In a blow delivered by Mayor Michael Hancock’s political compatriots, Denver Democrats last weekend decided against endorsing a major college tax ballot measure backed by the mayor.
At Saturday’s Central Committee meeting, the members mustered 69 votes to support a proposed new sales tax to help Denver-resident college students pay for college, either through loan pay-back or support for scholarship groups. But 94 voted against supporting the ballot question as a local party, confirmed Anne Murdaugh, the county party chair.
That 58 percent-to-42 percent split came after former Mayor Wellington Webb made the case for the ballot measure and City Councilwoman Mary Beth Susman spoke against it. Webb had .
Asked about Hancock’s response, mayoral spokeswoman Amber Miller referred questions to the that’s working to pass it.
“We have broad support from the community” as well as the business sector, said campaign spokeswoman Kaitlyn Randol, from public affairs and communications shop Strategies 360. So she didn’t express concern at the party rank-and-file’s vote, instead citing prominent supporters who include Hancock’s mayoral predecessors (and Democrats) Webb, John Hickenlooper and Federico Peña.
“It’s a nonpartisan issue,” Randol said, and it “impacts all families. certainly we’re all looking for support. (The party’s vote is) not representative of how all Denver voters feel about this issue.”
If voters pass Measure 2A on Nov. 3, the city would increase the 7.65 percent sales tax by 0.08 points, or 8 cents on a $100 purchase. That would generate more than $10 million for the new Denver College Affordability Fund, backers estimate. The program would provide need-based aid capped at $4,000 a year per student as reimbursements to scholarship organizations or as grants to Denver-resident students to repay loans if they demonstrate regular academic progress.
Susman . On Wednesday, she told me that her message — focused on the type of tax being proposed and the city’s improper role in higher education funding — seemed to resonate with the Democrats.
“I think it shows pretty clearly that they were opposed to it, and I think their main opposition were all the obligations the city already has and the fact that it’s a sales tax and is regressive,” Susman said. “So, ironically, the lower-income people would pay a higher proportion of their income to send lower-income people to school.”
