How have term limits worked for Colorado?
Re: “Term limits in turmoil,” May 14 news story.
It should be no surprise that more than a decade after enacting term limits, some voters are feeling “buyer’s remorse.” Term limits were enacted out of desperation over the increasingly entrenched “imperial incumbents.” Unfortunately, the method chosen – strict, static term limitation for one and all – throws out the baby (good, well-respected and supported legislators) with the bath water (cynical careerist professional politicians). It doesn’t have to be this way, however.
Rather than outright forbidding a candidate from running again after a fixed number of terms, the law could kick in a handicap. For example, a state senator seeking a third term could see her vote total multiplied by 0.9, a 10 percent handicap. Going for a fourth term might trigger a 20 percent handicap, etc.
The beauty of this would be that strong, popular and effective candidates could win additional terms with the handicap, whereas others would be pushed aside during the party’s nominating process, in favor of a fresh, non-handicapped candidate.
Bill Blomberg, Parker
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The first paragraph of The Post’s article on term limits proclaims: “Term limits that Colorado voters imposed on lawmakers more than a decade ago have weakened the state legislature, not made it more accountable, researchers contend.”
On the same day, in the Perspective section (“Session ‘two-tone”‘), the first paragraph proclaims: “The 118-day run of the 2006 Colorado General Assembly was repeatedly decried by lobbyists, lawmakers and journalists as having a partisan, negative tone. Yet the session ended as one of the most productive in memory – with most of its key achievements forged in bipartisan cooperation.”
It seems to me that the accomplishments of the legislature make a mockery of the researchers’ contention.
Wayne A. Taylor, Aurora
Government’s collecting of phone records
Thank you for your many recent articles on National Security Agency spying. I am reminded of when I lived in Germany in the late 1980s and my one-page German phone bill contained no information as to what number I called, the time of the call or the duration of the call (most of the essential elements of a call detail record as allegedly collected by the NSA), just the amount of money I owed the Bundespost.
I discussed this difference from multipage, detail-heavy American phone bills with my German neighbors. I was politely informed that the brevity of a German phone bill reflected a revulsion of state spying from die Nazizeiten (the Nazi times). I feel there is a lot we can learn from our German friends.
Frank Ohrtman, Denver
Comedic Muslim mom
Re: “Life’s funny for Muslim mom,” May 18 news story.
The very first line of your article describes budding comic Rubi Nicholas as part of “a Muslim family trying to fit into a white neighborhood in a post-9/11 world.” Later we read that she uses this “all- white” neighborhood in her comedy routine. And she says that growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, where Muslims were rare, “we were so new that kids didn’t know any ethnic slurs … .”
Congratulations to Ms. Nicholas, a Pakistani-American, for winning Nick at Nite’s “Search for the Funniest Mom in America.” But before she steps into the spotlight again, one wishes she’d remind herself that Islam isn’t a race and it’s not an ethnicity. It’s a religion. Muslims can belong to any race or ethnic group, and they may or may not look just like their “all-white” neighbors. While Ms. Nicholas’ misleading comments might bring laughs, they also add confusion to the already-considerable misunderstanding about her faith in this country.
Barbara Haddad Ryan, Denver
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