.
The public comment period is open through June 26. Whether you are a union member or just a concerned citizen you can find out how to share your comments on the PSRF webpage.
I haven’t written much about Senate Bill 200, so-called “anti-discrimination” legislation, recently signed into law by Gov. Bill Ritter. But I certainly took notice when libertarian Ross Kaminsky assailed it in his latest Human Events column:
In the quadrennial marathon to see who can be the nation’s worst governor, Colorado’s Bill Ritter is in a full sprint. On Thursday, Ritter signed Senate Bill 200 which expands “anti-discrimination†law to cover sexual orientation, meaning not only homosexuality or bisexuality, but also “transgender status or another person’s perception thereof.â€
The bill is so ripe for abuse and creates so much risk for private business that it’s no surprise the ordinarily media-hungry Ritter signed the bill late in the afternoon (too late for most newspapers to cover the story) with no fanfare (although he frequently has bill-signing ceremonies and particularly for measures such as this which have received this much media attention). It isn’t even mentioned on his Web site, whereas a look at the page shows that he routinely issues press releases on bills he signs into law.
It’s hard to disagree with the notion that this new law is bad public policy and represents government overstep and intrusion.
One last order of business to follow up on from Saturday: congratulations to Mark Hillman for winning the vote for national committeeman, and to Mark and wife Heidi for the coming arrival of their first child.
As much as Republicans are less than enthusiastic about their Presidential nominee, a video like this helps to confirm my suspicions that the Democrats have bigger problems:
The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza has more details here on what exactly made this woman and so many other Hillary supporters angry. Clinton’s overwhelming primary win in Puerto Rico doesn’t add any more clarity – or confidence -to the Democrat nomination picture.
It is disheartening to see some Denver teachers abandon the children they teach, instead choosing to participate in “sick-outs†and “park-outs†to protest the district’s generous and unprecedented offer. Sadly, for these individuals the education of children is not a priority.
Districts and communities deserve the opportunity to invest in hard-working, quality teachers who are committed to educational excellence and should be able to reward teachers for the important work they do.
Teachers deserve an association which promotes the professional interests of teachers without jeopardizing the education of children.
And children deserve teachers who are dedicated to their education.
Kris Enright, Englewood
PACE is a non-union, alternative professional teachers organization.
But Michael at Best Destiny has some sage cautionary advice for Colorado Republicans on how to respond to Friday’s courtroom decision:
Republicans MUST NOT go out in public and seem too giddy about this. They should talk about checks and balances, and limiting the governor’s ability to act unilaterally, and the majority’s clear disregard for the Constitution.
But if they seem like they’re just glad to have the money taken back by the general public, it’ll be a lot harder to convince the electorate that it’s not about handicapping the schools. We’ve seen the Dems win with just such arguments, before–and this time they have Douglas Bruce in the legislature as a target for their ire.
Republicans have to Jiu-Jitsu this and start talking about school innovations, about schools that are succeeding very nicely on the old budget, about New York and Washington schools that get almost twice as much money but are miserable failures, and about how the Dems have voted to remove accountability while turning over more money to schools and a system that is not showing any results. If we get bogged down strictly on the issue of money for the schools, we lose; if we can turn it into a discussion of genuine education reform, I think we can hold our ground on this issue.
Speaking of school innovations, another Denver school seeking autonomy has run into a roadblock from the local teachers union. Bruce Randolph redux, anyone?
