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October 19, 2024 09:37 AM UTC

Reader Opinion: Vote Yes on Prop 131

  • 12 Comments
  • by: DavidThi808

Keep Colorado’s Government Vibrant

There are a number of good reasons to vote yes on Prop 131. I’m going to speak to two incredibly important ones. Important because Colorado has become a one party state. This is a recent change and as such we’re just starting to see the ramifications from it.

First some background. I grew up in Hawaii which is very Democratic. The state Senate generally had 1 – 2 Republicans and the House 5 – 10. The Democratic Party owned the state. And what did that get us?

First off, corruption. It’s the nature of the beast that one party states are corrupt. You win the primary from the votes of the active party members. To win those you need the support of the party establishment. You get that by giving those party members what they want.

Often it’s soft corruption. Hire their favored groups to implement initiatives. Pass laws that favor their interests. Insure their relatives and supporters have safe jobs. You don’t need envelopes of cash to have corruption.

Second, the government becomes a timid scared entity unwilling to make any significant changes. The group in charge likes things the way they are – that’s how they got to be in charge. No significant changes means everyone’s job is safe, everyone’s favored initiatives are funded, nothing is uncertain.

A state that is holding on to the status quo is not going to improve. Over time we’ll fall behind other states. Where we were once a center of a vibrant culture constantly trying new ideas and ever improving, we’ll instead become a backwater.

Prop 131 will give us competitive general elections. And those competitive elections, up and down the ballot, will lead to discussions about which candidate will take us to the future we want. And in a one party state, this is the only way to accomplish this.

With that said, if you like the Democratic Party determining who will hold each office. If you want to minimize disruption outside of the guardrails set by the activist party members, then you should vote No on Prop 131.

Also posted on Liberal and Loving It

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12 thoughts on “Reader Opinion: Vote Yes on Prop 131”

  1. First off thanks to Pols for putting this on the front page. Now to speak to the comments where I posted about this in the weekend thread:

    1. 'This is not anti-Democratic candidates. What this does is elect the Democrat that is most popular in the General election over the candidate that is most popular in the Primary election.
    2. Voters can handle IRV fine, they just have to number their choices. The argument that they will struggle how it operates is a straw man – they don't need to understand that. Same as people can drive a car without understanding the mechanics of an internal combustion engine.
    3. Yes the major backer has his own agenda (how unusual in politics). And I can find numerous issues I disagree with him on. So what. It's not who backs it, it's is it a good idea.
    4. I do remember back when Republicans owned the state – I've lived here for 50 years (hiatus of 5 years elsewhere in the middle). But that is not a reason to prefer schloteric stultifying Democratic Party rule now that it's flipped.

    If you know anyone who has lived for awhile in a one party state, talk to them. I have friends in Massachusetts who say the same about there. Neither they nor I want a Republican government. But we do want a vibrant thoughtful Democratic government.

    Prop 131 will help us retain that. Because once the party has a full lock on our state government, you'll have a hell of a time undoing it then.

  2. "…But that is not a reason to prefer schloteric stultifying Democratic Party rule now that it's flipped." – David Thielen

    Kindergarten and preschool for all, re-insurance keeping medical costs down, caps on insulin payment, the most accessible and fair voting system in the country, legalized cannabis, a thriving tech economy, – ah, the horrors that Democratic control has visited upon us all.

    At least in David T8's mind.

  3. Alaska has a system similar to 131, but they have a ballot measure this year that would get rid of it. I haven't seen polling about what chance it has of passing, but they're being outspent like 100-to-1 by out-of-state big money. The $12 million so far to defeat this measure is equal to more than $30 per each of the probable voters this year in Alaska! One of the dark money organizations spending big in Alaska is the same dark money organization that's funding much of 131. Of course power corrupts, but surely we can’t deny that money is power?

  4. KW – I think what the Dems have accomplished to date is great. My concern is for the future. The Democratic Party today still operates mostly like this is still a competitive state. My worry is when we've got 10+ years of a super majority and we then go down the road toward what exists in Hawaii.

    2Jung – the fact that there's an initiative against it does not mean the system is bad. TABOR was an initiative, that does not mean it was a good thing. Most of the support for remove the system in Alaska is the Republican Party so they can regain their party control of the state. Alaska has a Democratic House Rep because of that system. And if we get the same, Boebert could well lose even in her safe district.

    1. Naw. The original measure putting Alaska's system in place was also an initiative, therefore just because it was an initiative does not mean it was a good thing (and it passed very narrowly). The true equivalent for this year between AK and CO would be if someone ran an initiative to get rid of TABOR.

      In the 2022 Senate primary election, the only Dem candidate to advance got a whopping 7% in the primary, and 3 of the 4 candidates in the general were Republicans. It is still a red state, and both their senators are Republican. Peltola only got 10% in the special election House primary, finishing 4th and far behind Palin and Begich, but might've only won the general because the independent candidate dropped out. Check this piece out, which suggests Begich would've beaten both Palin and Peltola in head-to-head competition. It also talks about other types of voting systems besides instant runoff: https://arxiv.org/html/2303.00108v2

      1. Or, who wins with these actual 2022 numbers in ranked-choice?

        Caraveo (D)            114,377    48.4%

        Kirkmeyer (R)          112,745    47.7%

        Ward (Libertarian)       9,280      3.9%

        Long (Center Party)         99       0.0% 

          1. Fair point, I just wanted to give an example of how the winner of first-choice votes might lose.

            For the 2022 primary, Tedesco didn't qualify through assembly (maybe could've/should've petitioned instead) and Saine wasn't far from Kuhlman. Who knows, but the general could've been 3 Rs and one D under the 131 system.

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