One of my favorite aphorisms about Colorado politics is that the House Education Committee is where good education reform goes to die. Case in point is Senate Bill 57, the school spending transparency legislation that committee Democrats shot down after hearing more than 30 citizens and activists who volunteered to come down and testify for the bill. Thanks to a Face The State mini-investigation, we learn today it was even worse than that:Also known as Senate Bill 57, the bill was postponed indefinitely after four hours of committee debate that lasted late into the evening. [Democrat] Speaker Terrance Carroll and [Republican] House Minority Leader Mike May arrived to work the next morning ready to revive it. But they were too … [Read more...]
Hugo Chavez? Say It Ain’t So, Magglio
A mildly disturbing story that makes me wish sometimes we could keep the world of sports / entertainment separate from the larger political world. From an ESPN article about my favorite baseball team's All-Star right fielder and a loathsome, repressive dictator:President Hugo Chavez came to the defense of Magglio Ordonez on Sunday, slamming Venezuelan baseball fans who booed the major leaguer at the World Baseball Classic. Chavez lamented that his friendship with Ordonez prompted catcalls from the mostly Venezuelan crowd during the team's 3-1 victory over the Netherlands in Miami on Saturday, saying the fans who booed the Detroit Tigers slugger "have no shame."... Ordonez, one of Venezuela's biggest baseball stars, appeared in a … [Read more...]
Will Democrats Try to Stiff Us with Another Arbitrary, Pointless Tax Hike?
Four years ago, a narrow majority of Coloradans bought the slick advertising of the Referendum C tax hike. Today, statehouse Democrats seem to have forgotten all their grandiose promises. (Or were they not telling us the truth in the first place?) A great catch by Face The State (go and listen to the brief audio clip for yourself):So we were shocked to hear JBC vice-chairman Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, assert during last week's discussion that “Ref C wasn’t designed to fix anything," and that "Ref C was an arbitrary amount of money.†… [Read more...]
Mark Hillman Credibly Criticizes Dems for Failure to Save State Money
Mark Hillman - former state senate majority leader and former state treasurer - once again has established himself as a leading voice of fiscal sanity in Colorado. In an op-ed in today's Denver Post, he assails Governor Bill Ritter and his Democratic colleagues at the helm of the state legislature for their ongoing mismanagement of the looming budget crisis:Balancing a budget during a recession is a difficult job, certainly. But balancing this year's budget didn't need to be this hard if only the leaders at the Capitol had learned from the last recession — or listened to those who experienced it. Last spring, as the economic storm clouds gathered, Gov. Bill Ritter and legislative leaders had opportunities to take precautions. One … [Read more...]
Democrat Cary Kennedy: Protecting Coloradans from Open Government
In an editorial today that could herald the great advance of Colorado's upcoming legislative session, the Denver Post lauds a proposal by Rep. Don Marostica (R-Loveland) and Sen. Mike Kopp (R-Littleton) that would place the state government's check register online. Marostica made a similar legislative proposal in 2007, but was shot down with a ridiculous $2 million fiscal note from legislative staff. (Cost money? It's much more likely to save taxpayer money.) One line from the Post editorial jumped off the page when I read it:Marostica again plans to sponsor a bill to create just such a site, and treasurer Cary Kennedy has supported the plan in theory, but wants some citizen protections in place. [emphasis added\ Uh, what? … [Read more...]