March 08, 2014 02:38 PM UTC
Colorado's 2010 Public Pension Legal Fiasco.
32 Comments- by: PolDancer
LEGAL SCHOLARS DECRY THE BREACH OF FULLY-VESTED PUBLIC PENSION CONTRACTS . . . CONSERVATIVE SCHOLAR SASHA VOLOKH ADDS HIS VOICE TO SCHOLARS DEFENDING ACCRUED PUBLIC PENSION BENEFITS. (Does Colorado State Treasurer Walker Stapleton disagree with the conservative legal scholar Volokh?)
In 2009 (when the scheme to pay off Colorado state and local government debts by forcibly taking money from older Coloradans was hatched) there seems to have been an assumption on the part of the Colorado PERA Board of Trustees that PERA pensioners were (1) too weak politically to defend their contracts at the Legislature, (2) too unorganized to defend their rights in court, and (3) too unsophisticated to even research and comprehend the on-point Colorado court precedent supporting their PERA contractual pension rights.
Well, in 2009, the Colorado PERA Board was wrong. Colorado public sector union officials complicit in the taking were wrong. And, those who conveniently reversed their long-standing recognition of contractual rights to the PERA COLA benefit, i.e., Colorado PERA Executive Director Meredith Williams and then General Counsel Greg Smith, were wrong.
The weak, unorganized, unsophisticated Colorado PERA retirees challenged the breach of their contracts in 2010. The case, Justus v. State, has arrived at the Colorado Supreme Court.
In recent years, Colorado PERA retirees involved in the public pension case, Justus v. State, have followed the work of Professor Amy Monahan of the University of Minnesota School of Law. Professor Monahan is the preeminent legal scholar in the United States on public pension contractual rights. "Amy Monahan is a professor and the Solly Robbins Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota Law School."
Professor Monahan argues that previously accrued public pension benefits should be protected, but suggests that public pension plan sponsors should have the flexibility to alter the rate of FUTURE accrual of pension benefits:
March 17, 2010
Professor Amy Monahan in "Public Pension Plan Reform, the Legal Framework": "This Article has argued that pension benefits that have already been earned through services rendered to the state should be protected against impairment, but that it is hard to find legal justification for protecting the rate of future benefit accruals.”
http://www.ncsl.org/documents/fiscal/AMonahan_Handout.pdf
May, 2013
Professor Monahan addresses the Colorado PERA retiree lawsuit, Justus v. State in her paper, "Understanding the Legal Limits on Public Pension Reform":
"In Colorado, retirees challenged actions by the state legislature that reduced the COLA retirees were eligible to receive. The plaintiffs included individuals who had retired under Colorado’s public employee retirement system at a time when there was a guaranteed 3.5 percent COLA in place."
Professor Monahan notes that the Denver District Court's initial decision in the case, Justus v. State, was surprising in light of Colorado public pension case precedent:
"The (Denver District) court’s ruling is surprising both because the court appeared to break from earlier Colorado decisions that found pension benefits to be contractually protected prior to retirement and because the change could be characterized as a retroactive change to benefits, which is the type of change that invites the most scrutiny under a contract clause analysis."
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cvzed3lmwt8t8v2/Understanding%20Pension%20Reform.pdf
Professor Monahan on the public pension legal doctrine, the "California Rule" (embraced by Colorado courts):
“The (Denver District) court’s ruling is surprising both because the court broke from the previously endorsed California Rule, under which it is clear that detrimental changes to the benefits of current employees are only permissible where they are offset with comparable new advantages, and because the change at issue is one that could be characterized as a retroactive change to benefits, which is the type of change that invites the most scrutiny under a contract clause analysis.”
Iowa Law Review article):
http://www.law.umn.edu/facultyprofiles/monahana.html
Recently, conservative legal scholar Alexander Volokh, added his voice to those questioning the "California Rule," but Volokh (like Professor Monahan) defends contractual rights to previously accrued public pension benefits.
Link to the Volokh paper:
http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20140103_VolokhPublicPensionsWP.pdf
Volokh's recent paper was published serially in the Washington Post:
"Courts in California, and in other states following California’s example, follow a particularly strict rule: they hold not only that public employees are entitled to the pension they’ve accrued by their work so far, but also that they’re entitled to keep earning a pension (as long they continue in their job) according to rules that are at least as generous. Thus, in states where the California rule applies (my comment, including Colorado,) one can’t constitutionally increase employee contribution rates or reduce (my comment "automatic" as opposed to "ad hoc") cost-of-living allowances."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/03/how-california-courts-overprotect-public-employee-pensions/
Volokh in the Washington Post:
"I argue that protecting pensions accrued based on past work is reasonable; protecting the current rules into the future is far less so."
"California case law holds that 'a public employee’s pension constitutes an element of compensation and that the right to pension benefits vests upon the acceptance of employment even though the right to immediate payment of a full pension may not mature until certain conditions are satisfied.'”
"But with defined-benefit pensions, which are more common in the public sector, the financial risk is borne by the pension provider."
(My comment: Colorado PERA officials seem to have conveniently forgotten this fact. They are attempting to unconstitutionally shift market risk to pensioners.)
Volokh:
" . . . governments, free from the ERISA regulations that govern private employers, find it easier to promise generous pensions and then underfund them, leaving future generations to pick up the bill. Underfunded public employee pensions are thus a form of deficit spending."
(My comment: In 2010, uninformed members of the Colorado Legislature were not aware of the fact that Colorado PERA-affiliated governments had not paid the full PERA pension ARC [annual required contribution as calculated by PERA's actuaries] for a decade. Given that the plan to take PERA pensioner assets was developed outside of the open legislative process, most members of the Legislature could not be expected to comprehend that the failure to pay the ARC constitutes deficit spending in our state.)
Volokh:
" . . . borrowing money from future taxpayers by underfunding current pensions is less transparent than traditional borrowing."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/05/are-public-employees-well-served-by-the-california-rule-for-pensions/
VOLOKH: WE CAN SAFELY CONCLUDE THAT A CONTRACT EXISTS AND PROTECTS ACCRUED PENSION BENEFITS.
Volokh:
"We can safely conclude that a contract not only exists but also covers at least the services performed so far. The government owes the employee for whatever work has been completed. Overdue salaries are owed, as is accrued vacation time . . . and the pension one has accrued so far. This much should clearly be within the bounds of federal deference."
Link to the Volokh paper:
http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20140103_VolokhPublicPensionsWP.pdf
Excerpts from the Volokh paper:
"Courts in California, and in other states following California’s example, follow a particularly strict rule: they hold not only that public employees are entitled to the pension they’ve accrued by their work so far, but also that they’re entitled to keep earning a pension (as long they continue in their job) according to rules that are at least as generous."
". . . in 1977, in U.S. Trust Co. v. New York v. New Jersey, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that some limits remain on state abrogation of contracts, and that in fact the limits are stricter when
the state seeks to abrogate its own (public) contracts since then its own 'self-interest is at stake.'”
"Ultimately it’s a question of federal law; otherwise, states—whether their legislatures or their courts—could define contract rights out of existence, making the Contract Clause 'a dead letter.'”
Volokh on the public pension case, United Firefighters of Los Angeles . . .
"In the court’s view, the (my comment, in United Firefighters, prospective only) COLA cap had no relation to the goals of a pension system (it reduced retirees’ economic security rather than enhancing it); any unsustainability in the pension system came from the government’s history of underfunding rather than from the recent history of high inflation rates; and the city’s desire to 'enhance [its] ability to predict and plan for long-range . . . budgeting and financing' could also be fulfilled by, for instance, levying 'a separate ad valorem property tax specifically to meet the pension system funding requirements.' Thus, the city couldn’t show that its modifications were reasonable; nor could it show comparable new advantages, since the change to the pension system was merely disadvantageous on its face."
(My comment, if we allow a measure adopted by Colorado voters in 1992, TABOR, to justify the breach of contracts to which the State of Colorado is a party, we are granting Colorado voters the right to ignore both the Colorado and United States constitutions.)
Volokh:
"It makes good sense to defer to California’s doctrine that pension statutes form a contract—even without analyzing the language of the statute—because pensions are a form of deferred compensation."
"Thus, 'the circumstances' of the statutory enactment 'evince a legislative intent' to be bound."
Volohk argues that the "California Rule" is constitutional, but it is bad public policy. (He believes that states should be allowed to change the rate at which pension benefits will be earned in the future):
"If the legality of the California rule isn’t the problem, what remains is pure policy."
. . . “'deferred compensation in the form of pension rights has the status of a contractual obligation from the moment one accepts public employment.'"
Colorado PERA members and retirees, please take note that the Colorado PERA Board of Trustees, through their lobbyists, are asking much more from the Colorado Supreme Court than simply eliminating Colorado's historical embrace of the "California Rule."
Colorado PERA is asking that: (1) the California Rule be abandoned in Colorado public pension legal doctrine, (2) fully-vested contractual rights of current PERA retirees be discarded, and (3) certain specific accrued public pension benefits (COLAs) in our state be deemed gratuities, (of course, a finding that would itself conflict with the Colorado Constitution's prohibition against gratuities.)
In his paper, Volokh channels former Colorado Governor Bill Owens . . .
"The inability to adjust pensions for existing employees may also lead to a bias in favor of replacing existing employees with new ones or encouraging existing employees to leave . . ."
(My comment: Recall that this was Governor Bill Owens' plan 14 years ago when he initiated the PERA "service credit fire sale" to encourage the early retirement of older, "more expensive" PERA members and (as has been documented) shift labor costs from PERA-affiliated employers [Colorado state and local governments] to the Colorado PERA trust funds.)
Volokh:
"How much leeway to modify public pensions does a 'fiscal emergency' offer? Not much. As the Allen rule says, one can modify pension rights before retirement for the sake of flexibility in light of changed conditions, but the changes must be reasonable, which means both that they need to have a relation to pension theory and must compensate for disadvantages with comparable advantages. Clearly, merely reciting the need to shore up pensions is insufficient, and arguments in favor of COLA caps that 'the integrity of the pension system is strengthened when it can be determined with certainty what the obligations of the system are' are likewise insufficient."
To some conservatives (specifically, former United States Senator Hank Brown) the breach of Colorado state contracts is (in Hank Brown's words) "Colorado Courage." The legal analysis of the conservative Volokh truly sets former Colorado U.S. Senator Hank Brown's simple-minded arguments in bold relief.
Volokh:
"In United Firefighters, the Court of Appeal rejected the contention that the modifications were necessary to preserve the soundness of the system because it held that the fiscal crisis was caused by the government’s own conduct in inadequately funding the system: 'a public entity cannot justify the impairment of its contractual obligations on the basis of the existence of a fiscal crisis created by its own voluntary conduct.'"
"And even if the modifications are justified by sound pension theory, this doesn’t prevent the government from having to offer compensating advantages. So the ability to modify pensions seems to be of little help in resolving a fiscal crisis."
"Another possibility would be a state constitutional amendment abolishing the California rule and establishing that pension statutes only entitle the employee to that portion of the pension accrued so far."
Volokh on the Colorado Court of Appeal's 2012 support for contractual rights to accrued PERA COLA benefits, reversing the Denver District Court:
"The Colorado lower-court case, Justus v. State, No. 2010-CV-1589 (Colo. Dist. Ct. June 29, 2011), has now been reversed, 2012 WL 4829545 (Colo. App. Oct. 11, 2012), and cert. has been
granted by the Colorado Supreme Court, 2013 WL 4008216 (Colo. Aug. 5, 2013)."
Link to the Volokh article:
http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/overprotecting-public-employee-pensions-the-contract-clause-and-the-california-rule
Alexander Volokh's paper was written for the Federalist Society. What is the Federalist Society?
"The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives and libertarians seeking reform of the current American legal system."
"The Society asserts . . . that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be."
"The Lawyers Division consists of over 30,000 legal professionals and others interested in current intellectual and practical developments in the law. It has active chapters in sixty cities, including Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Indianapolis."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society
The Federalist Society has a Denver Chapter. Our State Treasurer, Walker Stapleton, spoke to the Denver group of the Federalist Society in 2011:
http://www.fed-soc.org/events/detail/colorados-pera-unfunded-liabilities-require-a-fix
Who is Alexander Volokh? "Alexander 'Sasha' Volokh is an Associate Professor at Emory Law School. An economist by training, he has written numerous articles on law and economics, privatization, antitrust, prisons, constitutional law, regulation, and legal history."
http://www.fed-soc.org/doclib/20140103_VolokhPublicPensionsWP.pdf
Colorado PERA retirees, continue to demonstrate strength, unity, and sophistication in defending your contractual rights!
Good to see you back. And as unitelligible as ever.
Please don't let the fact that no one ever reads your posts disuade you, in any way, from continuing to employ the worst writing style on earth. If you wrote well, people might actually pay attention to you or your issue. So ignore your critics and just keep on posting walls of text without anything to indicate a new or interesting point.
People respect consistency.
Hi Indy, agreed, this discussion of public pension legal doctrine is complex, nearly unintelligible to the layman. If you are interested, take the time to read Monahan's paper and the recent Volokh paper. The discussion will become much clearer. (I imagine that this case, Justus v. State, is fully comprehended by only a few hundred people in Colorado.)
Also Indy, "walls of text" contain ideas and information. Many people do not share your trouble with "walls of text." Since Volokh's paper was published just a few weeks ago I consider his perspectives on public pension legal doctrine in the U.S. to be "new" information brought to the discussion.
It should also be noted that the editors at the Washington Post found Volokh's thoughts sufficiently "interesting" to publish his article serially in recent weeks.
I like to think of Al's stuff as the Dr. Bonner's soap bottle of Colorado Pols . . .
I think you mean "Dr. Bronner's soap" Diogenes.
Dr. Bronner's is easier to read.
https://www.drbronner.com/ci_services/index.php/livebook/rs#page/1
I you want an easy read try a comic book . . . avoid political blogs.
"without anything to indicate a new or interesting point."
When all of your posts look identical are are mostly the same thing you posted the last 400 times. It becomes nearly impossible to pick out what about a particular post is meant to be new or insteresting. That's what I was trying to say.
Instead of giving an enormous history lecture in each of your posts, consider just doing a link at the beginning to one of the hunderds of posts from before, and focus on the information that is new or interesting. This will result in people actually reading and discussing it. Heck, you might even get promoted to the front page one day.
But instead, you come across as the crazy guy on the corner screaming about the sky falling. Maybe it is falling, and maybe you have proof. But because of your approach, absolutely no one is listening to you about it.
Style matters.
Hi Indy, the bulk of this post is simply excerpts from Volokh's recent paper, thus entirely "new" information brought to the discussion. The words "Conservative Scholar Adds His Voice" in the title of the post should provide a clue about the "new" information that is being brought to the discussion. Did you even make it through the title?
You ask that my posts be written in a manner that is more easily comprehended by people who are new to the discussion, but I can tell you that posts on this topic are not more easily followed if they lack background material. And what is the result of adding this background material? "Wall of text."
Further, "crazy guys on the corner" are not generally drawing attention to the work of the nation's preeminent legal scholars in a given policy area. Such "crazy guys" do not often provide independently verifiable information, invite their audience to verify that information, or take pains to provide citations for all referenced material.
I do see that your heart is in the right place, and that you are offering advice that might increase the public's understanding and awareness of the 2010 Colorado PERA pension contract breach enacted in SB10-001.
Perhaps you are correct that "no one is listening" to commentary on the PERA contract breach.
Thankfully, at a minimum, the three judges who sit on the Colorado Court of Appeals have indeed "listened," and heard, the voices of Colorado PERA retirees.
Bulk is the problem. You need to pick one area of focus at a time and give us that piece. Another piece in another post. Otherwise few will plow through it. It's just too daunting.
You called it BlueCat, this legal topic is daunting. In fact, so daunting that in 2009, the Leadership of the Colorado Legislature "outsourced" the entire discussion to the PERA Board of Trustees (well, at the "request" of the PERA Board's lobbyists.) Since there was no interim study committee appointed on this public policy question, the members of the Legislature necessarily voted in relative ignorance of public pension case law, administration, and contractual rights. That was, of course, by design, facilitating the work of PERA's lobbyists.
No the title of this article was "Colorado’s 2010 Public Pension Legal Fiasco". Which in no way differentiates it from the last several dozen. This is a blog, not a legal journal. Fit your topic to the format, or it won't get read.
But I'm out. You do what you wanna do.
Everyone on this site can manage to describe political events, include complex legal issues, without the issues that you have. Those writings get, promoted, discussed, and spread around on Facebook and other sites.
Yours sit on the side banner with the only comments referencing you and your style, not the issue.
So if you think that you are accomplishing something, feel free to keep going. But I am trying to tell you that by any objective measure, you are not.
OK, Indy, if you want to nitpick, the words "Conservative Scholar Adds His Voice" were actually in the sub-title of the post, rather than in the title of the post.
Also, it's true that ColoradoPols is a "blog," and not a legal journal or a "legal blog." ColoradoPols will not become a legal blog, but that does not preclude the discussion of complex legal topics on ColoradoPols. The bloggers and readers are intelligent. I admit that my posts have been quite detailed. In litigation detail is critical, so I err in providing excess detail. I want all Coloradans to have access to this information, whether or not I personally have the capacity to deliver it in a pretty, easily understood package. I believe that my clumsy efforts make the information much more accessible.
Indy, you don't get it do you? In 2009, many in Colorado's legal, judicial, legislative, union, and media circles found common interest in a Colorado PERA retiree contract breach. Do you want proof? It's in my prior posts. I'll pull it out for you, but be ready for a "wall of text."
This unpopular topic is not going to be promoted, discussed or spread around. And finally Indy, I must be having some impact. In spite of having avoided an actual reading of my post, you now have a heightened awareness of the controversy.
I'm thinking something between this and the troll reposting the same cartoon might be the best approach. In a world where people are bombarded by information many style matters. But do what you like. I'm sure its facinating, but I'll never know.
Did you ask yourself why a newspaper which (unlike a blog) specializes in walls of text opted to publish it serially?
Hi ct, yes, the Washington Post published the entirety of Volokh's article serially. Each of these three serial Volokh articles in the Washington Post approximated the length of my post today in ColoradoPols. Apparently, readers of the Washington Post are able to digest and comprehend multi-page articles addressing complex legal topics. I believe that the cognitive capacity of readers of ColoradoPols compares favorably with readers of the Washington Post.
Moreover, readers of ColoradPols are not obligated to read the entirety of a post. Some readers might skim over the text, some might read the first few paragraphs, some might completely ignore the post. A few readers, a very small minority perhaps, will devour the post, and value the information in it. That's enough for me.
Bless you.
A different presentation would enable easier skimming.
Amen.
Bottom line: Your posts are uniquely unreadable. Plenty of other posters present loads of good info that people can actually read. Michael Bowman is one who immediately comes to mind. If, unlike them, you aren't really interested in conveying information to anyone, keep right on doing exactly what you're doing. If your aim is to communicate something that's obviously important to you, you aren't going to get it done with this kind of post. Scolding us all for not being willing to slog through it isn't going to get anyone to do so either. And about the skimming? Thanks but most of us never did more than skim your stuff in the first place and don't even do that anymore. Sorry.
BlueCat, try this as a test. Begin reading the article at the first paragraph and let me know when you reach a word or a point that you do not understand. I'm interested in knowing how far you will make it into the piece.
You don't judge a person's thoughts by their appearance. Don't dimiss ideas in an article due to the article's "style."
You aren't listening. It's not that people can't comprehend what you write. I'm no genius but have a perfectly respectable IQ, SAT and ACT scores, etc. It's that, given your style, we have no desire to.
You can continue to come up with whatever arguments you want in support of the way you write but that won't change the fact that nobody wants to read it. I would rather have a root canal or watch The Bachelor or American Idol than do as you suggest. I will now stop pounding my head against this particular wall. Peace. Write however you want.
Hey BlueCat, thanks at least for taking the time to offer constructive advice. By the way, how do we know what articles are being most widely read on ColoradoPols? Is there some way to measure the number of clicks that various articles receive? It would be interesting to see which public policy discussions are most popular.
I don't know. But judging from the only comments and the fact that it's a chore just to scroll all the way through the thing, much less read it, I'm making an educated guess. People, in general, don't read stuff like that. Trust me. Pretty sure when I get too carried way and write at too great length few read mine either.
Hey Al, good to see your username again.
I will add, to the above advice, just one comment.
I have been writing for a long time and there are some who have occasionally praised my writing ability. I have, for at least as long as I can remember, employed a principle of writing I learned in high school…."brevity is the soul of wit".
Within the constraints placed onto the writer by the material to be covered, try to remember the advice of Emperor Joseph II to a young Amadeus Mozart upon his presentation of "the Abduction of Seraglio"… "There are just too many notes".
This I offer up to you, Algernon, with respect for your determination and persistence in carrying your banner. Be well.
It's ironic, isn't it, that a one-issue poster (whose tenacity and effort are admirable, to say the least) would chose Oscar Wilde as an icon, and then be so humorless, heavy-handed, and off-putting in his own writing? Or perhaps I've missed the point….is this some sort of Swiftian satire?
P.S. Doesn't Moncrieff have two F's? 🙂
Hi Curmudgeon, it's extremely difficult to bring humor to this matter. For some discussions, this is one, the violation of trust is so great, the harm that has been inflicted is so immense, that humor is inappropriate.
Actually, I was speaking in terms of your responses to other posters. If your goal is to simply make yourself feel that you've done something about this serious issue, by posting walls of text and adopting a finger-wagging, professorial tone, one could agree you've done it. You're obviously one of those wronged by the issue, so I hope it does make you feel better, in some fashion.
But if your goal was to garner support for your cause by reaching out and encouraging dialogue among those who are not a intimately familiar with it, you've accomplished the opposite. You're alienating them.
Regardless, I do hope it makes you feel better in some way, and I wish you luck.
Hey Curmudgeon, thanks to you as well for offerring constructive advice. I have two goals. The first is to raise awareness of the fact that the State of Colorado is attempting to escape its contractual obligations. That fact in itself is momentous. Is there any precedent for this in the history of our state? What has changed that the Colorado Legislature suddenly believed that it was no longer bound by the strictures of the Colorado Constitution in 2010? My second goal has been to find and organize information that will help PERA pensioners targeted in 2010 with their litigation. Thus, the "walls of text."
Is there any current litigation going on, or any clearinghouse of information (like, say…an ongoing blog? 🙂 ) someone might check out to find out more, or see if they could help somehow?
Hey Curmudgeon, yes, the case is Justus v. State. It is insane that this situation is possible in the United States in this century, it has altered my world view. The State of Colorado must pay its legal debts. The group of retirees who are fighting for their contractual pension rights have a website, saveperacola.com. The case went to the Denver District Court in 2010. In 2011, that court held that the PERA retirees had no contractual right to their COLA benefits (inflation protection.) Note that the Denver District Court did not cite Colorado's on-point pension precedent in its decision. The case was then appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court and remanded the case back to the District Court. The Court of Appeals found that Colorado's public pension case law was "dispositive" (clearly resolving any legal controversy) regarding the contractual rights of the PERA pensioners to their COLA benefits. But, before that could happen, the case was appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. The Supreme Court accepted the case, and has finished receiving all breifs in the case. I think that they will probably make a decision in the next six months or so. Can you imagine working for and trusting an employer for 30 years, only to have that employer try to break its contract with you in retirement?
I think that the effort afoot across the nation to rob public employee pensions is terrible, and a worthwhile cause, for sure. I do offer my advice–as snarky as it may be–in good faith, I think you could reach more people if you thought a little about readibility and took some of the suggestions to heart rather than as an afront.
Agreed, if I write another post on this topic, I will try to make it more readable, accessible. Al
Hey, Al.
As I once told you, I think, my sister-in-law is one of those PERA pensioners of which you speak. So, I am grateful to you for your work. Please don't stop.
The "walls of text" you put up are impressive, but out of place. They are for the page to which you send interested parties who desire that level of information. Give us the choice bits to get us interested, then guide us there.
You will get more readership if you get promoted to the front page. That won't happen to a monster column of text and links, like you provide. As IndyNinja suggests, you will most likely sit on the sidebar until you make your posts a bit more readable.
Just the same, I admire your effort.
Keep at it Al … I'll take substance over style any day. However, your style is rational and readable to a patient reader with critical thinking skills.