The wind howled across Colfax Avenue on Friday, driving the chill far below zero. My left ear went numb. I lost feeling in my fingers and toes. I pressed on. My state needed me.
Calls to public service come in many ways. Mine came early Friday over a breakfast bowl of bran flakes and skim milk. I was reading The Denver Post when I learned the tragic news:
Because a new constitutional amendment keeps him from taking free meals from lobbyists, state Sen. Greg Brophy now eats oatmeal for breakfast and bread and jam for dinner.
Brophy’s colleague, Sen. Jack Taylor, can’t find a “decent breakfast” for less than “$12 to $15.” “Lunch is another $15, and dinner is $20,” Taylor told Post reporter Mark Couch.
My appetite disappeared at the Dickensian prospect of ethics reform forcing Brophy, a Republican farmer from Wray, onto a high-carb diet. My stomach churned knowing that Taylor, a Steamboat Springs Republican, had to pay $12 to $15 for breakfast in order to keep government clean.
Taylor has proposed increasing the food and lodging supplement for General Assembly members from outside metro Denver. He wants to raise it from $99 to $149 a day. Without lobbyists buying meals, Taylor said, an extra three grand a month is just not enough for out-of-town legislators to eat and sleep in this city during the 120-day legislative session.
I turned guiltily from the $2.50 box of cereal and $3 carton of Lactaid that would serve as my breakfast for at least a week. I pondered these latest unintended indignities that critics ascribed to Amendment 41.
We, the people, approved Amendment 41 hoping to end the practice of private interests buying votes from public officials. Now, we are told that these politicians ate so much on lobbyists’ tabs that they’re in danger of starving.
It was with that in mind that I strode doggedly against the frigid wind on Colfax in pants that cost less than what Jack Taylor normally pays for dinner. Sure, I was freezing. But like hungry members of the General Assembly, I put personal comfort aside to serve the greater good.
I had to do some meal planning for out- of-town legislators.
I found Louis Wolfe mopping the floor at Wolfe’s Barbeque, a block from the Capitol. Sen. Taylor obviously missed Wolfe’s place when he decided to try to increase the per diem. Barbecue lunch plates are $6.94, as is a chicken dinner with two side dishes and a roll.
“I don’t have a liquor license,” Wolfe admitted. “But what (politicians) save eating here, they can easily have a drink at their friendly tavern. I don’t expect them to eat here every night. But I live on a whole lot less than $99 a day.”
If legislators crave affordable breakfasts and can’t say Egg McMuffin, Janine Mac Leod can fix ’em up 24/7 at Tom’s Diner, four blocks from the Capitol. “We’ve got breakfasts as low as $3.75,” MacLeod said. “Our most expensive breakfast is $9.75, and that’s an 8-ounce sirloin.”
The homeless need more money, Mac Leod opined. “I think politicians are overpaid for what they do,” she said, “if they do anything at all.”
A few blocks away at The Tavern Uptown, Matt Wagner awaited an $8 burger and agreed with Wolfe and MacLeod that he could get by on an extra $99 a day for room and board on the road.
“Half of that is probably enough,” said the 25-year-old clinical information systems employee at The Children’s Hospital. “Usually, I bring my breakfast and lunch to work. It’s Friday, so I thought I’d treat myself to lunch.”
Pipe fitters Mike Oss and Mike Lynch paused over a $9 pot pie and a $9 soup and salad plate at the Bump & Grind Café to remind me that most working people must pay for their own meals out of their own paychecks, not with per diem.
That was the attitude of everyone I talked to. I found dozens of cheap breakfasts, lunches and dinners within an easy walk of the Capitol and three supermarkets within a 2-mile drive. Maybe it’s time for the legislature to fix whatever’s wrong with Amendment 41 and stop blaming it for hunger pangs.
Meanwhile, I recommend the Bump & Grind’s Sunday Petticoat Bruncheon to all lobbyist-starved legislators, especially Brophy, who has made his name in the House and Senate battling against gay rights. Bruncheon entrees go from $7.50 to $9.50. So the price is right.
And the theatrics of the cross-dressed wait staff are free.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
