March 18, 2016 11:29 AM UTC

Get More Smarter on Friday (March 18)

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• by: Colorado Pols

It wouldn’t be nearing Spring Break in Colorado if there wasn’t a little snow first. 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…

► Colorado Democrats began rolling out their “equal pay” agenda in the state legislature on Thursday. As Peter Marcus reports for the Durango Herald:

► House Speaker Paul D. Ryan continues to sniff around the Presidential race. As Politico reports:

House Speaker Paul Ryan met Thursday night at a pricey French restaurant here with some of the party’s biggest donors to assess a political landscape dominated by one vexing question: what to do about Donald Trump.

The dinner was a highlight of a secretive two-day conclave, convened under heavy security by a donor group headed by New York hedge-fund manager Paul Singer, that is being viewed as a pivotal moment for the big-money effort to block Trump from the Republican presidential nomination.

Ryan continues to insist that he is not trying to position himself as a potential compromise Presidential candidate to come out of a theoretical “brokered convention” for the Republicans. Ryan continues to increase his involvement in the race for the GOP nomination, however, and this week former Speaker John Boehner publicly suggested that Republicans should align behind Ryan as a compromise Presidential candidate.

As our friends at “The Fix” explain, Republicans are still largely locked into anti-Trump mode:

That’s the question facing establishment Republicans today: Do they line up behind Trump now in hopes of managing him and making him more acceptable to a general electorate or do they continue to fight like hell to keep him from the nomination, running the risk by doing so that they could severely damage him and themselves for November?

The latter route appears to be the one that most establishment Republicans are taking. For now.

Get even more smarter after the jump…

IN CASE YOU ARE STANDING NEAR A WATER COOLER…

► Congressional Democrats are laying out an aggressive strategy as they push for confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, whom President Obama nominated to fill a Supreme Court vacancy this week. As the Washington Post reports:

The approach, which is being implemented in part by a well-organized group led by former aides to President Obama, involves targeting vulnerable GOP Senate incumbents for defeat by portraying them as unwilling to fulfill the basic duties of their office. The idea is to so threaten the Republicans’ Senate majority that party leaders will reconsider blocking hearings on Garland’s nomination.

“You’re going to be surprised at how hard we’re going to work to make sure this is on the front pages of all the papers,” Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters after meeting with Garland on Thursday.

This seems like a good strategy on its face, but then again, Republicans are barely showing up to work in the U.S. Senate at all.

► There are indeed a sizable number of bills in the state legislature that end up being wiped out after being sent to a “kill committee,” but just because the legislation failed doesn’t mean we should ignore the intentions. A so-called “Religious Freedom” bill (HB-1180) was killed in committee yesterday by Democrats after loud opposition from, well, pretty much everyone you could imagine. Check out what Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett wrote in an Op-Ed for the Boulder Daily Camera about this idiocy:

With such a statute in place, a man could obstruct law enforcement by claiming that certain domestic violence laws don’t apply to him because of his belief that a husband has the right to discipline his wife and children as he sees fit, a landlord who believes a man should be the head of household could refuse to rent an apartment to a single mother, and a police officer could refuse to defend a mosque or synagogue by saying it goes against her religious beliefs.

Every seat matters in the state legislature; if Republicans had been able to pick up enough seats to control the House of Representatives, this kind of legislation might very well go all the way to the Governor’s desk. We’d also be having a very different discussion today in regards to “Praying Away the Gay.”

► The Cook Political Report includes Colorado’s own CD-6 as one of the congressional districts across the country that is most likely to be impacted by a Presidential ticket led by either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz:

Among the types of seats Democratic strategists believe Trump or Cruz could put into play are: 1) high-Hispanic districts, 2) high-education districts and 3) high-income districts. There’s no doubt Trump or Cruz could cause Republicans huge problems in heavily Latino districts, including CA-10, CA-21, CA-25, CO-06, FL-26, NV-03, NV-04 and TX-23. And the heavier the drag from the top of the ticket, the more expensive these types of seats will be to defend.”

Don’t just take the word of the Cook Political Report on this one; Mike Coffman is absolutely terrified of running for re-election under a Trump or Cruz ticket.

► The research arm of the well-known British publication The Economist is warning that a Donald Trump Presidency could be a national security nightmare…and not just for the United States. From Vice news:

A geopolitical research firm attempted to quantify that panic by ranking a possible Trump presidency on its list of risks to global economic security, on par with the rising threat of jihadi terrorism. [Pols emphasis]

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research arm of the British magazine the Economist, ranked a Trump presidency as a 12 on its threats to global economic security scale, which ranges from one to 25. The researchers cited several of Trump’s stated policies as justification for their ranking, including his hostility toward free trade, promise to kill the family members of Islamic State terrorists, banning Muslims coming to the US, and accusing China of being a currency manipulator.

Trump’s “militaristic tendencies” toward Middle Eastern countries, the EIU argued, would be a potent recruitment tool for possible future terrorists. Trump’s hostile stance toward free trade could spark a full-blown trade war and destabilize the global economy, the firm added.

This was the first time the well-respected EIU had included a presidential candidate on its list of global threats.

► It’s no secret that the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate is about as functional as one of your old Super Nintendo games, as the Colorado Farm Bureau learned firsthand this week. From Joey Bunch of the Denver Post:

After assisting with a costly campaign in 2014 to fight a potentially expensive requirement to label all foods containing GMOs, the Colorado Farm Bureau was dismayed after a ban on such state laws died on a 49-48 vote in the U.S. Senate Wednesday. The legislation on genetically modified foods needed 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle.

The Colorado Farm Bureau is mad at Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Denver) for voting against the proposal, but it’s Senate Republicans who aren’t delivering for them.

► Which of the more than 12 candidates seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate will be invited to a 9News debate in early April? We don’t know…and those who get to decide don’t know what to say, either.

► As the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent reports, lawmakers are discussing a bill that would remove some automatic exemptions that some charter schools receive in Colorado:

A bill before the Colorado House of Representatives would require public charter schools to abide by the same rules as traditional schools rather than the long list of automatic waivers they now get.

Currently, charter schools are granted waivers from 18 state laws that would otherwise require those schools to provide a plan when seeking an exemption for how they plan to meet the intent of the law.

Among those waivers are requirements related to teacher certification, hiring practices, wages and benefits, as well as acceptance of outside funding.

House Bill 16-1343, sponsored by Rep. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, and supported by the Colorado Education Association, seeks to eliminate those waivers and require charters to explain themselves when seeking an exemption.

It’s difficult to argue against more transparency for schools in general, but we fully expect the GOP-led State Senate to figure out a way to do it anyway.

► Oil and gas operations in Colorado continue to produce problems. A new report counts 615 spills in Colorado in 2015 alone, 90 of which likely contaminated ground water.

OTHER LINKS YOU SHOULD CLICK

► The folks over at College Humor are having some fun with the idea that we should be choosing Presidential nominees based on the size of their junk. The video is a bit NSFW, but it’s hard not to laugh at the “Show Us Your Penis” t-shirt near the end. (h/t to Pols reader Craig).

► Leave it to Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley) to add politicizing to policing. 

ICYMI

► Don’t feel bad if the first day of the NCAA Tournament was unkind to your bracket; 99.9999% of all brackets are already “busted.”

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