October 28, 2015 12:25 PM UTC

Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Oct. 28)

• 3 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

So…did anybody else hear any rumors about a debate tonight? 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).

Also, if you are scared of our Halloween-themed “Get More Smarter” logo, we are sorry.

TOP OF MIND TODAY…

► If you still have not returned your mail ballot for the 2015 election, you should probably head to a ballot drop-off site (click one of the following links for more information). If you have still not received a mail ballot, you should contact your County Clerk and Recorder’s office ASAP.

Visit GoVoteColorado.com to check your voter registration status or to print out a sample ballot. You can also check out JustVoteColorado.org for more information. For more details on local school board elections, check out ProgressNow Colorado’s voter guide.

► At long last, the big October event is finally here. No, not Halloween — we’re talking about the Republican Presidential debate in Boulder tonight!

If political rallies, protests, and general partisan tomfoolery top your list of fun things to do in your spare time, then you had better head on up to Boulder right now (well, finish reading this first). The University of Colorado is fed up finished answering questions about the lack of tickets for the public for tonight’s event; CU ended up making about 150 tickets available, or about 10 for every Republican candidate appearing in Boulder.

The Boulder Daily Camera also has a running list of events, rallies, and protests scheduled around Wednesday’s debate.

We will provide updates on everything happening in Boulder throughout the day. Tonight, Colorado Pols will continue its tradition of live-blogging the debate, which kicks off at 6:00 p.m. We’ll probably just skip the “Junior Varsity” or “kids table” debate just like everyone else.

► Governor John Hickenlooper is challenging Attorney General Cynthia Coffman over the latter’s insistence on joining a multi-state lawsuit to stop implementation of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. For her part, Coffman is making sure to sound as ridiculously silly as possible.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► A recent study indicates that voters are primarily motivated to participate in elections in order to stymie the political party that scares them the most — in other words, we hate the opposing political party slightly more than we hate our own party.

► Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul held a rally in Denver on Tuesday for his fledgling Presidential campaign. It sounds like it was about as noteworthy as his recent debate performances.

► Florida Sen. Marco Rubio will be among the top names at tonight’s Republican Presidential debate in Boulder. Back in his home state, the media is getting pretty fed up with Rubio’s refusal to do the job he has now. The editorial board of the Sun Sentinel newspaper is calling on Rubio to resign from the Senate if he’s no longer going to bother showing up at work:

Rubio has missed more votes than any other senator this year. His seat is regularly empty for floor votes, committee meetings and intelligence briefings. He says he’s MIA from his J-O-B because he finds it frustrating and wants to be president, instead.

“I’m not missing votes because I’m on vacation,” he told CNN on Sunday. “I’m running for president so that the votes they take in the Senate are actually meaningful again.”

Sorry, senator, but Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job. We’ve got serious problems with clogged highways, eroding beaches, flat Social Security checks and people who want to shut down the government.

If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it.

Let us elect someone who wants to be there and earn an honest dollar for an honest day’s work. Don’t leave us without one of our two representatives in the Senate for the next 15 months or so.

Elect Rubio in 2016 and save a U.S. Senator from boredom!

► While Republicans are still wrestling with 14 different Presidential candidates, the Democratic field has narrowed to three. One of those remaining candidates, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, will be in Boulder today to talk about tackling the problem of gun violence.

► Governor John Hickenlooper took a test “ride” in a new driverless Corvette on Tuesday.  From Monte Whaley of the Denver Post:

Hickenlooper test-drove other vehicles Tuesday that only a few years ago were considered just scratches on the drawing board.

“Just awhile ago, none of these vehicles were even considered something someone could drive today,” said Amy Ford, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Those included a  BMW all-electric XDrive 730i and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Mercedes-Benz F-Cell, the car company’s first zero-emissions automobile.

All drove smoothly and with plenty of punch for a busy U.S. 36. The test drives helped headline a busy 48 hours for transportation innovations in Denver.

A driverless Corvette? If there isn’t a person behind the wheel, where do you put the mustache?

► Colorado’s health insurance market is in a state of uncertainty as we approach the annual period for residents to find themselves some insurance coverage.

► Developers couldn’t get a construction-defects bill through the state legislature, but they continue to have little trouble when broaching the topic with local municipal governments. From Ed Sealover at the Denver Business Journal:

An effort to make it harder for condominium owners to file class-action lawsuits over construction defects in Denver received such overwhelming support from a City Council committee today that its passage into law next month now appears certain.

Mayor Michael Hancock hopes that passage of a law similar to those in eight other metro-area cities will reduce the overwhelming insurance costs now associated with condo construction and diversify the city’s housing stock at a time that young professionals are paying soaring rental rates but don’t have many affordable-housing options available to them.

Opponents retort that making it more difficult to file a lawsuit tramples on their rights without offering any incentives for builders to put up affordable condominiums.

► Representatives from the various Republican Presidential campaigns participated in a debate walk-through at Coors Event Center on Tuesday. The big kerfuffle ended up being about the size (or lack thereof) of the “greenrooms” available to individual candidates backstage. Maybe this is the real reason that the University of Colorado restricted seating in the 11,000-person capacity stadium: With so many candidates, they might have needed the space for dressing rooms.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► A program that can cut teen pregnancy rates by more than 50% should be celebrated — not demonized.

► The Colorado Independent has more coverage from a Monday event in Denver to kick off the “grassroots” campaign for Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

ICYMI

► Colorado Senator Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) says that he expects to see several Republican candidates drop out of the race for President following tonight’s debate.

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