Note to selves: Do NOT ask Rick Santorum to speak on your behalf. 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).
► The Parental Leave Act took another step forward in the Colorado legislature on Wednesday. As Charles Ashby reports for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel:
The Colorado House gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a bill that would bring back the state’s parental leave act, which expired in September.
Democrats, who support HB1002 and enacted the law in 2009 at a time when they held full control of the Legislature, said it’s an important law to keep because parents need to be involved in their children’s education.
Republicans, who killed a similar bill last year to continue the law, said it’s not needed, saying it also places an unfair burden on businesses.
Rep. Alec Garnett, D-Denver, said the state’s economy has done well since 2009, unemployment is low, Colorado has consistently been ranked high as a favorable place to do business, and leads the nation in job growth and business development.
“All these statistics and all these rankings have happened when the bill that we’re discussing was on the books,” he said. “So how can we argue that it’s bad for business?”
Elsewhere, here’s what opposition to parental leave legislation looks like in the House, in one photo.
► Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will go face-to-face in four more debates, as announced on Wednesday. From the Associated Press:
The additional debates will held in Flint, Michigan on March 6, and two other cities in April and May, with details to be determined later. Clinton has sought a debate in Flint to bring attention to the city’s water contamination crisis and Sanders said he wanted it to be scheduled before the Michigan primary on March 8.
Clinton and Sanders are meeting Thursday in a debate at the University of New Hampshire just days before Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary…
…Two other Democratic debates are already on the calendar: Feb. 11 in Milwaukee and March 9 in Miami.
The four new debates are expected to be held live at 2:00 in the morning (that was a joke).
Get even more smarter after the jump…
► Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum dropped out of the Republican race for President on Wednesday and promptly endorsed Marco Rubio instead. This did not go well, as our friends at “The Fix” explain:
Asked to name a single accomplishment of Rubio’s since coming to the Senate in 2011, Santorum whiffs. Here’s a sampling:
If you look at being in the minority in the United States Senate in a year when nothing got — four years where nothing got done, I guess it’s hard to say there are accomplishments…Republicans have been in the majority for one year and one month of which, as you know he was running for president primarily. The first four years he was in the minority and nothing got done.
Rick Santorum, ladies and gentlemen! Remember, this is the same guy who Colorado Republicans selected as their preferred Presidential candidate back in 2012.
► Former Jefferson County School Board Chair Ken Witt infamously tried to file an ethics complaint against himself in a silly political move last fall, and he was absolutely blistered in the media for his self-serving stunt. Democrats in the state legislature are using that example as one reason to create a new ethics commission for school boards.
► Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Denver) joined with several other prominent Democrats on Wednesday to call on Congressional Republicans to stop their Planned Parenthood witch hunts.
► So, you still think that defunding Planned Parenthood is a smart policy idea? A new study from The New England Journal of Medicine shows just how devastating it can be for women when PP funding is slashed, as it was in Texas. From a press release, via Planned Parenthood:
After the state of Texas blocked Planned Parenthood patients from accessing care through the Women’s Health Program in 2013, it led to a 35% decline in women using the most effective methods of birth control. And after Planned Parenthood was banned from the program, there was a dramatic 27% spike in births among women who had previously used injectable contraception, which researchers attribute to the ban.
In a companion study, researchers found that women reported difficulty making an appointment and the ability to pay for care. These consequences are even more devastating for low-income women and women living in rural areas. They wrote: “These results should be cautionary to states considering similar measures; they contradict the claim that Planned Parenthood could be removed from a statewide program with little or no consequence.”
► “The Fuhrer, toilets, and fisting…”
► Molasses? Check. Turtles? Sure. Lots of things are pretty slow in this world, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more plodding group of people outside of Silverton. As the Durango Herald reports:
Nearly six months after the Gold King mine blowout, and with Silverton still in limbo over Superfund, a sense that downstream communities should take a larger role in negotiations regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s hazardous cleanup program is growing.
At the San Juan Citizens Alliance’s quarterly meeting Wednesday, several Durango and La Plata County residents urged local officials to take the reigns in pursuing a Superfund designation in time to make the EPA’s March listing.
“San Juan County’s concerns are speculative,” said La Plata County resident Frank Lockwood. “Our concerns are not speculative. Ours are real. We’ve defined them economically, and I think our government officials should move forward.”
On Monday, the Durango City Council did just that. Councilor Dick White, in attendance, said the board sent a letter three days ago directing Gov. John Hickenlooper to request a Superfund listing.
Silverton officials had been expected to vote on a Superfund request earlier this year before they inexplicably punted on the issue. They are still in discussions on what to order for lunch.
► A ballot measure intended to change ballot measures is advancing in Colorado.
► Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton for President, but Hick was not surprised to see Bernie Sanders perform so well in Iowa on Monday.
► Colorado Democrats are promoting new legislation to help advance a struggling program intended to allow illegal immigrants to apply for a driver’s license for safety and insurance reasons.
► So-called “right-to-die” legislation was discussed in a State Senate committee on Wednesday. As expected, the Republican-controlled committee spiked the bill after hearing testimony from both sides. Similar legislation is still moving forward in the State House.
► The Colorado Springs Independent is the latest media outlet to attempt to explain the caucus process in Colorado.
► Vice President Joe Biden may have passed on running for President, but at least he’s figured out how to work the Facebook machine.
► A group of political insiders regularly polled by Politico believe that Donald Trump will win the New Hampshire Primary on Tuesday. The same group predicts a win for Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side.
► Former El Paso County legislator Charlie Duke has died. The ultra-conservative Duke served in the Colorado legislature from 1989-98. Duke was 73-years-old.
► Republican Presidential candidate and laundry enthusiast Ben Carson is cutting his paid staff by 50% as he struggles to keep pace in a quickly-shrinking GOP field.
► PolitiFact is now operating in Colorado. The Pulitzer-prize winning fact-checking outlet created by the Tampa Bay Times is partnering with ABC7 News in Denver.
Get More Smarter by liking Colorado Pols on Facebook!
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Did a 'pub hop over on HB 1002? I thought the House was 34D-31R.
Ah, never mind. Apparently, it was Kit Roupe.
"Progressive" being a somewhat taboo descriptive around here, I'd have to ask other CPolsters this: why Hillary is trying to own it?
Hillary the Progressive, sourced by Bill Moyers and Elizabeth Warren. I hope Claire McCaskill wasn't in the room.
And there's always a but…..why does Clinton continuously get the centrist tag?
Jeez, I wonder if he's including home town favorite Monsieur Bennet in that statement? Someone will tell me.
And….
Thank God she's not a purist, eh? Just like our senior senator, whose brave stances disappear as a will-o'-the-wisp, and whose tradeoffs come far earlier in the game, sometimes even with the Good Housekeeping Seal of the other side.
How quickly we forget. Way back in 2008 when the dinosaurs roamed it was still political taboo for Dem pols to claim to be even mildy lefty. We were still in the era when Dems won by running as pro-business centrists until pretty much right now.
That's what Obama and every other Dem outside of a safe very liberal district or state always ran as. Bill Clinton and later HRC always ran as centrists. Obama not being white was seen as so threatening Team Obama bent over backwards to show how non-threatening, non-radical centrist he was. It's the GOP that's been falsely depicting Obama as a radical lefty all these years. He never sold himself as anything other than moderate.
If not for Bernie that's how HRC would still be running. When she says… if you don't think I'm a real progressive you must not think President Obama, Joe Biden etc are real progressives, the answer is they never were progressives and neither were you until pressure from a come from nowhere Bernie Sanders made being progressive (Dems had already gone along with Rs on "liberal" being a dirty word so a new term had to be coined) a good thing for Dem pols to claim to be again.
This whole dog and pony show about how all these shiny new "progressives" were always "progressives" is pretty funny. In political time it's only been about 15 minutes that any of them would want to be connected with a word just a hair's breath away from "liberal" at all. I think it's fair to say that Bernie, being a socialist for God's sake, is the most "progressive" or whatever. What a silly season argument.
Arguing "progressive" cred is difficult, as politicians have different approaches and wind up with different votes based, in part, on what they consider to be "doable."
Clearly, Sanders is more liberal. How much more is the question. On actual votes during the overlapping time, he was THE most liberal Senator. Clinton trailed … and was the 11th most liberal. [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/31/1374629/-Hillary-Clinton-Was-the-11th-Most-Liberal-Member-of-the-Senate].
If you support him, GREAT. Go out and demonstrate that he and his followers can create the sort of tidal wave of political action most of the changes he promises would require. Show how a progressive wave will reach 60 Senators and a majority in the House, if not in 2016, then in 2018. Do that, and pragmatists like me will cheerfully support him in the primaries and caucuses.
Been watching the debates and I've got to say HRC is killing it in foreign policy and Commander in Chiefy stuff. Bernie really doesn't seem to have put in much work in that area. He just keeps going back to how HRC was wrong back in 2002 on the Iraq War. He doesn't seem to know or care much about the details in the here and now.