No surprise here, as Lynn Bartels reports in “The Spot“:
Colorado’s next Senate minority leader ripped Democrats today, saying with them in charge, “We’ve had an assault on freedom within our state.” [Pols emphasis]
Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, made his remarks after he was unanimously elected minority leader. He takes over after the session ends, which is scheduled for May 12…
…Kopp, who was first elected in 2006, also said Democrats refused to work in a bipartisan manner, which brought eye-rolling from those who knew what the Capitol was like under Republican control.
While current Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry was largely ineffective in getting anything done for Republicans, as the unofficial spokesperson of Republicans at the Capitol, he at least had the sense to avoid silly cliches like the “assault on freedom” nonsense that Kopp used today. It will be interesting to see if the election of Kopp signals a more Tea Party-esque positioning for Senate Republicans; if so, it’s going to be another disappointing election for the GOP this fall.
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Oy vey.
when I told him I was considering running for the state house of representatives.
9,513 Democrats
15,316 Republicans
12,109 unaffiliated
105 Libertarians
46 Greens
12 others
The challenge posed by those numbers has propelled me down an interesting path: Focusing on the need to build bridges across the ideological chasm, rather than merely indulge the habit of launching rhetorical ballistic missiles across it (as people running in safe Dem districts can, and must, do). Obviously, as is evident from my participation here, I still do too much of the latter. But, here in my district, I have founded a non-partisan communty organization, with the two most active members other than myself both leaning conservative. A little bit like our conversation (yesterday?) about alternative histories, the contingencies of life, and the narratives they catalyze, are endlessly fascinating….
in Gilpin that has worked on forest health issues relating to the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic. The big schism with that group was over spraying. The anti-pesticide group wouldn’t work with anyone who sprayed their trees. It got really testy with the anti-pesticide crowd using Cheney cherry picked facts to scare everyone about the dangers of pesticides as a carcinogen on on hand and the “Spray baby spray” crowd on the other. I was vilified because I spray and found that it has a 95% success rate for tree survival. I’m the ugly conservative when it comes to forest health issues because I spray. The hot button issues are different in different areas but I’ve found that possessing common sense is no guarantee of success in a local context. Find consensus is elusive wherever you are.
But I’m using some strategies to delay conflicts long enough that there are already some social bonds in place before they arise. Our first project is a volunteer tutoring and mentoring program in South Jeffco schools, in which most of the conflict is going to involve my convincing the district administration to open up its fiefdom to the peasants. (They accomodate volunteers, usually parents in their child’s classroom, on an ad hoc basis, but Cindy Stevenson is resistant to implementing a program that encourages and utilizes volunteerism. I know she’s going to change her mind; I just don’t know how long it will take to lead her to that epiphany.)
I think that the difficulty you identify points to the need to confront that problem head-on, in the design of the organization. I’ve already given that some thought, establishing agreements on how to civilize our conflicts. There’s no magic bullet, and conflict is sure to be a part of the landscape; the challenge is to frame it and channel it in a functonal way, or in the least dysfuntional way possible.
I’d be delighted for any novel suggestions on how to do that from others with organizational experience.
The “assaults on freedom” already? Penry was terrible at reining in the Schultheis Renfroe wing. Kopp will be worse.
Penry couldn’t control the Schultheis wing, but at least he tried not to parrot them. The Republicans don’t need another person to sound like Glenn Beck — they have plenty of those.
going to work out really, really well for them or totally backfire. I think it works for them short term and comes back to bite them in the ass in 2012.
Seems like it’s their current party mantra on every race from national on down to dogcatcher.
They actually did work at finding compromise and getting important work done. They took full political advantage everywhere they could, as they should. But at the end of the day they also worked to get the big problems addressed.
If Kopp’s going to spend his time posing and feeding red meat to the base rather than actually legislating, we’re all going to be poorer for it.
makes the previous generation look pretty good by comparison.
I cannot remember a single piece of major legislation that benefited this state that Penry or Brophy helped accomplish.
I’m not saying they didn’t and I’d be thrilled with examples. It’s just nothing is coming to mind.
And may I point out that 21 out of 35 Senators in this state are Democrats, every single Democrat voted for in favor–20 voted for the bill with Brandon Shaffer absent that day, which means 5 out of 14 Republicans make up the remainder of the vote and that would include Penry, who crossed over. So, unless I really can’t add, 4 Republicans joined Penry in his awesome co-sponsorship/leadership.
http://www.leg.state.co.us/Cli…
Brophy got cyclists protected on Colorado’s public roadways, and helped fight the CSP’s autocratic limits on rider numbers in events like Ride the Rockies, Triple Bypass, Elephant Rock, etc.
That is a good one, particularly up where I live, where apparently the Town has never heard of such a thing as bike paths.
they also worked to get the big problems addressed.
Are you basing this on anything that actually happened, or is this just your usual Pollyanna-ism?
Also I’ll ask you the converse – what really important legislation have they tried to block? Payday loans is the only one I can think of.