April 01, 2010 09:09 PM UTC

8,000 Coloradans Spank Suthers

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Colorado House Democrats fired off a stinging letter to John Suthers today, here’s an excerpt from Speaker Terrance Carroll (click here to download the letter in .PDF format):

It is ironic that you, a Republican, now oppose the indivudal mandate given this provision was originally a Republican idea. Republicans introduced the individual mandate in President George H.W. Bush’s Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993. The leading GOP alternative plan during President Clinton’s health reofrm effort, the 1994 Consumer Choice Health Security Act, also included an individual mandate.

As the Attorney General for the state of Colorado, you are tasked with representing the best interest of Colorado, not special interests that are trying to undermine much needed health care reform.

Westword’s Michael Roberts reports:

Last week, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers joined a dozen peers around the country to sue the federal government in an effort to stop the new health-care law. “I understand that many citizens of Colorado will allege that this lawsuit is politically motivated. It is not. I am not reacting to any group or constituency,” Suthers said at the time.

ProgressNow Colorado executive director Bobby Clark doesn’t buy that — and neither do the at least 8,448 people who’ve signed a petition protesting the move that will be delivered to Suthers’ office at 10:30 a.m. today.

“This is the strongest, fastest response to a petition in the history of our organization,” Clark says. “Clearly, people are really upset about this.”

The volume of petition participation caught Clark by surprise. After all, he says, “we got a late start. He announced his decision a week ago Monday, and we weren’t able to launch until last Saturday — which is typically not a good time to launch, since people don’t pay as much attention to their e-mails on the weekend. But we got a fantastic response right away.”

The reason, in Clark’s view?

“There’s not a single credible nonpartisan legal scholar in the country that I’m aware of that thinks this lawsuit has merit,” he maintains. “And the fact that all these AGs announced this decision so quickly after health care passed absolutely looks like a partisan effort to stop it by the next means available, which is a challenge in the courts. But it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Seems like that’s a pretty good number for an online petition, though we don’t claim to be experts–to put it in perspective, radio host David Sirota delivered a health care-related petition to Sen. Michael Bennet’s office recently, but it was circulated nationally by a leading progressive activist group. Proportionately, actual Coloradans probably didn’t amount to 8,000 of its 35,000 total. Full text of Progress Now’s release after the jump.

Put another way, it’s 8,000 potential volunteers primed to get another email, about somebody else.

Over 8,400 Coloradans stand up to oppose Attorney General Suthers’ partisan political attack on healthcare reform

Suther’s foolish attempt to block reform is a waste of precious taxpayer dollars

For Immediate Release: Thursday, April 1, 2010

Contact: Bobby Clark, Executive Director, at 303-905-8375

Denver – Today, ProgressNow Colorado Executive Director Bobby Clark delivered to Colorado Attorney General John Suthers more than 8,400 signatures from 57 counties in Colorado on a petition opposing Suthers’ lawsuit attempting to block healthcare reform. Clark offered the following statement.

“The Denver Post got it right. This lawsuit ‘lacks merit’ and ‘appears to be politically motivated’.”

“Nearly 750,000 Coloradans who do not currently have health insurance will be covered because of the historic healthcare reform passed by Congress and signed by President Obama. This year, young people in Colorado can no longer be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions, and young people can remain on their parents’ insurance through age 26. This year, over 68,000 small businesses in Colorado can receive a tax credit to help pay for insurance for their employees. This year, seniors who have been caught in Medicare’s donut hole will receive a tax rebate to help pay for their prescription drugs not previously covered under Medicare. And this year, every Coloradan can feel more secure that their insurance will not be dropped when they most need it. Attorney General Suthers’ lawsuit is a foolish and politically-motivated waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“Misusing his office for partisan politics seems to be a pattern with Suthers. Just a few weeks ago, Suthers threw the weight of his office behind the extreme right wing “Clear the Bench” organization by publicly stating his intent to vote against retaining three judges on Colorado’s Supreme Court just because they don’t adopt his extreme right-wing ideology. We’ve also criticized Suthers in the past for using the Attorney General’s office to engage in political battles in other states, including a lawsuit over same-sex marriage in Nebraska.”

“Clearly, Suthers is a politically ambitious person who wants to make a national name for himself as a crusader for the right wing. And, given his politically active past, his announcement just days after healthcare reform passed that he’s going to continue the Republicans’ fight against healthcare for Colorado’s children and families in the courts came as no surprise. But as Colorado’s Attorney General he is accountable to all of the people of Colorado. And he needs to stop wasting our state’s precious taxpayer dollars on his political windmill-tilting.”

ProgressNow Colorado is the state’s largest online advocacy organization, with hundreds of thousands of email members across Colorado.

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