Basics

YES is always a vote to CHANGE the law.  NO means existing law will remain the same. 

Constitutional Amendments 81-87

An amendment to add new language to the Colorado Constitution is successful only if YES votes are 55% or more; this applies to Amendments 81-86.  Repealing or changing a constitutional provision requires a simple majority (50% + 1), which applies only to Amendment 87.

Constitutional amendments cannot be changed by the legislature without a public vote.  If a proposal doesn’t work well, supporters cannot be forced to correct it.  The legislature can refer changes to voters but only with a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House.

Propositions 132-137 are changes to state statutes and can be amended by the legislature.

Questions

Amendment 81 – Report criminal illegal immigrants

Overrides Colorado’s “sanctuary state” immigration law by requiring state and local law enforcement to notify federal immigration authorities if a person is charged with a violent crime or has a prior felony conviction and if that person is not lawfully present in the United States.

Comment: YES.

Amendment 82 – Right to natural gas

Adds a state constitutional right for consumers, distributors and utilities to buy or sell natural gas for heating or cooking in homes or businesses across the state.

Comment: YES to prevent Colorado’s crazy legislature and goofy local governments from taking away our choice to cook or heat with gas.

Amendment 83 – Right to hunt and fish

Creates a constitutional right to hunt, fish and take wildlife using traditional methods.  Does not apply to non-game animals, endangered species or any animal illegal to hunt under federal law.  Continues to allow the State of Colorado to regulate and manage wildlife for conservation and to preserve future hunting and fishing opportunities.

Comment:  Again, YES to put guardrails around our state legislature.

Amendment 84 – Voter ID on mail ballots

Requires a voter to include, along with their signature, either the last four digits of their Social Security number of Colorado driver’s license or ID card when returning a mail ballot for a state or federal election.  Prohibits counting any mail ballot that does not have this information.  Provides the opportunity for voters to correct omission of those numbers.

Comment:  YES to improve election security.

Amendment 85 – Plain language ballot titles

Amends the state constitution to require ballot questions to be written in “plain language” at no more than an eighth-grade reading level.

Comment:  YES.  While I dislike the idea of “dumbing down” our ballots, this will also make it more difficult for the legislature to manipulate ballot language.

Amendment 86 – Congressional redistricting

Colorado has a fair process for congressional and legislative redistricting which requires a commission consisting of Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters to approve maps by super-majority vote once every 10 years after each census.  This amendment would prevent mid-decade redistricting unless those mid-decade maps were approved by that commission and the Colorado Supreme Court.

Comment: YES.  Games both parties are playing with mid-decade redistricting are despicable.  Let’s keep that out of Colorado.

Amendment 87 – Progressive income tax

If passed, this law is expected to increase state spending by $2.7 billion or about 11% in just the first year.  It would replace Colorado’s simple, flat income tax (4.4%) with a progressive tax rate: 3.7% on the first $25,000, 4.2% up to $100,000, 4.4% on $100,000 to $500,000, 7.4% on $500,000 to $750,000, 7.9% on $750,000 to $1 million, 8.4% over $1 million.

Comment:  NO.  This deceptive measure tries to sucker voters with a tiny tax cut (at most, $325) while nearly doubling taxes on businesses and individuals with more than $500,000 in taxable income.  Remember: “If you want less of something, tax it.”  Apparently, proponents want fewer Coloradans to be financially successful.

Prop NN – Deceptive increase in state spending limit

Promises to increase spending on public schools by about $240 million a year but raises the statewide spending limit by $4.6 BILLION – which opens up a gigantic backdoor for the legislature to impose more “fees” without a vote of the people.

Comment:  NO to this bait-and-switch scheme.

Prop 132 – Increase penalties for fentanyl crimes

Makes distribution, manufacture or possession of anything containing fentanyl or other synthetic drugs a felony.  Penalty for possession of 1 gram or less could be vacated if the person completes a treatment program.

Comment:  YES.  Our state’s passive approach to drugs has failed.  Fentanyl and other synthetic drugs are deadly.  I support measures to punish those who distribute them and scare or punish anyone who might take a foolish risk by using.

Prop 133 – Penalties for human trafficking of a minor

Makes trafficking a child for sex a Class 1 felony without possibility of parole.

Comment:  YES.  There is no justification for a reduced penalty for someone who ruins a young person’s life by selling them to be used for sexual gratification.  If this penalty is more severe than for murder (as some argue), it should be considering the lifelong damage it causes to the victim.

Prop 134 – Male & female participation in sports

Prohibits biological males from participating in women’s or girls’ sports in elementary or secondary schools, colleges or universities.

Comment: YES.  Girls or women’s sports should be reserved for biological girls or women.  Boys or men who “identify” as girls or women have physiological advantages that place girls and women at an inherent disadvantage and, in some sports, in danger of severe physical injury.

Prop 135 – Prohibit gender surgery on minors

Prohibits medical professionals from performing surgery to change a minor’s biological sexual characteristics.

Comment:  YES.  Colorado law already protects minors against making other life-altering decisions (including many less drastic than gender-reassignment surgery).  Minors deserve protection against adults who coerce them to make an irreversible decision in response to a temporary problem.

Prop 136 – Income tax rate

Caps the state income tax rate at 4.4% of federal taxable income – an amount that could only be changed with voter approval.  Prop 136 directly contradicts Amendment 87 (graduated income tax).  If both pass, whichever receives more votes would establish the maximum income tax rate.

Comment:  YES because it will keep Colorado’s income tax rate competitive with other states.

Prop 137 – Sporting good sales tax for conservation

Requires a portion of sales tax generated by sporting goods sales to be spent “to protect Colorado’s water, land and forests, prevent wildfires, and support outdoor recreational training and activities.”

Comment: NO.  Most of us don’t like “earmarks” in Congress; this is the same thing at the state level – earmarking a portion of existing tax revenue to be spent on specific programs.  This complicated proposal covers 3½ pages of small, single-spaced type.  These programs should compete for our tax dollars through the budget process, just like all the others.

Two questions on our November ballot would end tax policies that have served Colorado well for more than 30 years.

Amendment 87 seeks to replace Colorado’s simple, flat-rate income tax with a progressive tax that raises your rate as your income grows.

Proposition NN would raise the state’s constitutional spending limit so high state government won’t be required to refund statewide over-collections anytime in the foreseeable future.

Together, these two measures essentially play Colorado voters for suckers, suggesting yet again that politicians need our hard-earned money more than we do. Worse still, lawmakers would be rewarded for rapidly expanding social welfare entitlements while struggling to meet bare minimums for K-12 education. read more…

Democratic Socialists are cruising through Democratic Party primaries like a hot knife through butter.  Entitled young adults, especially, respond to their angst-driven message, frustrated that expensive college degrees landed them entry-level jobs easily attained without a six-figure education.

Here in Colorado, Melat Kiros’ decisive win over 30-year incumbent Diana DeGette led a socialist wave in Denver that also saw a first-term centrist legislator ousted by a DSA challenger.

U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper did fend off a challenge by state Sen. Julie Gonzales, but the former two-term governor and mayor of Denver, lost to Gonzales in Denver by 13,000 votes.

And in Congressional District 8, social-media obsessed state Rep. Manny Rutinel easily defeated an accomplished member of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee to earn a November date versus incumbent Republican Gabe Evans.

Although DSA candidates try to sugar-coat their philosophy as a form of Scandavian socialism (universal government health care, pensions, and guaranteed basic income), the vengeful dogma behind today’s DSA sounds eerily like the Bolshevik narrative in the Russian revolution. read more…

Perhaps the greatest irony of America’s 250th birthday is the inadvertent role played by international tourists visiting for soccer’s World Cup who remind us that our country is unlike any other.

Much like the 1989 visit by Russian president Boris Yeltsin to a Texas supermarket, World Cup tourists are astonished by the variety and selection available to ordinary Americans at grocery and other stores.  They marvel at the taste of food in our restaurants.  Most significantly, they are pleasantly surprised to learn they can usually walk down our busiest streets without fear of being assaulted or robbed and that our police officers are friendly and helpful.

America is a land of abundance for everyone – not just the wealthy.  Comedian Carlos Mencia once quipped, “America is such a great country, we have fat poor people.”

As Americans, we take all of the above for granted. read more…

Our country’s Bicentennial in 1976 was a glorious experience for a 9-year-old boy.  Communities came together to work on Bicentennial projects.  My home county embarked on a multi-year project to restore the 1905 wooden carousel which had been purchased from Elitch Gardens in 1928.  Picnics, festivals, and colonial costumes were ubiquitous, as were flags adorned with the Bicentennial logo.

A Freedom Train traversed the country with historic documents which the public could view at each stop.  CBS aired a daily “Bicentennial Minute,” detailing an event from exactly 200 years earlier.

Merchants and companies embraced the celebration with commemorative red, white and blue signs, banners and commemorative labels.  The NFL even joined the celebration when, in January, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys wore special Bicentennial patches in Super Bowl X.  Disneyland presented a Bicentennial Parade twice each day from July 1775 through September 1776. read more…

That our two political parties have such different philosophies regarding business and taxes is exasperating because prosperity would serve even the very different interests of Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats want more revenue for government to spend it on social welfare, health care and schools.  Republicans want to stimulate the economy, leading to more prosperity for citizens.  A relatively lighter tax burden would help accomplish both.

Purely for illustration, let’s say the legislature could be guaranteed the same amount of tax revenue whether it set the income tax rate at 5% or 50%.

How could that be possible?  Because at the lower tax rate, many more businesses would be generating income by selling goods and services since ownership would know it could keep 95% of its net profit.  At the higher rate, nobody would start a new business knowing half of its profits will be paid in taxes.  Only businesses unwilling or unable to relocate to another state would be left to pay the tax.

Which tax rate represents better policy? read more…

For the third time in eight years, the United States Supreme Court has needed to remind Colorado lawmakers that when they take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, they are expected to mean it.

By an 8-to-1 vote the court struck down a Colorado law on “conversion therapy” on the rather obvious grounds that it unlawfully discriminates against the First Amendment rights of therapists to counsel clients who want help to overcome unwanted sexual attraction or confusion.

Proponents of the Colorado law focused on discredited physical interventions like shock therapy, but their law goes much farther, prohibiting treatment which is purely spoken and provided at the explicit request of clients. read more…

The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. – Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister.

The same can be said of “progressivism,” and Colorado’s ruling progressive Democrats are learning the hard way as they face spending deficits surpassing $1 billion a year.

State budget deficits are usually caused when a recession reduces tax revenue.  But Colorado hasn’t been in a recession and budget projections do not predict one.

Instead, this deficit is due to runaway spending and is entirely self-inflicted, as everyone from the Colorado Sun to Colorado Public Radio to the Gazette newspapers and even Joint Budget Committee staff have pointed out. read more…