Election 2014: How I'm voting

Here sits my Colorado general election ballot on the kitchen table, ready to mark and mail. I wish it were not an all-mail election, but that's another discussion. For the information of many who always ask, and for discussion with readers who may agree or disagree (which makes the world go round), my intended votes on candidates, ballot issues, and judges are listed below.

As always, I am voting a straight Republican ticket. That's not with animosity toward Democrats or the minor parties, but simply because I'm convinced the GOP adheres best (albeit very imperfectly) to America's original and never-improved-upon "operating system," the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Our communities, state, and nation are most likely to survive and thrive under the Republican principles of individual liberty, personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, peace through strength, and Judeo-Christian moral truth.

Thanks for your interest. Comments and questions are always welcome.

Federal Offices US Senate: Cory Gardner (R) US House, CD6: Mike Coffman (R) Elsewhere R's for Congress: Ytterberg CD7, Leing CD2, Walsh CD1

State Offices Governor: Bob Beauprez (R) Attorney General: Cynthia Coffman (R) Secretary of State: Wayne Williams (R) Treasurer: Walker Stapleton (R) CU Regent, CD6: John Carson (R) State Representative, HD-37: Jack Tate (R) Elsewhere State Board of Education: Fattor CD2, Mazanec CD4 Arapahoe County Offices Commissioner: Nancy Sharpe (R), Tory Brown (R) Clerk & Recorder: Matt Crane (R) Sheriff: David Walcher (R) Treasurer: Sue Sandstrom (R) Assessor: Corbin Sakdol (R) Coroner: Kelly Lear-Kaul (R)

Ballot Issues I am a no vote on everything except Prop 104. That includes local tax increases, not specified here, and expansion of marijuana sales (prevention of which in Lakewood requires a YES vote on Measure 2A).

If you want further discussMark Hillman, former state treasurer and state senator, contributed to our Centennial Institute blog a thoughtful rundown on the four statewide issues, aligning to my position with but a single exception.

No on Amendment 67: Define "person" to include the unborn I believe life begins at conception, and I would like to see state and federal law reflect that. But this poorly drafted and ill-advised measure wouldn't survive in court and only abets the pro-abortion fear mongers who want no conservatives in public office. Hillman aptly calls it "heartbreaking and hopeless" for pro-lifers like him and me.

No on Amendment 68: Expand casino gambling to horse racetracks Gambling is morally and economically corrosive to individuals and the community. We have more than enough of it, run by public and private entities, in Colorado already. Here I must part with my friend Sen. Hillman.

Yes on Proposition 104: Open meetings for teacher union negotiations Schools shouldn't be unionized like factories in the first place. But since they are, let's prevent sweetheart deals in secret between them and the school boards they often control via political money and muscle. Teacher union contracts weren't always even an open record until the school collective bargaining sunshine act I sponsored in 2001. Here's our chance to shine light on the bargaining process itself.

No on Proposition 105: Food labeling for genetically modified organisms Another move by the environmental scare lobby to demonize the poverty-fighting advances of scientific agriculture and burden free enterprise with needless costly regulations.

Judges for Retention I will again vote no on all judges. It's been my practice for many years.

Not all my friends will agree with this, even the most conservative. But I reason that nearly every judge will be retained, the best and the worst, deserving or not, despite some of us casting a principled protest vote against the toothless evaluation-and-retention system itself.

We need to put all the judges, and the legal profession they spring from, on notice that a substantial minority of Coloradans object to our state's minimally accountable judiciary.

Take for example this year's two state Supreme Court justices up for retention, the conservative Brian Boatright and the left-progressive Monica Marquez. I'd be glad to see Marquez return to private law practice, and I'd be thrilled if Boatright stayed on the court till retirement age. But for the reasons stated, neither gets my yes vote this time.

Let me also recommend Matt Arnold's excellent work through Clear the Bench Colorado, really the only vigilant watchdog out there, including his careful and objective ratings of judges' constitutional fidelity - far more useful than the tame, state-published Blue Book evaluations.

California needs leadership, not evasions

Typically in the wake of disasters there is a mess to clean up. California’s interminable budget crisis qualifies as an ongoing disaster. On the maxim that those who make messes should clean them up, the politicians in Sacramento have no business following up their failure to exercise budgetary discipline by throwing the alleged solution into the laps of voters in the May 19 special election. The package of propositions 1A through 1F imposes budgetary gimmicks, raises taxes, puts more money into education, borrows money from the lottery, transfers funds from some programs to fund others, and delays officials’ pay increases in order somehow to end the annual gap between expenditures and revenues. But it suffers from two major defects: it derives from the same politicians who largely got the State into its current fiscal mess and it attempts to make up for their lack of prudence with constitutional and statutory tinkering.

When public policy is bad, surely it should change. But the best way to ensure change is to change those who made the bad policy. What the Democrat-dominated State Legislature needs is tough love, not enabling. Therefore, voters should turn down all six propositions, whatever the specific merits of any of them.

The strongest proof of the questionable paternity of these "save the day" measures is the deception in the first and most critical of them: Proposition 1A. Its aims, as summarized by the Legislative analyst in the Voter Guide (pp. 10-15) are to

* increase the State’s "rainy day" fund from five to 12.5 percent of the General Fund;

* dedicate some annual deposits into that fund for future economic downturns and the rest to fund education, infrastructure and debt repayment, or for use in emergencies; and

* require additional revenues above historic trends to be deposited in the "rainy day" fund.

A careful reader might wonder just where the "additional revenues" will come from. No answer to this question can be found in the summary (or in that provided on the sample ballot, either), but near the bottom of page 10 we read: "If this measure is approved, several tax increases passed as part of the February 2009 budget package would be extended by one to two years. State revenues would increase by about $16 billion from 2010-11 to 2012-13."

At the bottom of the next page and following, voters are reminded that the sales tax was increased from eight to nine percent, the vehicle tax rate was raised from .65 percent to 1.15 percent of a vehicle’s value, and the personal income tax rate was raised by .25, ranging from increases of one to 10.3 percent, depending on income.

The political advertisements I have seen on television stations mention nothing whatever about this "additional revenue," speaking only in glittering generalities about how great it is that finally something is going to be done to restrain the politicians in Sacramento who got us into this mess.

Propositions 1A through 1C and IF are constitutional amendments and 1D and 1E are revised statutes. Once again, California’s already incredibly long Constitution is being burdened with still more specific provisions which are designed to particularize the judgments our elected officials make rather than holding them accountable to the voters for their decisions.

The massive defect of such a constitution is that it defies the efforts of all but the most sagacious and interested parties from understanding it and blurs the distinction between the supreme law, which establishes the government, and the statutes which are intended to be consistent with its limitations.

Thus, constitutionally, as well as fiscally, California's political leaders are attempting to fix bad or inadequate decisions of the past with decisions cut from the same cloth. Rather than exercising fiscal and budgetary prudence as a constitutional duty, they are lurching from one crisis to the next without owning up to the primary cause of the problem, which is themselves.

Denying the Legislature and the Governor the power once again to cobble together a Rube Goldberg contraption designed to put a brake on their own insatiable desires to tax, spend and elect will do far more to promote fiscal discipline than this clever package, which conceals the source of the problem.

Instead, we should look forward to the implementation of the redistricting plan Californians passed last November that will, for the first time in years, permit the design of state legislative districts with greater attention to geographic and demographic realities and less to assuring safe seats that keep incumbents in office. The real need is for open and competitive elections, not more evasions.

Bell Policy Center in denial

"Restoring fiscal sanity to state government" was the hook for donations to The Bell Policy Center in a solicitation I received from them last week via US mail. That slogan was printed on the envelope and highlighted again in Bell's letter cosigned by former Colorado Supreme Court justice Jean Dubofsky and my onetime state Senate colleague Penfield Tate III. The pitch starts by trumpeting, without specifics, this year's "progressive victories [which] will make change possible for all Coloradans." Presumably this means the state's support for Obama, Udall, and Markey as federal candidates, since Bell then admits "tough lessons [from] the failure of several ballot measures" including the TABOR-busting Amendment 59 -- busted decisively by voters -- as well as the defeat of a sales tax hike under Amendment 51 and an energy tax hike under Amendment 58.

In this context, the letter's first line, "Congratulations on a job well done," has the hollow ring of a surgeon claiming the operation was a success but the patient died. Colorado taxpayers can only hope for more such jobs well done from the spending lobby, after the opposition to Amendment 59 won big despite being outspent something like 50 to 1.

Really the whole letter was a most amusing read to brighten my Sunday amidst the sad reality of Bush making nice with the UAW. The Bell promises all of us who donate (sorry, I won't be one of them) a productive 2009 with "in-depth research and analysis [toward] understanding how Coloradans assess the state's fiscal condition."

Come on, guys, you could get a pretty good idea of that by just thinking with an open mind about what message voters were sending with the rejection of Amendments 51, 58, and 59. Seems to me it was a message for the legislature and governor to make do with existing revenues -- prioritize better and spend smarter -- so that working families can keep scrimping their own recession-stressed budgets without a heavier tax burden.

But then, recession is apparently not on The Bell's radar. "These tough economic times" are referred to in this fund appeal only with relation to Center employees "tightening our belts to ensure that we operate as efficiently as possible." Okay, so far so good -- but neither the substance of the letter nor the content of Bell's website acknowledges that the very same prescription is needed for Colorado's fiscal sanity.

Maximizing revenue, not tighter belts and greater efficiency, seems to be their exclusive focus as far as government is concerned. A search of the website turns up nary a word of analysis on why Amendment 59 was crushed and what that might mean for "sane" policies going forward.

What we have here is a think tank suffering from groupthink -- a shrink in denial.

Campaign continues against Prop 8

Californians joined Arizonians and Floridians last week in approving a constitutional amendment affirming that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized." However, the vote in its favor in this state was only 52.3 to 47.7 percent, or a margin of slightly more than a half million votes out of nearly 10.8 million votes cast. That means that a shift of only about 250,000 would have been enough to produce a different outcome. This explains, although of course it does not justify, the rush to the streets by supporters of same-sex marriage. The thousands of men and women who have been married since the outrageous 4-3 ruling by the California Supreme Court that "equal protection of the laws" requires same-sex marriage, have been frustrated in their desires and left in a kind of legal limbo.

This is not the fault of those who oppose the corruption of marriage but of those in the executive and legislative branches, as well as the judicial branch, who have led their fellow citizens down a treacherous path. It came close to working.

Proposition 22, the statute that affirmed marriage in 2000, won a whopping approval of 61 to 39 percent. Yet public opinion appears to moving away from common sense, which doubtless was the whole reason for passing domestic partners laws, that is, to prepare the public mind to approve what it had so recently disapproved.

But politics is full of surprises. According to exit polls, while a majority of white voters opposed Prop. 8, majorities of as much as 70 percent were obtained among voters of African and Hispanic descent. The most obvious explanation is the influence of the church, Evangelical and Roman Catholic respectively, in those communities.

Similarly, a statewide network of religions, including not only Evangelical and Roman Catholic, but Greek and Jewish Orthodox, and the Mormons, worked strenuously for Prop. 8's passage. However, the Mormons were singled out last week for the hatred of the mob.

From Utah, the headquarters of the Latter-day Saints, millions of dollars were spent promoting Prop. 8, and thousands of Mormons in California walked precincts, sent mailers and made telephone calls. Theological differences were put aside as many more thousands of people of different faiths united in an effort to save marriage.

It is not hard to understand why California’s measure attracted out-of-state attention. For if same-sex marriage takes hold here, it will be very difficult to keep it from spreading to other states, notwithstanding that 30 states now have constitutional provisions supporting marriage. We are, after all, the most populous and most influential state in the Union.

Those whose politics are left of center talk and act as if they have a monopoly on the virtue of tolerance. But leftists exhibit precious little tolerance for those who disagree with them. For years, the most respectable form of bigotry among them was anti-Catholicism. But one must add to that anti-mormonism.

Thus, it was no surprise that an anti-Prop. 8 mob chose to demonstrate its outrage in front of an LDS temple in Los Angeles. After all, in the closing week of the campaign, television viewers were treated to a particularly vicious ad in which two Mormon emissaries were shown knocking at the door of what turned out to be a married lesbian couple, demanding to see their marriage license and then ripping it up.

Characteristic of those with a paranoid mind is the belief that people who disagree with them are actually out to harm them, verbally or physically. Once they’ve convinced themselves of this, the next step is to strike out against them pre-emptively in order to avoid harm. In plain words, you demonize your critics in order to justify brutalizing them.

Lest this sound over the top, I have heard such persons call into radio talk shows and accuse those who oppose same-sex marriage of advocating violence, for to them to oppose someone is to hate them and ultimately to attack them directly. Yet, millions of Americans have been worshiping God in different ways in this country for more than 200 years without causing them to attack one another.

By my count, three lawsuits have already been filed in the courts to challenge the passage of Prop. 8, the most prominent one asserting that it was "improperly decided," whatever that means. But between mobs in the streets and bogus lawsuits, we’re in for a rough ride. It’s not time for Californians to put away those "Yes on 8" signs yet.

Coloradans leaned right on ballot issues

While the Colorado losses by Schaffer and McCain are disappointing, we fared better on a number of statewide ballot issues. Amendments 47 and 49 went down to defeat at the hands of union-extorted money.

But Amendment 54 squeaked by 52-48, and it may well be the most efficacious of the three, limiting certain campaign contributions from unions and vendors of sole-sourch serivces to the government.

Amendment 59, which would have gutted TABOR, failed by a comfortable margin. Outgoing Speaker Romanoff completely sold out to this effort, but the artificially-induced budget squeeze will have to be resolved some other way.

Amendment 58, which would have hiked energy taxes going into a recession, likewise suffered the ignominious defeat it deseves.

Referendum O, which would have severely limited the ability of citizens to act as a check on their own legislature's excesses, went down to defeat as well.

And finally, Amendment 46, which would eliminate all racial and gender preferences by state actors, is failing very narrowly with most of the vote counted. That may still change with final returns.

Editor: Meanwhile in Nebraska, an identical civil rights initiative passed yesterday by 58-42%, sustaining some momentum for Ward Connerly's heroic national effort to achieve color-blind law. And Californians passed their Proposition 8, affirming marriage between one man and one woman in contravention of the recent state supreme court mandate for same-sex marriage.