Let me see if I have this right. Denver voters are being asked to cut off our index finger on the theory that such a mutilation is a darn sight better than cutting off our thumb? That seems to be the logic behind Initiated Question 100 on the current municipal mail-in ballot. Crafted by our old friends "SAFER," the measure directs the local constabulary to put enforcement of state or federal statutes against marijuana as their "lowest law-enforcement priority." [continues 598 words]
My friends at the Indepence Institute, the local outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy, have seen their share of disappointment. They suffered a stinging rebuff in 2004 when area voters approved the Regional Transportation District's FasTracks plan. Worse followed in 2005, when voters spurned pleas to drown state government in a bath tub and passed Referendum C. The latest blow came last November, when voters, for the first time since 1958, gave Democrats control of the governor's office and both chambers of the legislature. [continues 553 words]
COLORADO SPRINGS -- County governments are where the rubber meets the road in terms of providing social services. It wasn't surprising, therefore, to find the winter convention of Colorado's county officials here this week dominated by talk of the worsening budget problems faced by local governments. Federal and state governments help finance many of the nation's social-service programs. But counties - including combined city-counties like Broomfield and Denver - actually deliver them. And increasingly, counties have to dig into their limited local resources to cover state and federal cutbacks. [continues 721 words]
As Pete Chronis' thoughtful article on this page makes clear, Colorado lawmakers have painted themselves into a corner where a single sentence - life without possibility of parole - is applied to a bafflingly wide variety of criminal offenses. Like many policy blunders, the trend for mandatory minimum sentences began with good intentions. In the '70s, some reformers were distraught because criminals received widely disparate sentences for seemingly similar crimes. Standardizing sentences would help restore confidence in the law, so they thought. Alas, that fuzzy-minded notion was quickly transmuted into a kind of sentencing arms race, ending in uniform sentences that were uniformly Draconian. The process was at its most pathetic in Congress in 1986, when politicians of both parties vied to show how "tough on drugs" they were. [continues 1227 words]
Saturday, June 01, 2002 - LEADVILLE - The recent Libertarian Party convention in this storied old mining town was another signal that America's failed War Against People Who Use Drugs has opened both the Repubocrat and Demolican parties to Libertarian raids on their more thoughtful members. A conversation between veteran anti-tax activist Douglas Bruce and Tom Preble, a former Colorado Voices columnist, gave rival perspectives on how best to trim Big Government's sails. Bruce is a registered Republican, not a Libertarian. But his 1992 Taxpayer's Bill of Rights has done much to put state government on a diet. Preble represents that strain of Libertarians who primarily resent Big Government's big assaults on civil liberties - especially as embodied in its War Against People Who Use Drugs. [continues 675 words]
LEADVILLE - This storied mining town perched on the roof of the Rockies made political history last year as the first municipality in Colorado with a Libertarian majority on its seven-member city council. Today, Libertarians have gathered here to breathe the thin but heady air of freedom at their party's state convention. Political conventions of the Repubocrat or Demolican variety generally center on career paths, not ideas. Political panjandrums like to keep ideas locked up in the basement, where they won't embarrass the big campaign contributors. But wherever two or more Libertarians gather, expect to see a thousand flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend. And this year, Libertarian candidates in Colorado will actually be able to run on their party's record, as well as its ideas. [continues 783 words]
