View From a Height

Salazar Misses the Point

Senator Ken Salazar sent out an email appealing for aid to Katrina victims containing the following line:

The victims of this terrible tragedy love this country, but their country has let them down.

No, Senator, their government has let them down. Specifically, their state and local governments.

Their country, on the other hand, has responded admirably and generously.

Beauprez Unplugged

I had a chance to meet Bob Beauprez briefly in the runup to last year's elections, and to see him speak a few times as well. He's always struck me as an appealing figure, with a way of connecting to even large crowds, both feeding from and feeding their energy.

So when the RMA was invited to sit down and chat with him this morning, I was happy tp take the chance. Ben DeGrow was also able to make it, and between the two of us, perhaps we got a little better measure of where the campaign and the candidate stand at this point.

Right now, my overall impressions were of a very confident candidate, sure that he's the right man for both the office and the Republican party, with a good grasp of the basic issues and the politics involved. He understands why he's running, why he wants the job, why he thinks he can win. However, there's a point where the stump speech is going to have to be supplemented by specific policy proposals, even if nobody reads them. It may be too early in the campaign for that, lest they become a target and stale by inauguration time, but calls for substance eventually must be heeded.

Starting off with the politics, I asked Rep. Beauprez about his history as an executive, even though he's a legislator now. Specifically, I've been dismayed by the Republican inability to maintain a deep bench in the state. So, as the incumbent in one of the most competitive House districts in the country, what has he done about succession planning there?

He answered that he was well aware of the problem of succession planning in general, that he had taken great care to put the bank on such footing that it could survive his leaving it. And he was also well aware of the problems that the party was facing in the state on that score. In fact, that was a strong argument for his running, since he believed himself to be the strongest candidate in the state for governor, and that coattails would probably be essential to retaking the legislature, and protecting the Congressional delegation.

That is, while he might have been at risk in the 7th with a weak gubernatorial candidate, he believes he can help carry the seat top-down. In particular, he spoke highly of Rick O'Donnell, who now has four years of state experience and access to more money than he did when he lost to beauprez in 2002.

Cynics will point to his belief that he could well have lost the 7th, but will win the Governor's race as personal political survival, but I honestly think it's more of a happy confluence of interests. And with an executive background, it wouldn't surprise me that he'd be more comfortable as chief executive than as a legislator.

In response to Ben's question about what he brings to the race, and to the downticket candidates, the most interesting part of his answer concerned his legislative experience. Recent experience in Louisiana has shown the difference between a governor who uses his Washington connections efficiently, and state and local governments more interested in protecting their prerogatives. This affects not only disaster planning, but also Medicaid reform and illegal immigration.

Incidentally, Beauprez is one of the few sane Republicans I've seen who understands the potency of illegal immigration as an issue. I'll refer again to my sister in Georgia who almost never votes Republican, and almost never fails to bring it up as an issue.

On Ben's question about education, and specifically about First Class Education as a starting point, Beauprez hedged a little, but basically endorsed the idea, saying that he was "inclined" to support it. His only quibble was whether 65% was the right number, that is, how do we know it's not 62% or 70%?

To me, that's a perfectly reasonable way to object to issues where the government shouldn't be involved, as a way of pointing out the government's inability to micromanage. In this case, though, it seems like an objection that's better off dropped.

I do think Beauprez's got a grasp of the basic problems public education facing, and no rose-colored glasses on how we're doing. He proposes that parents need to get involved pre-K and pre-1, especially pre-3. He certainly understands that throwing cash at the problem won't make it go away. And he supports vouchers and choice as a means of letting teachers exercise their judgment, though one gets the sense that he's driven more by that outcome than by a voucher-ideology.

As for the one thing that could do the most good - increasing discipline in the classroom - the Rep. has no illusions about needing to fight that battle in the initiative process, since the ACLU and CEA keep winning court cases.

Interestingly, Beauprez sees the teachers as allies here rather than enemies, since they suffer almost as much as the kids. I think he may be understating the problem of an intractable CEA, hell-bent on opposing meaningful classroom reform, but given a couple of terms, and teachers willing to vote out union reps and union heads, who knows what can happen?

Not as a trick, but as a lead-in to the Big Question about Refs C&D, I asked about the cost side of higher education. Beauprez surmised without concluding that it had to do with a focus on research rather than teaching. I'd agree to some extent, but with two caveats. Economics tells us that if an industry doesn't get more efficient, its costs will rise as it becomes relatively less efficient. Since teaching now is more or less the same as it was 100 years ago, the costs are relatively higher. But I'd also strongly refer him to this article in the Wilson Quarterly.

Finally, C&D. He points out correctly that C&D raise $2 Billion for a stated $400 million problem, and that they don't actually solve anything. In fact, the problem is short-term liquidity, not long-term solvency or even income growth. So securitizing the tobacco settlement and leasing back some unused state property make sense to get past that.

As for the long-term issues, these short-term problems are only going to recur unless there's some systemic reform, which means rethinking all three parts of the Gallagher-Amendment 23-TABOR vise. Here's where there were no specifics. Beauprez's stated assets is his ability to run a primary race without alienating the opposition. Maybe after he's won the nomination, he can find a way to incorporate some of Holtzman's ideas into a general election platform.

On the whole, yes, I liked what I saw. It's still a long, race though; expect that whole style-vs.-substance thing to rear its head. Again.

Grover Norquist Visits

I had the pleasure of meeting Grover Norquist Monday night at a fundraiser for Save Our State, Rep. Joe Stengel's 527 devoted to defeating Referenda C&D, and restoring Republican majorities in the state legislature, in that chronological order. Of course, the only way we could get him to come was by temporarily renaming all Arapahoe County exits from I-25 for Ronald Reagan, but in spite of that, traffic didn't seem any worse than normal.

He came off as a someone who's extremely bright, extremely focused, and almost monomaniacally interested in poilitics. (Not megalomanically. Please, use a dictionary.) Privately, he spoke of the power of blogs, and the usefulness of conservative blogs coordinating with each other, as opposed to going it alone. Publicly, he raised a number of familiar points, such as the money from C&D going to fund Democratic precinct captains. But he also discussed some unfamiliar points that clearly come from a history of thinking strategically.

In the first place, he noted that certain political tendencies in the country continue to date from the post-Civil War period, but that they're breaking down, presenting both opportunities and risks for Republicans. The opportunities are still in the South, at the state level where Democratic machines continue to operate state legislatures.

The risks are in the Purple Band, running from Illinois to New York, where the party has put patronage ahead of ideas. The Illinois party has already collapsed from this nonsense, having to import a failed candidate from Maryland for last year's Senate race. New Jersey is in serious trouble, although the governorship may provide some opportunities. Pennsylvania is at risk, and Ohio and Long Island are playing mice to Illinois's Pied Piper. The Republican Party used to compete effectively or even win reliably in all these places. Even states that are trending Red, such as the upper midwest, aren't seeing the outright collapse of the Democrats. I'll note that it's also probably no coincidence that in many of these states, Republican governors have abandoned the national branding of the Party That Won't Raise Your Taxes. Because they have to fund their patronages.

He also noted the long-term trend of Red states gaining population relative to Blue states. When I brought up the idea that maybe the red states were gaining Blue population, he did note that this had happened in Vermont, but I'd also like to suggest that it could be happening in the Southwest as well. The good news, which we didn't have time to discuss, was a study I wish I could find that showed that the youth vote in red states tended to be more red than the state as a whole. Which means that those red states are likely to stay that way for the forseeable future.

He also discussed the West, happily noting the historical gerrymander (that's a joke, leftists) which gave us a series of rectangular states with populations of 3: two Republican senators and a Republican representative. There are gains to be made, especially still in South Dakota, where Tim Johnson now stands out as more liberal against John Thune's background than he did compared to Tom Daschle. Still, there are states like Montana that seem to be trending a little Blue, and that the upper Great Plains has a long history of populism that can be unpredictable at times.

From a business point of view, and the intersection of business with politics, Norquist noted that the rise in Republican voting among the middle class paralleled the rise in individual stock ownership. Don't think the Democrats fighting Social Security reform haven't noticed this.

He also noted insightfully that while in the past, people tended to own individual stocks, now they tend to own mutual funds. This aligns their interests with the economy as a whole, as opposed to with one company or one industry, and thus also with the nation's interests. He didn't take the next logical step and examine the uncomfortable effect that globalization has on those investors' interests.

Joe Stengel also spoke briefly about his efforts to create a Republican alternative to C & D, realizing that 2004 wasn't just about dumping money into four House seats, but also about a perception that the party had no ideas save obstruction. Chief among these is First Class Education, which would put a minimum 65% of education dollars into the classroom. The plan is broader than that, though, and indicates an understanding that for ideas, like candidates, you can't be something (however flawed and mischievous) with nothing.

Finally, one of the gubernatorial candidates was there. Holtzman has been vocally opposed to C&D from their ill-conception, but it remains to be seen how much that will help him next year around this time. The fact is, we need to learn from 2004's Senate race that being right doesn't always matter as much as connecting with people. And that's going to hurt him next year, not help.

On that score, Holtzman badly needs to hire a speech coach now. He motion is still unsure, stiff, and robotic. All of his hand gestures are either cramped or up-and-down, rather than out towards the audience. As a result, he doesn't project, he insists.

On the whole, I was pleased to see the party doing some thinking and planning, rather than just campaigning and running. Just over 2 months to go...

Can We Please Get Through One Week...

...without someone bringing up Nazi Germany in a political debate? I realize this is the gold standard for the corruption of a free society by unmixed evil, but good grief. George Will is fond of saying that American politics is played between the 40-yard-lines. If so, Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR leave about enough room for you to slip a credit card between the goal line and the nose of the ball. Right now, the country's probably on the right hash mark of the 45-yard-line.

There's something wrong about invoking Nazis to condemn a practice permitted by Jewish law. I know we don't own every atrocity committed by Hitler - so many untermenschen, so little time. But you need to stop and think about what it is you're saying, what positions you're taking.

I personally think that if we can use adult stem cells instead - and right now, there's no reason to think we can't - then we should. But a long a venerable Western religious tradition says otherwise, and it doesn't make the Talmud a manual for baby-killing.

Good Fundraising News

The Rocky is reporting that the GOP candidates for governor are way ahead of their Democratic counterparts in fundraising.

One advisor does suggest that a lack of enthusiasm on the Democratic side may have something to do with this.

No kidding.

The Joys of Federalism

One of the pleasures of a federal system is that every state does things just a little bit differently. John Andrews writes first to correct an error. Gov. Owens did in fact appoint the oft-dissenting Justice Coats, so this would be his second appointment, not his first.

As to the process of appointing state Supreme Court Justices, apparently a nominating commission recommends three candidates, of whom the governor gets to pick one. There's no further immediate review, but the voters must approve the new Justice for a 10-year term, in the first even-numbered year after the appointment.

The membership of the nominating commission is quite remarkable:

The chief justice of the supreme court chairs the commission and is a non-voting member. This commission includes one citizen admitted to practice law in Colorado and one citizen not admitted to practice law residing in each of the state’s seven congressional districts, and one additional citizen not admitted to practice law in Colorado.

...

Commission members serve six-year terms. Non-lawyers, who are the majority of every nominating commission, are appointed by the governor. Lawyer members are appointed by joint action of the governor, attorney general, and chief justice.

The idea of deliberately including non-lawyers at the highest levels of the process is heartening. Giving them an outright majority takes checks and balances to practically Athenian levels.

I would point out, though, that Justice Coats was appointed in 2000, a little over a year into Governor Owens's first term. I assume the terms are staggered, so the membership of the nomination commission would still be overwhelmingly holdovers from Gov. Romer's tenure. This would be the first Justice appointed using players Gov. Owens had recruited, so to speak.

Madame Justice Kourlis?

The Denver Post is reporting that the next Supreme Court Justice may come from the Colorado Supreme Court, Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis.

While Justice Kourlis was appointed by Gov. Roy Roemer in 1995, she has tended to be a strict constructionist and a proponent of judicial restraint. She wrote the dissent when then-Attorney General Ken Salazar went to bat for his party, getting the courts to usurp the redistricting power of the legislature. From that dissent:

I fundamentally disagree. Courts cannot be lawmakers under Article V of the Colorado Constitution. Courts do not enact or create laws; courts declare what the law is and what it requires. To hold otherwise violates the clear language of Article V and also the mandates of Article III of the Colorado Constitution, which delineates the separation of powers among the three coordinate branches of Colorado government.

The only authority that courts have to intervene in this purely political, legislative process is to review the constitutionality of existing districts, as we would review the constitutionality of any law, in order to protect the voting rights of aggrieved claimants. Within that limited framework, courts may enter emergency or remedial orders for the purpose of allowing elections to go forward. Such court orders are interstitial, and cannot then serve to preempt the legislature from reclaiming its authority to redistrict.

And in what's frequently a loser these days, she argues that the Colorado Supreme Court should have held off for a while:

I also note that I do not believe that this court should ever have chosen to accept original jurisdiction in this case. At the time this court did so, there was a case pending in the Denver District Court that raised all of the issues before us now, plus a variety of other legal and factual issues. If that case had been allowed to proceed, the trial court would not only have addressed all disputed issues of fact but would also have ruled on all legal theories presented by the plaintiffs. In that situation, we would be in a position to resolve the issues with a full factual record. By taking this case when we did, we unnecessarily circumvented the normal process of case resolution, and limited ourselves to addressing the constitutional issues first rather than as a last resort.

Interestingly, she also dissented in the case that overturned Colorado's voucher law on the pretext that that law violated local control over schools. Her dissent contained this paragraph:

Further, although I agree that this court authored four cases dated between 1915 and 1931 that appear to equate local control over instruction with local control over educational tax dollars, in my view, the court has already moved away from that strict formulation in our more recent cases and it would be inconsistent with those modern cases to hold the Pilot Program unconstitutional.

This would seem to place her more in the Scalia mold than the Thomas mold, since she relies on more recent precedent rather than an originalist reading of the state Constitution here. In both cases, though, she opts for actually reading the Constitution instead of making it up as we go along.

If there's one drawback to Justice Kourlis's career, it's that the words "Justice Kourlis joins Justice Coates in the dissent" appear frequently in Supreme Court opinions. No doubt some will complain that by not surrendering to the Will of the Majority, she doesn't play well with others. Naturally, there's no actual evidence of a personality disorder, just a penchant for sticking to principle.

As a side-note, this would create Governor Owens's first chance to appoint a State Supreme Court Justice. He could do worse, than MoHo, the Honorable Morris Hoffman of Colorado's 2nd District. Hoffman wrote the opinion in Common Cause's attempt to disrupt the 2004 elections by counting every ballot, valid or not. He's respected, and has a reputation in the legal community for doing his homework and taking his cases seriously.

On the downside, I have no idea how common it is for a judge to jump to the State Supreme Court straight from a district court. And while the governor would be replacing one conservative justice with another, I also don't know how obstreperous the Senate Democrats would choose to be. My personal guess is that with an 18-17 majority, there are any number of sane Senators willing to be reasonable.

What Do They Stand For?

The folks over at ProgressNow are having a little identity crisis.

Some are talking about how we can "frame" our issues better. Others are arguing over a list of common values or positions. But it's really the same conversation -- What do we stand for?

So, in the spirit of the conservative manifesto The Wisdom of Crowds (although one might be tempted to question the wisdom of this crowd), they've thrown the floor open for suggestions.

Well, when an old boss like JB calls for help, how can I refuse?

• We stand for activist judges - when we agree with them.
  
• We stand with our enemies and against our country.
  
• We stand for the environment.
  
• We stand for interpreting "the environment" to mean anything we like, robbing it of practical value but not of practical effect.
  
• We stand for "fairness."
  
• We stand for income redistribution as fairness.
  
• We stand for racial preferences as fairness, even after they have long outlived their usefulness.
  
• We stand for the Victim Society as "fairness."
  
• We stand for the balkanization of the culture as "fairness."
  
• We stand for subsidizing poverty as "fairness."
  
• We stand for religion - cleansed from the public square.
  
• We stand for the socializing of as much of society as possible.
  
• We stand for income tax withholding as a means of hiding the true costs of that socializing.
  
• We stand for public education - according to our orthodoxies.
  
• We stand for the restriction of free political speech.
  
• We stand for the laundering of political money through unions.
  
• Finally, We stand for plausible deniability of this list. Which is where your suggestions come in.
  

"To succeed, we need to be able to answer such a question during an elevator ride."

No, not because by the time they finish, people will be fighting over the emergency phone and lifting each other through the maintenance panel on the ceiling.

Because with them, it really is still about words, not ideas.

The RMA Recaps With the Governor

As Clay has mentioned, several members of the RMA had the distinctive opportunity to meet with Governor Owens yesterday and recap the legislative session. We had been told we'd get 30 minutes, but the Governor graciously extended that to over an hour. Besides Clay and I, Kestrel and Mr. Virtus attended, contributing far more insight than I to the conversation.

As with Clay, I'll reserve my comments until I've had a chance to consider them, but I'm afraid that this blog, and its purple houses, may yet contribute in some small way to a gubernatorial veto. The issue is still undecided...

Short on Time

Even if I'm short on time, as long as the Reactionaries are around, I'm never short on material.

We all know (cough, cough) that there shouldn't be a religious test for public office. Today finds the Reactionaries shedding crocodile tears over a church that wants to establish an Official Politics. I agree completely.

And then, laying their mud foundation for next year's Governor's race,

According to an independent campaign finance website, www.tray.com, Rep. Beauprez has taken $29,901 from embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's PAC, Americans for a Republican Majority or "ARMPAC".

"We are concerned that Beauprez is being bought and sold by Tom DeLay," added Huttner.

Given that one of Hillary's chief fundraisers has actually gone to trial, I'm sure we'll be seeing a call soon for Ken Salazar ($10,000) and the Colorado Democratic Party ($10,000) to return their money to HillPAC.

I'd add Tom Strickland ($10K) and Mike Feeley ($5K) to the list, but there's no point, I suppose...

Coffman Bows Out

State Treasurer Mike Coffman has decided not to run for Governor, after all, apparently conceding the ground to Representative Bob Beauprez of the 7th District. The Post speculates that he'll run for Beauprez's seat instead. This would imply that Beauprez has all but decided to run. DU President Marc Holtzman is still in the race, for the time being, but Beauprez's star power in the party is probably too much for him.

I can't say I'm entirely thrilled about this turn. The 7th is still closely-divided, and has become, if anything, slightly more Demcratic since it was formed, although the margin is only a couple of thousand voters. Beauprez could hold that seat as long as he liked, and is now on the Ways and Means Committee.

On the other hand, taking back the legislature is not going to be easy, and the party may be judging that having a Democratic governor and General Assembly is more dangerous to your wallet than losing one house race.

Stay tuned.

"Drought" Over

Well, yes, that drought, too. But, this is what I had in mind.

Naturally, we're still getting the warnings from the usual scolds that the reservoirs aren't full, and that the Platte snowpack is below normal. All this is true, and we'll still have to put up with watering restrictions this year.

What bothers me is terminology. "Drought" is a meteorological condition. "Shortage" is an economic one. The "drought" is, in fact over, as has been for some time. The water shortage is likely to go on, as it has for the last, oh, 150 years or so.

Look, almost the entire state's snowpack is back over 100%. You don't go from below-normal to above-normal without above-normal snowfall. In business terms, "drought" is an income-statement problem, while the "shortage" is on the balance-sheet.

The water managers are essentially accountants in this matter, and they have a healthy accounting conservatism. But use of the word "drought" to mean a 5-year period, in which exactly one year's precip fell below average is political. It's intended to scare people, and to stampede them into accepting permanent and unnecessary changes in lifestyle, when a few well-placed water projects could solve the problem for generations. In fact, by referring to the "5-year drought" or "ongoing drought," these reactionaries take water projects off the table altogether, since you can't really save what's not coming down in the first place.

Look, Coloradoans have done some silly things with our water. We're not living inside Bio-Sphere II, and we can't just plop down maples and crabapples and Kentucky blue-grass and think it's not going to cost anything. I've xeriscaped a portion of the front yard where the grass was struggling (naturally, now it's invited itself in) and any re-seeding has been with fescue. The washing machine is a front-loader, which uses less water. The actual cost of water is still pretty low, as a portion of the monthly budget, lower than the cable bill, for instance.

Still, you can only achieve so much by savings; fixing old reservoirs and even building a few new ones is just common sense. Calling a non-drought a drought is just dishonest. It's typical of the enviro-left that they can't win without these distortions. It's also typical that there's plenty of middle ground they don't care to explore.

The Pill Bill

The Colorado Legislature has passed a bill requiring all hospitals to tell rape victims about "emergency contraception," basically pills that abort a potential pregnancy. It's on the governor's desk now.

Naturally, the Post treats this like a personal religious crisis for Owens, ("Pill Bill to Test Owens"), as though he were Roger Williams or Brigham Young. Apparently, the notion that there might be non-religious reasons for respecting other peoples' religious practice is something that Post editorial policy can't quite get its arms around. Apparently, the Post can't abide someone's political beliefs coinciding with his religious beliefs.

During Tuesday's debate in the House, [bill sponsor Betty] Boyd said the bill covers institutions, not individuals. Individual medical workers could opt to have someone else tell a patient about emergency contraception, she said.

And no hospital will be forced to provide the pills, she said. Rather, hospitals would be required to refer patients to another source for the pills.

Oh, that's persuasive. As though institutions weren't permitted to hold and exercise a point of view. Let's try applying that logic to the public schools some time, and see how far that gets you with Rep. Boyd.

Orthodox Judaism takes a different view of an embryo from Catholicism. Until implantation, the embryo has no status, and even then, the status is at best murky for 40 days. Denver doesn't happen to have any hospitals under rabbinical supervision, but even Hadassah in Jerusalem would be able to abide by the new bill in good conscience.

This isn't about my own position on the matter. It's about Church-run hospitals having the right practice medicine in a manner consistent with their own beliefs.

TABOR Blogging

Governor 2006

In what had to be a bone-jarring moment for Mike Coffman and Marc Holtzman, the crowd here just applauded enthusiastically for Bob Beauprez's presumptive Gubernatorial candidacy in 2006.

Alert Barry Lynn!

This is a Jewish site, so with all due respect to my fellow RMA bloggers, I don't tend to throw a lot of crosses onto the blog. Still, I really thought the Progressives, the ACLU, Americans United for Division, etc., should know about this. As always, click to enrage - er, enlarge.

Colorado Election Numbers

Ben Degrow cites Ted Halaby's campaign letter for National Committeman, and its notation that Republicans outpolled Democrats by 36,000 votes in state legislative races.

As they say on that other radio network, "Let's do the numbers."

I totaled up the State House of Representatives votes going back to 1996. This was by far the worst aggregate showing for Republicans in the list. For simplicity's sake, I only counted percentages for the Republicans and Democrats. The only time other parties have a decent showing is when one of these two is absent from a race.

In percentage terms, the Republicans beat the Democrats by 1 point this year. Going backwards, they won in prior years by 13, 13, 16, and 23 points in 1996. The Democrats didn't win a majority in either House or Senate races, and most of their candidates won by running as centrists, so this hardly constitutes a "new progressive majority" by any standard. Indeed, as the Democrats seem to have as hard a time counting their own votes as they do counting election ballots, it's not even clear there's a progressive majority within their own party.

But it also means that the move was more than the "technical win" cited by Dick Wadhams and other party activitst. (This doesn't mean there isn't a lot of party-building work to do; it just makes it a necessary but insufficient condition for winning.)

Ben also points out that the aggregate vote, much like the national popular vote, is meaningless when it comes to doling out committee chairmanships (or Presidencies). In fact, the Republicans in the state have historically won 3-5 seats fewer than would be predicted by their vote total. (Since Colorado apportions legislative seats by a nonpartisan commission, my guess is that it's highly unlikely this is a deliberate result. In Minnesota, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, they've run several seats ahead of their vote total for the last few elections.)*

Both Ben and Clay are supporting Bob Schaffer for the post, and it would certainly help heal some of the divisions from the last election. One question is: how much will Schaffer's undercutting of Ramey Johnson be held against him?

*In calculating the expected number of wins, I use Bill James's "Pythagorean Method," which pretty accurately predicts a baseball team's wins based on the number of runs scored/run allowed. He uses the square of the number of runs, and comes much closer to actual records. Since each seat would represent a "win," my working hypothesis is that this formula works better than a straight percentage. I'm actually going to spend some time rounding up numbers from around the country and seeing what works best.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

Colorado does not redistrict by nonpartisan commission. Redistricting is handled by a bi-partisan committee of legislators, and must be passed through the legislature like any other law. Which means in the 1980 and 1990 redistricting rounds, it had to pass two republican-held chambers and be signed by a democratic governor. In the 2000 redistricting round, it had to pass through a democratic-controlled Senate and republican-controlled House, and be signed by a republican governor. The legislature failed to accomplish this by the end of session, and so the process had to be adjudicated in the courts - by a highly partisan, democratic judge that chose a set of maps drawn by the state Democratic Party.

He is correct, although the state redistricting has usually gone smoothly, and wasn't the source of 2002's rancor.

Paden for Golden

Pending signature validation, Friend of the Alliance, and foot doctor extraordinaire Barbara Paden is now officially a candidate for the vacant Golden City Council Seat.

This means that her campaign is taking contributions, for one thing.

Barbara was a blogger before she was a candidate, so her campaign blog should be good reading in its own right, as opposed to most politicans' blogs. That alone is reason to help out.

"What's Wifi?"

In a debate on Senate Bill SB05-152, which would prevent municipalities from directly building telecom networks and competing with private companies, committee chairman Sen. Deanna Hanna was heard to ask one opponent of the bill, "What's Wifi?" Way to do your homework, Senator.

Glenn Fleishmann has written eloquently and persuasively about the need to keep open the option of municipal wifi networks, and the attempts by various state legislatures to foreclose the option.

My own inclination is that governments shouldn't be competing against private industry where it's at all avoidable. The inherent regulatory conflicts of interest are too obvious. DU Professor Ron Rizzuto reiterated his study that municipal telecom networks almost never pay for themselves, but that the temptation to mix in funds from, say, the electric utility, is too tempting. In the long run, such services tend to benefit from relaxed treatment, and deliver substandard service at a high, hidden cost.

That said, a blanket ban on municipal or county telecom networks is probably a mistake. The argument comes down to what a utility is, and what the government's role in providing that utility should be. I do believe that wifi will quickly become a utility, just as cellphone service has in the last decade or so. Such a utility could be quite profitable in a large city like Denver or Boulder. But small towns and rural areas might want access, as well. There, the co-op model already provides electricity and water, and in some cases phone service, without competing with an non-existent incumbent.

In the end, my main goal is to get all the phone poles torn down, and have us all using VOIP, anyway, so whatever speeds that transition has my ear. Locking out an option on principle rather than experience seems a little hasty.

DU CR CPAC

By a quirk of fate, DU College Republicans meet right after my risk management class in the same room. It turns out that a bunch of them went to CPAC, and I got a chance to see what about the conference a set of enthusiastic, starstruck Republican undergrads found most interesting.

The five students who attended were Charlie Smith, Conor McGahey, Melanie Harmon, Dan Cutts, and Nichole Walker (who wasn't in school, but in the hospital instead).

The biggest hits were Newt, Ann Coulter, Wayne LaPierre, and Ken Mehlman. Mehlman pointed out that the Dems met all of their vote goals - they just got outvoted. The Republicans, having more real estate to work with, were able to get 1 or 2 more votes per precinct and out-gain the Dems enough for a decisive win.

I asked them about their impressions for '08, and all four of them pointed to George "The Future Is Now" Allen. Allen's speech was apparently very successful, very forward-looking and optimistic. And while he's a Senator now, he has been governor of Virginia, which gives him an executive mentality lacking in most legislators. Plus, he went to a very good school.

Sounded like they have a terrific time, and came back charged up and ready to continue the fight.

Foot in the Door

Friend of the Alliance, Barbara Paden, AKA Girl in Right, is just a few signatures short of a ballot line.

No, really. She's trying to make the leap from the commentariat to the secretariat, running for a vacant seat on the Golden City Council, and she needs just a few more signatures to guarantee a line.

If you live in Golden, and are eligible to vote, and are registered to vote, and aren't a felon, and don't expect to get paid for your signature, please stop by, or contact her campaign (303-525-1503), and she'll make arrangements to collect your signature.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Now, let's see. I work during the week. I can't go test-drive cars on Saturday. It's illegal for a dealership to sell me a car on Sunday. Read that again. Walking through a large parking lot tell me nothing - < DeNiro as Capone Voice >nothing < /DeNiro as Capone Voice > - about the car. Which means that I have to take time off work to go buy a car, if I want to see it by anything brighter than the light of the silvery moon. What's more, if I owned a car dealership, I'd need to be closed both Saturday and Sunday.

Let's keep it that way.

Others said most dealerships don't want to open Sundays because it gives employees the day off and levels the competition if all lots are closed. Others said it gives consumers a day to look at cars without salespeople hovering over them.

This doesn't have anything to do with employees' religious observance. I realize that most car salesmen could use all the time in church they can get, but my guess is that this isn't where most of the are going. It has to do with car companies keeping their costs down, helped out by the government. While a specific car may be something of an impulse buy, my guess is that most people and business that are going to buy cars are going to buy them anyway. So the dealerships know they can stay closed and still make the same number of sales.

We have a chain of hobby stores here called "Hobby Lobby." You know, they sell frames and mirrors and cardboard and ribbons and buttons and bows. They're closed on Sunday. Michael's, the national chain, isn't. Hobby Lobby believes in this enough to take the hit. Why does Freeway Ford get a free pass?

I want to see people in church on Sunday, too, but if they're in church, they're not out buying the cars, either. Seriously, if an auto dealership advertised itself as "Sundays-off, Family-friendly," and if that mattered to people, which it clearly does, then they could make a point of shopping there.

Tell you what. Give 'em Wednesday off, and don't open until noon on Sundays. Or, if you're close on Saturdays, you don't have to be closed on Sundays.

Either that, or get The Progressives to propose a bill requiring that employers give employees time off to go buy a car. Heh.

UPDATE: Bill Scanlon of the Rocky replies to an email, "Rep. Weissman pushed it, knowing it would fail, but wanting to see how much support it would have. He said he though he had 29 votes. The voice vote seemed to indicate that he had about that many, although a later formal vote indicated that he only had 13."

So this was clearly bipartisan nannying.

A Poll Too Late

About a week ago, the Washington Post reported on how The Commute is faring in my old hometown. ("Painful Commutes Don't Stop Drivers", and accompanying poll.) If anything, things seem to have deteriorated even further since I left, and the traffic was one of the aggravating factors in my leaving.

Unfortunately, I seem to be a carrier, because the Denver area seems destined to repeat DC's mistakes. I wish this article and survey had been available last year when our friends at the Independence Institute were trying to persuade us that FasTracks was a mistake.

The one thing they seem most unwilling to do is give up their cars, so they accept long and frustrating commutes as the price for other lifestyle choices.

...

"There's nothing we can do to fix it," said Dan Tangherlini, the District's transportation director. "There are things we can do to try to influence it. But it is a little frustrating when most people sit around and agree that people are making all the wrong choices and yet more and more people are doing it."

Naturally, the people are making "all the wrong choices." Yes, I agree. Foremost among those wrong choices was an expensive below-ground subway system that was obsolete as soon as it was approved. It's completely unequipped to handle cross-county commuting, and it ends in what are now the inner suburbs. It picked winners and losers, can't possibly have nearly enough spokes or parking to be near enough people to be worthwhile or convenient.

Blaming people because they'd rather sit in their own private car, listening to what they please, rather than sweat it out, lurching along with a few dozen co-commters in tunnels where they can't call to say they'll be late? Yes, that's the worst of the bureaucratic mentality at work. Everyone is just making that "wrong choice" that they'd rather have flexibility and comfort, even at the price of a long, unpredictable commute. That's not a "wrong choice," that's a "trade-off."

Sadly, even Washingonians don't seem to have learned the lesson:

Solid majorities of area residents polled support a variety of big-ticket items to help ease traffic congestion, from extending Metro to Dulles International Airport to building an intercounty connector in the Maryland suburbs. Half would even be willing to pay higher gasoline taxes to fund transportation projects, compared with a third nationally.

I suspect the same flawed logic is at work here as built Metro in the first place, and that led to FasTracks: we'll build this, and that will get everyone else off my road.

Look, Maryland has been a terrible roadblock back there. A lot of DC's congestion is through truck traffic that has no place to go but the Beltway. DC won't finish I-95 through the city; and Maryland has blocked both eastern bypasses (to permit I-95 traffic to flow around the city), and western bypasses (to let other I-95 traffic connect with I-70 or I-270). Next time a shipment of nails from Birmingham bound for Camden spills and turns Northern Virginia into a parking lot for 10 hours, send your complaints to Annapolis.

One big reason that drives are longer here is that traffic tie-ups are far more frequent. Nearly 6 in 10 commuters say they get tangled up in traffic jams at least once a week. And more than 1 in 4 -- 28 percent -- said they encounter serious tie-ups every day, compared with 9 percent of commuters nationally.

Inconsistency is a classic symptom of a system operating near the edge.

"Sometimes it's just plain scary," said Danitza Valdivia, 31, a project assistant who lives in Northwest Washington and works near MCI Center -- a four-mile commute as the crow flies that takes her a half-hour to negotiate. "I get to work and have to take a coffee break before I start my workday."

The last few times I've gone back to DC, it's been Highway Culture Shock. I had forgotten how erratic the drivers are there. Of course, this doesn't get them more than a few car lengths during the course of an hour, and is probably responsible for a fair number of the accidents and tie-ups.

There's no question that traffic here is worse, and the drivers more aggressive than they were eight years ago when I moved here. Still, people assimilate. It's rare to get beeped at for not jack-rabbiting off a green light, for instance.

Still, it's still a manageable problem. C-470/E-470 is helping, and plans to widen US-36 between Denver and Boulder are an absolute must.

People are not going to get out of their cars, by and large.

Update on HIV Bill

Senator Windels has apparently decided (or been advised) that her bill, as written, isn't going to work.

The Judiciary Committee has held it over indefinitely.

Hanna Barbarians

The self-proclaimed Progressives (I like Bainbridge's point that they're Leftists hijacking the word "progressive") are throwing their - weight - behind a bill to require all contractors to the state to perform their work in the US. SB-05-023 is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Deanna Hanna (D-Westminster).

The bill provides for a pre-contract certification, penalties if any of the work is shifted overseas, the right for the state the sue, and a 3-year lockout from future contracts if any work is offshored.

There are plenty of good macroeconomic reasons for offshoring work:

In July, economist Martin N. Baily, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, looked at who benefits from outsourcing. He found that... on balance, the U.S. economy gains $1.12 to $1.14 for every $1 invested in outsourcing.

In August, economist Charles Schultze, chairman of the CEA under President Carter, looked at the number of jobs lost to outsourcing. He found that between the end of 2000 and the end of 2003, at most 215,000 jobs service sector jobs were lost.

... U.S. imports of computing services -- the most controversial area of outsourcing -- came to just 0.4 percent of the gross domestic product in 2003.

(Hat Tip: EconLog)

And plenty of reasons to think that the only "deflation" is of leftist economic trial balloons.

More importantly, it's terrible budget sense. It all seems so reasonable. But for a gang that got elected promising to be fiscal conservatives, this ain't cheap.

Every bill has to have a Fiscal Impact Summary, describing, well, fiscal impact. This one doesn't even bother to estimate the costs, because they can't:

This bill may increase expenditures for a number of state agencies that contract for services with companies that perform services from sites located outside the United States. In most cases, the increases are not quantifiable, but stem from either (1) the limitation of vendor competition, or (2)
the elimination of potential vendors altogether. The following are examples of projects when departments would have incurred higher costs because of this bill's vendor limitations. These examples are not intended to be comprehensive but rather to provide anecdotal evidence for the types of state expenditure increases that would be incurred.

Here's anecdotal evidence:

Department of Personnel and Administration. The bill would affect the Division of Information Technology. Currently, the state's main central processing unit is made by IBM, whose primary support service headquarters is located in Asia. This bill would prohibit the state from obtaining any technical support with regard to the CPU. The division also utilizes two important software packages that are produced in London and Israel, respectively. This bill would affect the division's ability to both utilize and receive technical service on these packages.

Look, it's not like this kind of this hasn't been tried before. It's been very costly. And just remember whose capital it is that's going to fund this.

I will give them points for proper use of the term "paleocon," something that frequently eludes the Left, which suggests that maybe these guys are coachable, even if they do choose to associate themselves with the conservative economic illiterates.

Say it with me: Progressively More Expensive. Progressively More Intrusive. Progressively More Restrictive.

Oh, And About That Cigarette...

The health mullahs move forward. Having spent the better part of a century trying to get the government out of the bedroom, the Progressives (sic), are now using "health concerns" wedge their way back into it. Tomorrow, Sue Windels's bill to make having AIDS and having sex a crime comes up for a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

Michael had noted this before, as well as suggesting a possible disparate impact objection.

After the bill defines "sexual intercourse," it goes on to make an exception if the infected tells the soon-to-be-infected beforehand. Romantic as that sounds, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before strict liability forces bars to keep a small quiet table in the corner reserved for the notary public.

And then there's this debate going on over at Legal Affairs (hat tip: the Instapundit).

Say it with me: Progressively more expensive. Progressively more intrusive. Progressively more restrictive.

"Hi, Are You Registered to Vote..."

Evidently, the LPR is beginning to fulfill its mission. A Friend of the Alliance is now seeking to be a Friend of the People. Girl in Right, who hails from the Golden State but now lives in Golden, CO, is preparing a run for City Council.

Golden, for those of you who don't know, was the first territorial capital of Colorado, and is now an adjuct to the Colorado Mills Mall...

Hat Tip: Clay

Double-Dipping II

I asked State Treasurer Mike Coffman why leaving early and collecting PERA benefits made a difference to the state. It seemed to me that if you weren't accumulating seniority, you might start getting benefits early, but they'd be lower than if you waited.

Turns out there are two cases where that's not true. A friend of mine pointed out that after 25 years, PERA benefits don't increase. Which means that someone double-dipping really is costing the system money.

In the case Coffman cited to me, under PERA, you can buy years of benefits ahead of time. The problem is that until recently, the discount rate used to estimate the pre-payment was so high that it didn't cover the costs. If I pre-pay assuming that the government will make 8%, but it can only return 5%, the pension plan will be on the hook for the extra 3% in a defined-benefit plan.

I should also point out that Coffman has bond immunized College Invest, a pre-paid college tuition plan that had fallen short of its projected needs. By buying bonds to match known outgoing cash flows, Coffman has made sure that the system can cover those flows. Presumably the fund managers will still have to work at rebalancing from time to time, but that's a much easier job that playing catch-up.

LPR Report

Clay has a superb report from the Leadership Program of the Rockies retreat. A terrific lineup. The LPR people did a dynamite job of pulling in the top-rank talent from across the country, the people really contributing ideas.

I've only met Jim Spencer once, and he was pleasant enough, but I think the group was much better-served by having Littwin there. Even though they're both Virginians, and Tidewater Virginians, at that.

Ethical Schools

This, from Treasurer Mike Coffman:

State Capitol-State Treasurer Mike Coffman on Monday requested that Michael McArdle, Director of the Division of Labor for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, investigate two potential violations of Colorado's Independent Contractor regulations.

The request stems from recent reports that in both Delta and Adams counties the school superintendent officially retired, started drawing his pension from the state's Public Employee's Retirement Association (PERA) and then came back to work the next day performing the same work. These individuals did this by creating "consulting" firms, which then contracted with the district to provide the services of a superintendent. As "independent" contractors, these superintendents proceeded to draw both their pension as a retiree and a full salary as a contractor.

This is a problem. This is a problem because 1) these people are, to all intents and purposes, still employees doing their old jobs, 2) they're collecting both salary and pension while working. I overheard a conversation back in January to this effect, from people who seemed to be discussing it approvingly. It seemed - not right - then, and I glad to see that someone is looking into it.

Coffman does make two points, though, that I'm not sure I understand. He claims that the counties are 1) avoiding paying payroll taxes and 2) avoiding paying into PERA. My understanding is that PERA benefits might not be due at this point, but that the employee technically wouldn't be accruing any more of them. Also, if the county isn't paying payroll taxes, then someone must be, probably the employee's S-corp that he's set up. So I'm uncertain how the state, or even the other counties, lose out here.

That said, it certainly doesn't smell good.

Statehouse Stasists

In a move all but guaranteed to get them into Virginia Postrel's next book, Democrats in the state Senate are pushing a bill to require businesses to give employees time off to attend their children's school events.

The law:

• Requires up to 5 hours a month, 40 hours a year
  
• Permits businesses to limit absences to 2 1/2 hour shifts
  
• Exempts farm workers, private domestics, independent contractors
  
• Exempts emergency and health care workers
  
• Allows businesses to requires parents to get a note from their principal
  
• Actually lists a variety of "school activities"
  
• Exempts companies with fewer than 10 employees
  
• Only applies to times when 10 people or more are actually working
  

Talk about micromanaging! When a law has this many exceptions, caveats, details, and exemptions, it's a pretty good sign that it's a pretty bad idea. It's a simple idea. So simple, in fact, that most adults can probably be relied on to figure out the details for themselves.

UPDATE: A couple of requests to explain myself. Here's the problem. Look at the number of caveats applied to this very simple notion. The legislature is clearly trying to capture all the contingencies that might affect the appropriateness of the law. But I can think of 5 or 10 more without breaking a sweat, and I'll bet you can, too. And I can think of social trends that could make the law either intrusive or unnecessary.

The problem with passing a law to deal with micro-issues like this is that it's entirely too easy to make a mistake, and the only way to undo it is to amend the law or repeal it. If you're looking for an imperfect solution, there are far more flexible and responsive ways to get there.

Judging Financial Impact

By law, any piece of proposed legislation must be assessed for the future financial impact on the state, looking at project effects on both taxes and spending. Like this assessment of this seemingly innocuous bill, for instance.

Now, Representative McCluskey and Senator Lamborn are proposing that Colorado adopt Dynamic Modeling to assess these effects for tax policy changes at the request of the Assembly leadership. This made quit a stir when the national Republicans started using it for changes at the Federal level a few years ago.

It