The Legislature is Out (Thank God)
Following are some notes about the legislative session, in no particular order. This is hardly a full review. See Axios , Colorado Politics, the Colorado Sun, and other news outlets for more details. Jared Polis still could veto some measures.
Absent Republicans: Thanks to the conspiracy mongering and general lunacy of many Republican “leaders,” the GOP is barely a force in Colorado politics. Colorado Pols says, “As The Sun points out, Democrats will almost certainly remain in the majority in the legislature through at least 2026; even if Republicans can retake a significant number of seats from Democrats, the GOP will likely need multiple election cycles to crawl out of their micro-minority status. For Democrats, the luxury of time is an under-discussed but equally-important windfall from the landslide 2022 election.” The Dem-friendly Pols also reviews several important bills of the year.
Testy Democrats: Meanwhile, some Democrats are bickering.
Guns: The legislature passed four important gun bills to “expand the state’s red flag law, raise the minimum age to purchase all guns to 21, impose a three-day waiting period on firearm purchases[,] and make it easier for people to sue the gun industry,” the Sun summarizes. But let’s remember what the state constitution says: “The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question. . . .” Certainly the age restriction flagrantly violates this provision, and I think the waiting period does too. The “red flag” law probably is mostly okay; the liability law was watered down and I’m not sure what effect it will have. Another bill requires serial numbers on so-called “ghost guns.”
Guns II: The legislature rejected Bill 1230, which sought to restrict “assault” guns. I Tweeted, “Calls to ban sales of ‘assault’ guns is an unserious position that rests on stylistic features of select semi-automatics that are functionally the same as other semi-automatics. If you want to restrict semi-autos, say, that accept magazines and above a certain caliber, say that.” I’ll probably revisit this issue down the road.
Abortion: Axios has a good run-down of bills pertaining to abortion and transgender issues. Bill 188 provides legal protections for people who offer or get abortions in Colorado. Bill 189 forces some people to pay for others’ abortions and transgender care via their insurance premiums, although there’s a religious exception for abortion.
Auto Thefts: Bill 97 makes “all auto thefts [including of cheap cars] felonies,” Colorado Politics summarizes.
Criminal Kids: The legislature declined to ban criminal prosecution of children ages 10–12, except for homicide, and instead passed a “gutted” bill. See Elise Schmelzer’s review of the bill as introduced. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I think the interaction between young children and the criminal justice system should be minimal. On the other hand, some children even age 12 or younger are capable of horrifically violent crimes. I haven’t studied the issue enough to have a sense of what might be an optimal policy.
Psychedelics: Bill 290 regulates psychedelic mushrooms. This is in response to the 2022 ballot measure decriminalizing them.
Property Rights: Bill 1190 forces owners of multi-family residential properties to sell to government, if they want to sell at all and if government wants it. This is a flagrant violation of people’s property rights.
Zoning: The legislature killed the land use bill that (among other things) would have eased local violations of the rights of residential property owners to redevelop their land into multi-family housing. I’ve written about this issue in previous posts and columns; see the archives.
Contract Rights: Bill 1068 limits “security deposits and rent for pet animals,” among other things. This is a flagrant violation of people’s contract rights. This bill will do one of two things: discourage renting to pet owners or spread the costs of renting to pet owners to non-pet owners.
Contract Rights II: I spent part of a column explaining what’s wrong with this year’s so-called “right to repair” bill.
Taxes: “Small businesses with less than $500,000 in annual sales will no longer have to collect the 27-cent retail delivery fee,” Axios summarizes. So now this stupid tax (“fee”) is somewhat less bad.
Taxes II: Republicans walked out over the bullshit bill regarding property taxes and TABOR refunds.
Prison Phones: “Phone calls for people in prison will be free by July 2025,” Axios summarizes. That’s good.
Equal Pay for Unequal Work: I discussed bill 105 previously.
CdeBaca’s Race-Based Tax Idea
Previously I wrote, “Denver Democratic Socialist Candi CdeBaca proposed that government collect ‘extra taxes from white-led businesses from all over the city and redistribut[e] them to Black and brown owned business.’”
How dare people quote CdeBaca verbatim from a publicly available video that she provided to criticize her positions!
The Denver Post’s Conrad Swanson Tweeted, “No, Candi CdeBaca isn’t actually proposing a tax on white-owned businesses.” If we turn to Swanson’s strange, sycophantic article, we find it depends on what the meaning of the word “propose” is.
Swanson concedes that “CdeBaca discusses taxing white-owned businesses and offering the money to businesses owned by people of color.”
But CdeBaca told The Denver Post those comments weren’t an actual policy proposal and she’s not planning to introduce such a tax to the council. Rather, a member of the Ministerial Alliance asked her and her challenger, Darrell Watson, whether they support reparations for Black people and, if so, what they might look like.
CdeBaca said she answered the question — as did other candidates for the District 8 and mayoral races — in support of reparations and used an example she’s seen suggested in other places.
“Of course, it’s a race-based policy, they asked me about reparations. What else is it supposed to be about?” CdeBaca said. “It’s not like I’m inventing this conversation.”
Okay, so she merely favorably discussed the tax idea rather than formally proposed it. Sheesh.
As I responded to Mark Hillman when he cried foul:
Don't worry, I’m sure Conrad will use the *exact same standards* next time a Republican or conservative merely favorably discusses a highly controversial policy without officially “proposing” it.
There is a very serious side to Swanson’s article, though, in that he reports violent and racist messages sent to CdeBaca. “Online comments and emails called for CdeBaca’s death (or that of her unborn child), imprisonment and more,” Swanson summarizes.
Here’s what I said about that:
As one who often disagrees with [CdeBaca] on policy, I want to publicly and absolutely condemn the violent and racist messages sent to her. No elected official, no person, deserves such treatment. Criticize her positions on their merits or be quiet.
Here’s what CdeBaca wrote about the incident:
Last week, I participated in a candidate forum. . . . One of [the] questions was: Do you support reparations and their implementation at the local level? If so, how could that potentially look? We had two minutes to respond, and I answered the question directly. Yes, I support reparations, and I provided hypothetical examples of what that might look like at the local level, including considering how our special taxing districts for businesses (business improvement districts, or BIDs) could play a role. . . .
A cherrypicked clip of my response was circulated with zero context by the far-right hate account, Libs of TikTok, encouraging its white nationalist followers to systematically harass and threaten me, and it was further amplified by initial media coverage. . . .
The video that was circulated is just a very small piece of information from a candidate forum that was taken completely out of context. My words were an on-the-spot response about what kind of structures already exist that could be considered in a conversation at the local level. It was not something I am proposing, and it is not something that was vetted by community.
But let’s be clear: I do think reparations are necessary, both locally and nationally. . . .
The source of the video was CdeBaca herself. “CdeBaca posted video of her comments suggesting a race-based tax to her TikTok account,” 9News reported. Go watch the 2:53 minute clip that CdeBaca posted and see the “context” for yourself. Yes, it is horrible that Libs of TikTok further distributed clips of the video, leading to a hateful response by some viewers of that site. But that doesn’t change the fact that CdeBaca said and published what she said and that her comments are worthy of critical evaluation.