March 25, 2015 12:11 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (March 25)

• 4 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

We’re not going streaking! 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…

► The state Senate has approved a school vouchers bill that would also give tax credits to home-schoolers. FOX 31 News gives a brief rundown, with everything you need to understand about this bill wrapped up in one sentence:

As public schools continue to lose funding, many Republicans are now looking to subsidize parents who choose to send their kids to a private school or home-schooling.

That makes…no sense whatsoever. Even if Sen. Kevin Lundberg muscles this nonsense through the Senate, the grown-ups in the State House will almost certainly reject the idea.

► Reporters at the Colorado Springs Gazette could be fired for speaking out against a 4-part series in the Gazette that is little more than a long, extended, editorialized rant against voter-approved legal marijuana. The Colorado Springs Independent has been doing a good job following the controversy from various angles:

According to national media reporter Jim Romenesko, employees at the Colorado Springs Gazette are being told to sit down and shut up when it comes to its recent marijuana series, “Clearing the Haze,” which, as we reported, is plagued with ethical problems.

Learn more about this growing controversy (pun intended) from longtime Pols reader Zappatero.

► Congressional Republicans are nearing final votes on a budget plan that has no hope of becoming law, but they’re doing it anyway because otherwise they’d have to, you know, govern or something. National media outlets are calling this a “make-or-break” week for Republicans; the smart money is not on the “make” side.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Colorado Republicans don’t have the votes to overturn 2013 gun safety legislation that includes expanded background checks and limits on high-capacity magazines…but that doesn’t mean this debate will end anytime soon. Megan Schrader of the Colorado Springs Gazette looks at the likely endless battle here, even though background checks are working and have always polled very well among Colorado voters.

► Colorado Democrats used the common sense button to help convince Republicans to fund some of the DMV offices that are already mandated by law.

► The new Chair of the Adams County Republican Party should really stop talking altogether; Anil Mathi says white people are “tricking” black people. Mathi could seek another opinion from Adams County Vice Chair John Sampson, but that probably wouldn’t help.

► Jon Murray of the Denver Post profiles the two-person race for Denver City Council in District 1 (NW Denver).

► In a bi-partisan vote, the Aurora City Council decided that it is not a good idea to allow open carry of firearms in city buildings. The Aurora Sentinel editorial board approves:

Strapping on guns to draw attention or shock from the public reduces guns to toys or props, which, despite the cavalier sentiments of some gun proponents, they most definitely are not…

…the ability to stop traffic or in some way terrorize the public by wandering around with a holstered gun or even one stuck in a waistband goes too far. Nothing good can come from such a circus.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► “You can’t govern the country based on being angry.” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is a likely candidate for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, and he’s taking an unusual approach in his positioning, as Politico reports:

Graham is positioning himself as the realist in the GOP field, a battle-tested pol who knows what it takes to cut a deal and isn’t afraid to pour cold water on the lofty promises of his would-be rivals.

Whoa, there! A Republican candidate for President running on a platform of actually trying to govern? What a novel concept!

► Republican Sen. Ted Cruz formally entered the 2016 race for President this week. In a strange irony, Canada’s only U.S. Senator and his family will probably need Obamacare now, as Vox reports:

Cruz previously had a health plan through his wife Heidi’s job at Goldman Sachs. But the family will lose that coverage when Heidi takes a leave of absence to campaign full-time. And this will put the Cruz family into a situation familiar to millions of Americans: figuring out what to do when you can no longer get coverage through work.

And, like 11.7 million other Americans before him, Cruz appears to have settled on the Obamacare exchanges as his answer.

“We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care, and we’re in the process of transitioning over to do that,” Cruz told the Des Moines Register Tuesday.

Yes, Cruz is the same guy who once filibustered for 21 hours over Obamacare.

► Take “Senate Dysfunction,” add a dash of “Republican Stubbornness,” and you get a whole lot of limbo. Republican Senators still refuse to approve Loretta Lynch as the next U.S. Attorney General, for reasons that have nothing to do with approving President Obama’s nomination of Lynch.

► Legislation to further regulate edible marijuana products appears to be taking its final hacking coughs because nobody has a good solution anyway.

ICYMI

► Bet you can’t guess the answer to this one: Which U.S. state is the first to require that high schools offer computer coding classes? We wouldn’t have picked Arkansas, either.

► Why do voters care about the religious preferences of a candidate for public office? Or do they? The New Times tries to tackle the subject.

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