March 28, 2016 10:47 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Monday (March 28)

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• by: Colorado Pols

If you were in Canada, you’d have the day off today for Easter Monday (you’d also have a totally dreamy Prime Minister). It’s time to Get More Smarter with Colorado Pols! If you think we missed something important, please include the link in the comments below (here’s a good example).

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► Colorado’s budget makes its way to the House floor today, and there are plenty of concerns about funding cuts. Monique Becker of the Loveland Reporter-Herald reports on how legislators in Northern Colorado are explaining the budget problems to local constituents; Joe St. George of Fox 31 Denver outlines a broader Q&A on the state budget; and Kelsey Ray of the Colorado Independent looks at budget discussions that could cost nearly 100 jobs because of GOP partisan opposition to the Clean Power Plan.

► Former Fox 31 reporter Eli Stokols, now with Politico, takes a look at how Republican Presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich are sifting through a list of unpledged Colorado GOP delegates:

With a still unsettled three-way primary fight appearing to be headed for a contested convention in July, Colorado’s GOP assemblies over the next week offer Donald Trump and Ted Cruz a major opportunity to win a significant pile of delegates chosen almost completely by party insiders. Now, it’s up to the three candidates to convince the party to pick delegates who promise to vote in their favor…
…Cruz confirmed Monday that he will attend the Colorado GOP’s state assembly on April 9. And Trump and John Kasich are also tentatively planning to attend the confab of roughly 6,000 party activists in Colorado Springs, where 27 of the state’s 33 delegates to the RNC convention will be elected.

April 9th is going to be YUGE in Colorado Springs!

► Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal rejected the wishes of his fellow Republican lawmakers in vetoing a so-called “religious freedom” bill today. From the Washington Post:

Deal on Monday vetoed a controversial religious liberties bill that had provoked outrage from Hollywood, sports leagues and corporations for what critics said was its discrimination against gay and transgender people.

“I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia, which I and my family have been a part of for generations,” Deal said at a news conference announcing his decision.

Deal’s decision comes two weeks after the state legislature passed a bill aimed at shoring up the rights of religious organizations to refuse services that clash with their faith, particularly with regard to same-sex marriage. Deal, who had already expressed discomfort with the measure, came under enormous pressure to veto the bill after the National Football League suggested it might pass over Atlanta for future Super Bowls, and leading Hollywood figures threatened to pull production from the state.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► “Not her, him.”

► The Colorado Springs Business Journal publishes a strongly-worded editorial critical of State Senate President Bill Cadman’s stubborn refusal to allow the so-called “Hospital Provider Fee” to even make it to the floor for debate:

Colorado’s leaders have found a solution to the state’s thorny budget problem. It’s simple; it’s legal and it has the support of nearly every business group from the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce to the Colorado Springs Regional Business Alliance.

The solution: Move the hospital provider fee from the general fund to its own enterprise fund. Since it has a dedicated use — to match federal Medicaid dollars on a one-to-one basis — it doesn’t belong in the general fund. Since it’s a fee, not a tax, that hospitals pay to reduce their uncompensated debt and charity care, it doesn’t belong in calculated revenue limits under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. And there are $60 million reasons why the change is vital.

There’s only one man standing in the way: Sen. Bill Cadman. Cadman, who represents a portion of Colorado Springs in the General Assembly, is the Senate president. It’s his job to make sure legislation gets a vote — but he has said he doesn’t support this change and believes it’s illegal.

We’d encourage you to read the full editorial, which really takes Cadman to task for siding with Americans for Prosperity instead of Colorado voters.

► Democratic Presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton will be in Colorado in April for a fundraiser at the home of Governor John Hickenlooper. Vice President Joe Biden will be in town one day later to help raise money for the re-election campaign of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Denver).

► Congressman Scott Tipton (R-Cortez) has drawn a primary challenge in CD-3…sort of. Alex Beinstein, a 27-year-old Carbondale man, probably doesn’t have enough time or support to get his name on the Primary ballot through the caucus process.

► Governor John Hickenlooper is pushing for federal action on cleaning up contaminated mines throughout the West. As Bruce Finley reports for the Denver Post:

As part of the push, Hickenlooper said he would like to call a water summit at Four Corners with governors from New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

And he’s “all for” turning Silverton, beneath the Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado, into  a research hub to find the best way to neutralize old mines — short of installing water treatment plants on every contaminated waterway.

“Are we sure there’s not some much less expensive way to deal with this issue? It was what they were trying to get at when they put in those big plugs,” Hickenlooper said, referring to past efforts to contain toxic drainage underground.

 

► Republican State Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg again seems to be the major sticking point in preventing legislation to make it legal to use rain barrels in Colorado. This is a pretty weird legacy if you ask us — to be the guy who stood between the people and their rain barrels — but Sonnenberg is also kind of a strange duck.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► Dear Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma): #DoYourJob.

► Taking the classic approach of a blustering bully, Fidel Castro waited until President Obama had departed Cuba before he ripped into the United States. From Politico:

President Barack Obama did not meet with Fidel Castro during his historic visit to Cuba last week, but apparently that does not mean that Castro did not have any thoughts about el presidente norteamericano in his country.

Castro ripped into the president and his words during the visit in El Granma, the official state newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, bringing up Obama’s relative youth, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the role of both countries in ending the apartheid in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent in an article titled “El hermano Obama.”

And stay off my lawn!

ICYMI

► State Senate Republicans are running around in circles over education reform. During discussions over a bill intended to reduce testing requirements for ninth grade students in Colorado, Republicans inexplicably approved an amendment to allow rural school districts to hire unlicensed teachers. As we wrote on Friday:

It’s anybody’s guess what Sen. Owen Hill was trying to achieve with this amendment, but the rest of the Senate Education Committee including top-tier Democratic target Sen. Laura Waters Woods all jumped on board. Earlier in this same hearing, a bill for tax credits to offset private school tuition passed on a party-line vote. Perhaps this bill to eliminate ninth grade testing was a little too bipartisan, and Hill needed to spike it?

Whatever the reason, you had Senate Republicans yesterday, including their most vulnerable incumbent, voting for private school vouchers–and then voting to let unlicensed teachers into rural schools. The grand scheme at work here had better be good, because on any normal day we’d call these highly toxic votes.

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