A sampling of recent editorials from Colorado newspapers:
NATIONAL:
The Denver Post, Jan. 30, on Newt Gingrich not being a serious pick for the Republican presidential nomination:
When Newt Gingrich began in the last few days to slip in the Florida polls, a politically conservative friend of ours advised us, “Voters don’t always get everything right, but they’re not insane.”
Republicans in Florida, who are presumably quite sane, go the polls Tuesday in a critical primary election. Gingrich and Mitt Romney have traded front-runner status, with Gingrich moving to the fore after his stunning win in South Carolina. But we hope the South Carolina result will prove to be no more than a one-time protest vote.
The election in November is far too important for one of our two major political parties to put forward someone as unserious as Gingrich. It is not unusual for a candidate to be labeled “erratic” by his opponents. But in this one case, the word fits perfectly.
As Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential nominee, put it, “Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall.” In a blistering National Review article, he wrote, “Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself.”
Gingrich’s behavior is well known and goes far beyond what he likes to call “mistakes” in his married life. House conservatives forced him out as speaker for what they called his betrayal of his own Contract with America. As speaker, he was fined $300,000 for ethics violations.
When he left Congress, he stayed in Washington and used his position to enrich himself as a highly paid consultant who carefully skirted the historical rules on lobbying. As a cable news favorite, he repeatedly went on camera to demagogue those who disagreed with him.
You remember he called Sonia Sotomayor a “racist.” When he’s not calling Barack Obama a “food stamp president,” he was saying Obama’s administration was more dangerous than the Nazis. This is nothing new for Gingrich, who, as a House member, once compared Ronald Reagan to Neville Chamberlain and called aspects of Reagan’s foreign policy “pathetically incompetent.”
In this campaign, Gingrich has thrived because of his debate performances. And though he likes to invoke Lincoln-Douglas, he reminds us of neither. His calling card has been crowd-pleasing berating of various moderators, but when he had the chance to take on Romney in consecutive Florida debates, Romney was the clear winner each time.
Serious thinkers on the conservative side have warned against Gingrich. Columnist George F. Will said Gingrich “embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive.”
At his best, Gingrich can be entertaining and his mind open to an array of ideas. But, in his career, he has often been at his worst, making his electoral prospects in November Barry Goldwater-esque.
Nothing in Gingrich’s history leads us to think he is as “tranformational” as he makes himself out to be—or as trustworthy as America needs him to be.
Editorial:
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Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald, Jan. 30, on deadlock in the U.S. Senate regarding appointments of federal officials, judges:
The authors of the U.S. Constitution plainly wrote how they believed the administration of the federal government would occur, especially in the appointments of top officials and federal judges.
Article 2, Section 2, tells that the president “shall have the power” to make the appointments necessary for the administration of government, but with the “advice and consent of the Senate.” And if the Senate is in recess, then the president will have the power to appoint someone to serve at least until the end of the current legislative session.
But then there’s the enumeration of powers for the legislative branch, and in Article 1, Section 5, the House and the Senate are granted the authority to create their own rules of proceedings.
The combination has created a logjam that could, if not addressed, create a constitutional crisis.
A pair of traditional rules, the filibuster and hold processes, have moved beyond their original intent of preventing the abuse of power by the majority to now threatening an abuse of power by the minority. Through the rules, a small group of senators—sometimes even a single person—can hold up the appointment of judges and other officials for reasons that could be entirely unrelated to the matter at hand.
What this means is that the federal judiciary cannot keep up with its cases, meaning justice is delayed and sometimes denied to those who have the courts as their sole recourse to enforce the rule of law.
Neither party can claim innocence. Since the high-profile rejection of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork by Senate Democrats in the 1980s, the enmity has been growing.
Now, however, the breaking point seems near. Right now, 85 federal judgeships are open—and 18 appointments to fill those seats remain in limbo even though they have been vetted and passed through committee.
It is the time for true leadership to emerge to break through the deadlock and ensure that a minority—or even one senator—is not usurping the processes laid down in the Constitution.
Editorial:
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STATE:
The Coloradoan, Jan. 30, on state lawmakers not being arrested while attending General Assembly:
Here’s a constitutional change worth making.
A state representative, Rep. Laura Bradford, R-Collbran, avoided being charged with driving under the influence Jan. 25 because of a 1975 amendment to the state Constitution that says lawmakers cannot be arrested while attending General Assembly sessions or while traveling to or from related events.
Denver police pulled over the lawmaker’s vehicle around 10 p.m. Jan. 25 on Capitol Hill. According to the Denver Post, police suspected Bradford of drinking and driving. The lawmaker told police that she had been drinking and subsequently failed roadside sobriety tests, the newspaper reported.
From there, the story is unclear why police did not charge Bradford. Police say the lawmaker invoked her rights under the state Constitution not to be arrested. Bradford insists she didn’t mention the Constitution and said she looks forward to the facts being revealed.
Bradford was ticketed for an illegal lane change. And late last week, House Republicans suspended her from her chairmanship of the Local Government Committee.
Regardless of how the subject came up, it is clear that the amendment to the Constitution played a role here. And it should be changed.
The motivation behind the amendment was to protect lawmakers from harassment or intimidation from other branches of the government, political parties or law enforcement officials in the course of their legislative duties.
But this incident is a clear indicator that the amendment doesn’t do enough to protect the public. Common sense should dictate a change to further define the issue between intimidation and abuse of the intent of this amendment.
Editorial:
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The Chieftain, Jan. 30, on ruling the state’s school financing system is unconstitiutional:
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has filed an appeal to the state Supreme Court seeking to overturn a Denver district judge’s ruling that found the state’s school financing system unconstitutional.
The ruling by Denver District Judge Sheila Rappaport was flawed on its face. She ruled that the state had failed to meet its constitutional obligation to provide a “thorough and uniform” system of education.
Gov. John Hickenlooper has said the ruling could cost the state $4 billion annually, or more than half of this year’s operating budget. He said it would drastically limit the state’s ability to pay for other essential services.
Judge Rappaport disallowed any arguments about the state’s ability to pay in reaching her opinion. She centered it solely on the constitutional provision for a “thorough and uniform” system of education.
But there are other constitutional issues she should have considered.
First, the Colorado Constitution requires the state to operate on a balanced budget, so either some state expenditures would have to be trimmed or they’d have to be eliminated altogether in order to boost state spending on the schools.
Second, the TABOR amendment requires a vote of the people to increase taxes if the government wants them raised. So her ruling would seem to require people to agree to being taxed at higher rates in order to live up to that ruling.
Now, we’ve long called on the Legislature to adjust the school funding formula. As it is, the formula actually favors some of the wealthiest school districts in the state, which is antithetical to the rationale of the funding equalization law. Districts with low property values cannot generate the same levels of financing through property taxes that wealthier communities c
But because Judge Rappaport’s ruling is constitutionally flawed, we applaud Attorney General John Suthers’ decision to file this appeal.
Editorial:
