Some time ago, I wrote that Bill Ritter is one Democrat who could make me vote for a Republican. But the Republicans nominated Bob Beauprez, who seems to be quite disconnected from the Colorado that you and I live in.
Remember Referendum A from 2003, which would have allowed the state to issue up to $2 billion in bonds to finance unspecified water projects? The measure that was defeated in every one of our 64 counties? A substantial majority of Coloradans opposed it, but Beauprez was for it.
Recall Referendum C last year, the measure that eased some TABOR restrictions on the state budget? A majority of Coloradans supported it. Beauprez was against it.
So here’s a candidate who opposes us on two important matters: water and money.
Beauprez points out that he has private-sector experience in business, which Ritter lacks. But does that make him more fiscally responsible? He’s spent two terms in the majority party of a Congress which has run up some of the largest deficits known to history in an orgy of pork-barrel spending. If he has uttered so much as a phrase against this spree, and his part in it, it has escaped my notice.
He has a plan for improving our highways: replace the gas tax with a higher sales tax.
As taxes go, the gas tax is reasonably fair. It goes to build and maintain roads, and those who use the roads more use more gasoline and thus pay more. The sales tax is already regressive (it doesn’t cover things that rich folks buy, like stocks and bonds), and even Coloradans who don’t drive cars can’t avoid paying sales tax.
So if we need to spend more on highways, raising the gas tax would be fair. Too fair to suit Beauprez, apparently.
The federal government is responsible for immigration law. In Congress, Beauprez could do something. As governor, he’d have about as much power over immigration law as you or I do.
So why is he running for governor if he thinks immigration is the main issue? Wouldn’t it make more sense to push those issues as a federal representative who can actually introduce such laws and vote on them?
Most of the Beauprez campaign has been designed to question Ritter’s decisions as Denver’s district attorney. I had problems with Ritter’s calls: the Auman case, the Truax case, the Mena case, the Tattered Cover warrant, to name a few.
But none of those bothers Beauprez. He questions some plea bargains. If he has a problem with plea bargains, how much would he raise taxes so that we had enough prosecutors, public defenders and courtrooms to take more cases to trial? Or what programs would he cut to make that possible?
And if he believes that Ritter’s judgment was questionable – and nobody is going to make the right call every time – then what about his own in picking a running mate, Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland?
When running for commissioner in 2004, she answered a questionnaire from the Western Colorado Christian Chronicle. Asked how she felt about of “separation of church and state,” she replied that, “It’s not in the Constitution. We should have the freedom of religion, not the freedom from religion.”
It’s true, that phrase is not in the federal Constitution. But she forgot the Constitution in answering another question: What do you think the framers of our Constitution meant when they wrote about the “Right to Life?”
That phrase isn’t in the Constitution, either; it is derived from the Declaration of Independence (“among these [rights] are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”). Rowland, however, answered that “It implies that citizens have the right to expect government to protect the life of all – even the unborn.”
So when it was time to exercise his own judgment, Beauprez picked someone who doesn’t care what’s in the Constitution. He makes a big deal out of immigration, yet he wants to leave Congress where he could actually do something about it. He wants to replace a fair tax with a regressive tax, and he’s in direct opposition to the expressed will of Colorado voters on water and finance.
The best way to hold Beauprez accountable for those decisions is to elect somebody else. A year ago, I never thought it would be so easy to vote for Bill Ritter.
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
