President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
September 29, 2009 12:14 AM UTC
49 Comments
Colorado is ready to let a bunch of inmates out of prison early to ease budget woes. Do we replace them with drunken drivers? And how do we pay for the incarceration?
Gardner is another of the “no new taxes” Republicans who needs to specify how he will pay for his law-and-order stand against crime. And “cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in government” doesn’t count. Be specific. Give details. Who gets cut so that we can lock up drunken drivers? Or do we need to gasp raise taxes?
to get these people off the roads one way or another. Incarceration is one way, house arrest is another. In any case, I think the state taking posession of the car they were driving while intoxicated/putting others’ lives at risk and selling it is one way to pay for the costs of prosecution/punishment.
No doubt Gardner is staking out this position for political expediency, but he’s right on target with his position now…better late than never.
don’t care whose car they’re driving. Take one away, they’ll drive another. They don’t care whether they have a driver’s license. They’ll get behind the wheel anyway. The only way to ensure they don’t drive again is to jail them, and that costs money.
but start taking the cars away and pretty soon their buddies/family members are going to be a bit more tight fisted with the keys.
Personally I don’t have a problem paying more in taxes to keep these a$$holes off the roads.
I can also tell you that drunk driving is a BIG business and it is subject to more rip offs of young people then the story describes. Young people are spending thousands of dollars caught in this drunk driving industry and basically have their pockets picked by professionals. Did I mention that this is a BIG business?
someone who is spending the rest of their life in a wheelchair thanks to a twenty-something who got loaded and then decided to drive home, I have less than no pity for anyone who is “caught in the drunk driving industry”.
No one forces an intoxicated person to get behind the wheel so it really is a very easy “industry” to avoid. If you want to avoid the “big business” then don’t drink and drive.
I can tell you that it kills people.
If you don’t recognize that, then maybe you are enabling your kid.
You need to stop the enabling.
that pointing out what a racket the drunken driving industry has become is the same as enabling someone to drive drunk and crash and kill someone. Usually you are sharper than that Ralph.
Than enabling my kid to do what is wrong by criticizing the enforcement mechanism as “an industry.”
I have news for you. Children make their own decisions and sometimes they make bad decisions. You assume that children making bad decisions means that their parents are enabling those bad decisions when you know nothing about the circumstances or the individuals. Just knee jerk, I’m virtuous and you’re bad because you don’t agree with me that drunk driving can be eliminated by more punishment.
You and Gardner are probably joined at the hip on this one. “More punishment that will do the trick”. She was promiscuous so we must punish her by forcing her to have that child. Oops wrong punishment issue. The real issue is how to reduce drunken driving just like the real issue is how to reduce unwanted pregnancies.
Punishment is a part of the solution but the way the system has been setup it is being abused for profit and the private profiteers are doing a booming business so how has privatizing the punishment business reduced the problem? The fact that a right winger like Gardner wants to double down on punishment should set off little warning bells. It is like privatizing prisons. For the private prisons, it is more profitable to hold onto prisoners than to help rehabilitate them.
Maybe I’m not the super parent you are with x-ray eyes able to monitor your child at all times but I think the system is out of whack and people need to rethink how much they can reduce the problem by simply piling on more punishment.
at what point do you hold your kids accountable for making adult decisions? If the “kid” you are speaking of is in his or her “twenties” and cannot handle either alcohol or driving (or both) responsibly, perhaps we should raise the drinking or driving (or both) ages.
As to your pregnancy analogy, it doesn’t work. Forcing the girl to carry the unwanted pregancy to term punishes the child she is carrying as well.
The current drunk driving laws have punished my family member for a crime she did not commit…and as it so often the case in situations like this, the “liberal” side as represented by you is finding pity with the perpetraitor of the crime and ignoring the suffering of the victim. Stop making excuses for the criminal!
One more reason I am a moderate….
for their mistakes. If you break the law then of course you should be held accountable for your actions.
What I have tried to repeatedly point out which you refuse to acknowledge is that the current process has become a huge profit driven business with abuses. In classic abortion language since I’m not pro-extreme punishment then I must be pro-drunken driving. If vilifying me for pointing out the abuses in the current policy makes you feel better than fine go for it. My response is so what. Bury your head in the sand and pretend that everything is working fine.
The goal from my perspective is to prevent drunken driving before the accident not just pump up the profits of the DUI industry. I can accept being a heretic for not embracing the “everything will be solved if we just double down the punishment” solution.
But I don’t have much sympathy for your rhetorical approach.
Look, I’m 20 years old. I know that drinking in the State of Colorado is illegal, so I don’t do it. If I were to drink, I know that driving a car could result in my own injury or death, and I personally knew one totally innocent child who died as a result of someone’s disregard for that common sense.
It seems that you’ve tried to paint drunk drivers as “kids” who are being victimized and fleeced at the hands of an unjust “industry.” I don’t know what you mean by “kids,” but drunk driving doesn’t seem to be a particularly childish mistake. If you’re 21, you’re not a child. If you’re drinking and driving while a minor, then the exorbitant fees charged by the “drunk driving industry” would seem to be just one of your problems.
But this whole paternalistic “take it easy on the kids” attitude really bothers me. At 18, you trust us with a ballot. If we haven’t learned to be responsible adults, then we deserve the same monetary penalties that every other careless adult endures.
to make such mature decisions. My apologies if I implied that drunken driving is not a problem or older repeat offenders aren’t a menace. I guess I say “kids” and “young people” because I think they are still young enough and not as addicted so they have a chance to experience remorse and redirection.
You keep missing the point that my concern is on doing something before the problem and not after. After the bodies are on the ground there is nothing you can do except prosecute and exact some kind of revenge.
You also don’t seem to want to acknowledge that our punishment system has corruption because of the profits involved. It is like you want to thump your chest and proclaim how important it is to invade Iraq for the good of the world but you don’t want to acknowledge what Blackwater is doing. I don’t think you really understand that the DUI industry is using your raw emotions for their profit. We could have a better punishment system if people recognized that there are abuses that hurt everyone and don’t have to happen. Society needs these individuals to finish the process with the chance to become better people.
as an alternative to prison sentences. And your point on prosecution being only a measure to “exact some kind of revenge” is well-taken.
I guess I’m still not sure exactly who the “DUI industry” is or what sort of profits they’re extracting. And I definitely don’t understand the Iraq comparison. But I’d agree that “society needs these individuals to finish the process with the chance to become better people.”
My point is that the state ought to place a much higher priority on keeping drunk drivers off the road than protecting their pocketbooks from predatory attorneys. The latter is a problem – like I said before, I think it’s exorbitant. But drinking and driving is infinitely worse because it results in death, and if you’re stupid enough to do it, you deserve whatever financial penalty you receive. And, frankly, if you live in a city like Denver with bike paths, public transportation, and taxi companies, I don’t see why the state should allow you to continue driving, either.
“We don’t care what a monstrous bureaucracy we have created. We want to keep the private companies that run this gig as profitable as possible. The more money they can make the better for all of us because that will solve the problem. Milk the kids for every last dime and then pretend that it will solve the problem”.
And one of my best friends was hit by a drunk driver. When we were 11. She died.
Pardon me if I have little to no sympathy for your views on the drunk driving “industry.” Attorneys often charge exorbitant fees, and I think that’s… exorbitant. But nothing like endangering your life and those of others. You do that, and you deserve every monetary penalty that comes your way.
What was the BAC of your assailant?
And I don’t know. I was 11 years old at the time. I didn’t know what BAC stood for then.
The driver left the scene of the accident, so I don’t suppose they’d have gotten his BAC measurement. He turned himself in later that night.
What a tragedy. I’m sorry you were involved.
Zero snark, BTW. I was curious.
Most of the really horrific accidents I’ve had experience with where alcohol was involved had egregious BAC levels involved, but the majority of DUI and DWAI arrests at checkpoints BAC levels are much lower.
I was wondering if that segment of the offenders might have been what was being discussed on the thread – two beers in one hour could put you in DUI territory.
And I am very sorry for you loss.
Like they do for other felons who use their cars to commit the felony or for whom the car is considered “proceeds”.
Also- alter the insurance requirement. SO that a 1st DUI requires a bond (or insurance) to be posted equal to the average DUI claim paid out in the previous 5 years in the zip code where the infraction occurred or where the felon lives.
Voted against tougher drunk driving laws. I can see the ad now with a teary eyed Mother of a drunk driving victim endorsing Markey.
Gardner sided with some extreme right wingers making a states rights argument. Cory will rue the day he cast that vote.
This is like Schaffer bringing up the Marianas Islands – dumb move.
Assuming that Cory does not want increased taxes to pay for this and does not identify specific cuts to balance the increased cuts, then what other crimes does he think we should reduce sentences on to make room for these new felons?
He can say “I didn’t like the lowering of the BAC limit to .08, so I voted against it.”
that’s what apparently neither you or Car Wreck get and that’s why you never learn.
Which part’s not a game?
Like your sig line- Gov’t doesn’t solve problems?
Of course it does. We pushed Iraq out of Kuwait nd enforced the no-fly zone. And when I say “we” I mean the men and women of the US armed forces and the coalition allies.
BTW- I’m guessing 18 years ago before your living memories would be relevant, so I’m going to suggest you look up what the net dollar cost was to the US for that accomplishment.
(Hint: zero +/- $100)
My point was that there were several elements to that bill. Perhaps he had an issue with part of it that’s justifiable, rather than being uncaring about locking up repeat offenders.
The game is being played by inventing nicknames and attempting to identify a politician with supporting something tragic. It’s cool, it’s politics, but it’s a game, and we all play it here in these debates.
BTW, I’m 41 years old, and a veteran, MADCO. I’m not a combat vet or anything like that, but I did join up.
I’m very supportive of our military and their missions. That’s good government. I like roads, police and fire, the concept but not the current delivery of education. There are a few more things that I’d say government is good for, but not many. Government is inefficient, bloated and nonsensical, and completely necessary. I just want less of it than you do, probably.
that game. The one where elected officials politicize and obfuscate and obstruct, and then when it bites them, they get to be shocked, shocked I tell you that anything gets politicized and the voters shouldn’t hold it against them because everyone does it.
Well- everyone doesn’t do it. And we get the candidates we deserve.
If there was some other part of that bill he didn’t like, he should have made the public case and influenced others to see his point. that influencing part- that’s leadership. It’s what we pay him for. Well- that and showing up.
And now he wants a higher office. Why is he qualified for it?
Collective human activity is inefficient, bloated and often nonsensical. You got a better idea- we’re all ears. If your idea is along the drown-gov’t-in-a-bathtub lines- count me out. Anarchy never worked well for long for more than a dozen or so people.
Which leads me to assume Mr. Gardner won’t be visiting with you anytime soon.
Pretty fitting for his campaign thus far. First he gives the old wink and a nod to the lunatic birther fringe of the modern day Dick Waddams “let the crap flow” Republican party and now this…
If MADD can do that for a PSA, think of what a campaign consultant can put together against Car Wreck Cory.
The libertarians and righties have made a clear and convincing case that it’s any person’s right to get drunk.
Isn’t there a way we can blame Clinton, the ACLU, the liberal media or trial lawyers?
…which depicted alcohol-related fatal traffic accidents and mentioned his support for lowering the drinking age to 18.
Drunk driving is dangerous but this cannot stop people to violate this. Well, they are taking risk of their lives and too old to decide for themselves but awful for others that get involve and sometimes suffering from distress because of this drunk drivers. – Kenny Phillips
Why do you have a link to a payday loan site?
That people understand that payday loans are always a very bad idea. Especially from the scumbags at the personalmoneystore
n/t
So here’s some random words Kenny Phillips designed to bring people to a better page.
I’ve often wondered why the consequences of DUI infractions are all centered around lock-up, whether in jail or through house-arrest. When the detention phase is over, nothing has been done to make it more difficult for the offender to obtain alcohol unless the person’s driver’s license has been suspended. While that theoretically should stop people from driving, we all know that it doesn’t. I think there’s also sufficient evidence to argue that public transportation in Colorado hasn’t been developed in a way that enables people without driver’s licenses to rely on that for transportation to places of employment — which if we expect people to take (financial) responsibility for their actions, they need to be able to get to. But I digress…
I’m curious what Polsters think about requiring DUI offenders to get an alternative ID that flags them as prior offenders — kind of like the IDs that minors receive. If sales clerks and servers know they can’t serve liquor to minors who have IDs that differ from those of people who are of-age, shouldn’t the same principle apply for people who have “DUI IDs?” (As an aside, it’s been so long since I had a learner’s permit and minor’s license, I don’t know how minors’ IDs vary in CO; do they have a red stripe declaring someone is a minor, or are they vertically oriented, rather than horizontally with IDs for people who are of-age?) Yes, the argument will be made that people with these types of IDs would just find someone else to buy for them, but I would counter that one adult approaching another adult to buy liquor carries a certain amount of shame when you have to explain that you’re prohibited from doing so because of your DUI.
because Prohibition worked so well the first time?
to making mandatory installation of ignition-locking breathalyzers for all motor vehicles.
We all pay- but we’re all safer.
Don’t wait for repeat offense. Don’t wait for a first offense.
A family member of mine who shall remain nameless had a need recently to take presecription meds for about 10 weeks. He/she followed the prescription to the letter- dosage, frequency, food, etc. But he ignored the part about not driving. His/her argument was along the lines of it would be a huge negative impact to have to arrange alternative transportation, it never really occurred to me, I feel ok to drive
Because this family member has a history of loudly and sometimes foolishly supporting any “law&order” candidate or issue, I suggested contacting the dr and the local police. The dr., practicing the best defensive medicine advised the patient to follow the instructions and not drive. The police informed the patient that driving while under the influence of that particular drug would be prosecuted as a DWI/DUI.
Patient ignored both so I called the dr – and he had the patient’s license temporarily suspended. I would have been happy to drive him/her around for the duration- but, oddly, I wasn’t asked.
believe it or not.
They teach some people that it’s not even safe to drink the next day.
I’m a believer. If only one of the two breathalyzer contractors in Grand Junction wasn’t also a registered sex offender…
Cory’s vote on this issue may turn a walk off primary into a contested one.