U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 19, 2009 01:45 AM UTC
14 Comments
Maybe it is a rounding error?
the GOP is an advocate of underage drinking.
16’s nearly 20, which is close to 21, have some porn and cigarettes with that beer. What’s a year or two among friends (speaking of 16 year olds)?
$226,000 is nearly 250,000, pay your taxes, base it on 300,000.
I’m starting a 527 on this basis. Who wants to donate?
During the local news broadcast last night, the weatherman kept saying, “9 years ago today, Denver got 31 inches of snow in one day. That’s right, 9 years ago on March 17, 2003….”
I understand that Arveschoug-Bird predates TABOR, but TABOR was enacted in 1992 making it only 17 years old.
I’m just guessing that Arveschoug-Bird was not enacted more than a decade before TABOR.
it was actually enacted to try to stave off tabor. dougie had run variations on tabor a couple of times prior to its eventual passage. there were many who thought that if the legislature did something that looked like they were getting a handle on the growth of the state budget, they could avoid tabor. arveschoug-byrd was their solution. they were wrong.
they should be in finance.
That’s about 30 years old and was a limit on state general fund spending.
But that’s like trumping the Constitution with the Magna Carta–the 1991 law is the one on the books. What predated the “Kadlecek amendment?”
Before Kadlecek all we had was the constitutional provisions requiring a balanced budget and limiting state debt. Colorado did just fine with those minimum limitations.
Sen. Kadlecek (D-Greeley)enacted his amendment in response to the very high annual inflation rates we suffered in the 1970’s. It was aimed at restricting the growth of general fund spending by so many percent annually (not sure but I think it was 6%).
Once enacted it had two primary consequences. First, the inflation rate continued above the 6% rate for several years so the goods and services the state purchased cost more too, but the state had less money to buy them. In other words, the amendment created a reduction in the size and scope of the part of state government funded by the general fund. In fact, one can make an argument that the programs funded by the general fund have never caught up over the past three decades.
Second, since the programmatic needs were still there, even though the general funds were not, we began to see the blossoming of user fees to fund specific state programs because user fees were not restricted by the Kadlecek Amendment.
From what I found, the Kadlecek amendment also didn’t provide for any use of revenues beyond the limit except “property tax relief.” So much for those precious roads-even if this is what the Rs were thinking when they sent it out, I can’t imagine why they’d want to own it as some kind of unbroken legacy worth protecting.
It’s just a theory, based on how bright they’re not.
Nice opportunity for a history lesson though.
Because of the very high rate of inflation in the 1970’s, Sen. Kadlecek proposed his amendment as a way to help people who were having a difficult time making ends meet. He tried to balance the need for government services and programs with the everyday family budgets all of us have to manage.
The profound difference rests in the motives of today’s Republicans. They don’t believe in the balance Sen. Kadlecek tried to strike three decades ago. Today’s Republicans look at TABOR and A/B as means to an end. The end is to destroy the government or starve government programs to the point where they become ineffective and, even though the ineffectiveness was caused by the Republicans, they then turn on the public servants who run those programs and critisize them for ineffectiveness. The goal is to termminate government.
A good example of this is the transportation budget. No one has said the conclusions of the Transportation Blue Ribbon Panel that were announced two years ago are wrong. No one. And yet, the Republicans have taken two paths in response. Last year during the election Sen. Penry and Rep. Gardner placed a measure on the ballot to take severance tax revenues ear marked for water projects and local counties and cities impacted by exponential growth caused by the oil and gas industry and set it aside for work on I-70. In other words rob Peter to pay Paul because of course ironclad ideology dictates that we can never raise taxes for any purpose whatsoever. Instead, Republicans propose a shell game to move money around. Those programs that loose money, like water projects and impacted cities and counties are then subject to Republican criticism for being ineffective. It is simply mindless ideology and exemplifies the basic proposition that Republicans don’t believe in governing.
Second, as mentioned above, revenues can never be raised for any purpose whatsoever. The Republican goal – starve government. An example of this is SB 108 this year that raises an additional $250 million annually for roads and bridges. The Republicans opposed it even though the evidence that we need to invest in the maintenance, reconstruction and new construction is overwhelming and has never been refuted. The Republicans did not offer any alternatives. The bill passed, thanks to outstanding leadership by Gov. Ritter and the Democrats. Of course, if SB 108 would have failed, the Republicans would then criticise CDOT for failing to take care of our roads and bridges. Bottom line, today’s Republicans don’t want to govern and they certainly aren’t conservatives by any stretch of the imagination.
Senator Kadlecek was considered a conservative Democrat and the difference between him and today’s Republicans is summed up in a statement made by Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, an Englishman and member of Parliment in the 18th Century:
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
In my humble opinion that is exactly what statemen like Gov. Bill Ritter and President Obama are trying to do in these very difficult times, just as Sen. Kadlecek tried to do three decades ago.