A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
Loveland Reporter-Herald, Oct. 3, on the death penalty:
On Wednesday, Georgia plans to execute an inmate named Marcus Ray Johnson. Later in the month, Alabama plans to execute Christopher T. Johnson, and Texas plans to execute Frank Garcia. Three more people are scheduled to die by the hand of the state next month. More than 3,000 people sit on death row in America, including three in Colorado.
None of these executions should be carried out, and the death penalty should be abolished.
The execution in Georgia last month of Troy Davis, who was convicted of murder on virtually no physical evidence and the testimony of witnesses who later recanted, galvanized death penalty opponents around the world, because it appeared in the Davis case that the cause of justice was no match for the system of justice. The system is the problem. It doesn’t always work.
Since 1973, more than 130 inmates have been released from death row in the United States after they were found to be innocent. There is no way to tell how many people have been executed for crimes they did not commit, but common sense says such miscarriages of justice have surely occurred, and anti-death penalty organizations have documented several almost certain wrongful executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter this year granted a posthumous pardon to Joe Arridy, who was executed in Colorado in 1939 but who is now assumed to have been innocent of the murder he was convicted of.
Aside from capital punishment’s fallibility, it does no good. It does not bring victims back to their families, it does nothing to deter would-be offenders, and whatever satisfaction it affords is based in vengeance. But revenge is not the same as justice.
Application of the death penalty in America is biased against minorities and low-income defendants, and its application is wildly uneven. Moreover, it’s extraordinarily expensive. It costs way more to convict, imprison and execute a death row inmate than to lock him up for life. And in practice, incarceration on death row lasts for years, sometimes decades, which violates the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, as Justice Stephen Breyer has written.
Capital punishment, of course, raises a moral question, but one does not need to settle it to arrive at the conclusion that it should be abolished. The death penalty is wrong because it doesn’t work.
Editorial:
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The Pueblo Chieftain, Oct. 4, on Solyndra:
What part of Solyndra doesn’t the Obama administration understand?
Despite grave warnings about a $528 million loan guarantee to the California-based solar panel maker, the Energy Department went ahead with the loan and President Barack Obama flew—at taxpayer expense, of course—to company headquarters to tout his “green energy economy.”
That was last year. Last month, Solyndra declared bankruptcy and let its employees go.
The program under which the loan was made was scheduled to expire last Friday. But just before that deadline, the Energy Department made four more solar energy loan guarantees totaling nearly $5 billion.
Earlier in the week two other solar loan guarantees worth about $1.1 billion were announced. This administration seems intent on shoveling out the money faster than it could ever possibly come in.
No wonder we get a deficit reduction commission and a supercommittee. Now we need a new direction.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Denver Post, Oct. 3, on the health insurance exchange:
Republican lawmakers who are stalling an application for federal aid to set up Colorado’s health insurance exchange need to stop politicking and get out of the way so this important virtual marketplace can be created.
While they are entitled to their objections to the Affordable Care Act, they also need to accept the reality that it’s the law of the land.
It’s true that the constitutionality of that law is a point of debate—but that debate is properly taking place in the court system.
Most recently, the Obama administration and Republican state attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take one of the cases challenging the act in an expedited basis and rule on whether the law, including the individual mandate, is constitutional.
From where we stand, it seems to be a waste of time and resources for state lawmakers to object to an application for a $22 million federal grant given the strong potential that the court will issue an opinion by early next summer.
Stalling could put Colorado at a disadvantage in getting a grant and developing exchanges if the law were upheld.
In a Denver Post story last week by reporter Tim Hoover, Republican state Rep. Jim Kerr was quoted as saying the application obligated Colorado to the federal health care reform law.
It also says the state would “conform to federal requirements” in putting together the exchange.
To that, we say: Well, it should. It’s the law. However, as we have noted on prior occasions, it’s not a perfect law. It falls well short in failing to bend the curve on health care costs, which are rising at a rate that ought to concern everyone.
But the law also has positive aspects, including the requirement that everyone be covered by health insurance.
We hope the high court will find the measure, particularly the individual mandate, passes constitutional muster. In the meantime, Coloradans have the right to expect their elected representatives to take the necessary steps to implement the law, including health care exchanges.
The exchanges will act as a virtual marketplace for insurance. Businesses and individuals could use the exchange to coalesce and negotiate together for group rates.
The Affordable Care Act requires states to create these exchanges by 2014, or the federal government will step in to create one for them.
In voicing our support for the creation of the exchange, we are not saying the plans as announced thus far are without fault.
We are concerned, as are many, by the size of executive salaries that have been outlined in a planning document. We understand it’s a blueprint, but we also hope some fiscal restraint will be applied when it comes time to hiring these folks.
State Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, was right when she said the money for the exchange has to come from somewhere, and the state ought to get its share of the federal money set aside for this purpose.
Dragging your feet in following laws you don’t agree with doesn’t make them any less legitimate or binding.
Editorial:
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The Daily Sentinel, Oct. 4, on legislative redistricting in Colorado:
With a court hearing scheduled for later this month on Colorado’s much-disputed effort at congressional redistricting, Club 20 is on the right track in filing a court brief that seeks to have Grand County reattached to Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.
Grand County, which includes the headwaters of the Colorado River that drains most of the Western Slope, was long a part of the 3rd Congressional District.
But in the 2002 redistricting that followed the 2000 Census, it was made part of the 2nd Congressional District, along with Eagle and Summit counties. The 2nd District is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Boulder.
Club 20 was created more than half a century ago to be an advocate for the 20 counties that make up the western side of the Continental Divide. It makes sense that the organization has decided to become a part of the legal battle on congressional redistricting by seeking to reunite as much of the Western Slope as possible in a single district.
But demographics cause headaches for anyone attempting to draw maps that divide Colorado into seven congressional districts that are roughly equal with respect to population.
That’s why, for several decades, the 3rd Congressional District has also included Pueblo County and other smaller counties on the southern reaches of the Front Range. There simply isn’t enough population for the Western Slope to be a single district by itself.
That’s also why the 2nd Congressional District was redrawn to include some mountain communities on the Western Slope. More people were needed to fill that district.
We wish there was a way to include not only Grand County, but Eagle and Summit counties in a single congressional district that covers the entire Western Slope and a few other counties. That seems unlikely given the current population spreads and political reality.
But we commend Club 20 for pushing to have the headwaters of the Colorado River reattached to a congressional district for this part of the state.
Editorial:
