Once again, I want to extend a big huge thank you to State Rep John Kefalas!  As a mom I can’t imagine how I would “manage” raising my kids without the  Fort Collins Democrat to make my parenting life easier.

According to Colorado News Agency reporter Debi Brazzale, Kefalas’s legislation HB 1147 will make it a crime for anyone under the age of 18 to ride a bike, scooter, skateboard and even in-line skates without a helmet.

The proposed new law doesn’t carry any real punishment.  According to Kefalas the purpose of the law is to provide parents with another idol threat with no real consequence.  Brazzale quoted him, “We’re saying ‘It’s the law. You have to have a helmet if you’re a minor, but we’re not going to punish you.”  I’m sure my kids won’t see through that!

The bill passed the House Transportation Committee and is awaiting second reading.

I want to send a thank you card to State Rep John Kefalas (D-Fort Collins).

In a press release bragging about the House Health and Human Services Committee passing his “Transparency Trojan Horse” bill, a.k.a. HB 1330 The Health Care Cost Transparency Act, Kefalas said, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”  In other words, Kefalas needs to measure the quality of my health care so that he can manage it for me and my family.  Thank Goodness!  I’ve been waiting for someone to take care of me and my children.  What a relief!

HB 1330, the All-Payer Database,  is dangerous because it creates a database with all your personal health care transactions.  It grants unlimited power to the state’s Executive Director of Health Care Policy and Financing to mandate the collection of any health care data, to conduct audits, to give the data to third parties without seeking permission and to impose unlimited fines for refusing to provide data to the database.

Just think…all your personal health care information forced to be made available to the state so it can “manage” it for you!

Independence Institute Health Care Policy Center Director Linda Gorman warns the state may have access to individual information on physical functioning, medical treatment, supposed mental stability, marital problems, family structure, sexual habits, addictions, adherence to government health recommendations, and individual financial arrangements.

Remember it’s for your own good.  How else can the state “manage” your health care for you?

Also troubling, transparency means citizens get to see inside government, and NOT the other way around.  Funny, some Democrat lawmakers were so worried about privacy issues when Rep BJ Nikkel presented her Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act that required the state to provide detailed spending information.  No such concern from them with HB 1330.

Check out Linda Gorman’s excellent analysis of the “Trojan Horse Transparency.”  Also call John Kefalas and thank him for being willing to “manage” your health care.

At the end of last year Congresswoman Betsy Markey (CO 4) joined the Blue Dog Coalition, a self described group of 54 conservative and moderate Democrats that focus on fiscal issues including a balanced budget and the national debt.   A review of Markey’s voting record leaves one to wonder if her support for fiscal reform is all bark and no bite.

Markey is a freshman democrat lawmaker from a conservative district (voter registration favors republicans by nearly10 percent) that voted for John McCain in 2008.  She is the first democrat to represent the 4th CD since Wayne Aspinall in 1973.  The Cook Political Report calls the 4th CD a “toss up” for 2010, which is why Markey has tried so hard recently to appear as a fiscal conservative.

Early in 2009 she voted for or supported unpopular legislation such as the stimulus package, card check, and cap and trade.  My friend and fellow blogger Randy Ketner did an excellent job of highlighting Markey’s short legislative tenure.  His lengthy “Colorado Political Analysis 2010” appeared on Red State.

It seems that Markey is reading the tea leaves, which are telling her to move to the right or at least look like she is moving to the right.  Recently Markey has voted “against” her party on both health care and raising the debt limit, but in reality she voted with party leadership on all procedural and amendment votes only voting against leadership on the final vote.  That way she can position herself as independent of the democrat leadership without upsetting them.

Take health care for instance. Markey says she voted against H.R. 3962 Affordable Health Care for America Act because she claimed it did not do enough to “cut health care costs that crushing our businesses and families.”  She claims to support health care reform just not this specific piece of legislation. 

If that is true, then why did she vote no on a motion to recommit the bill?  According to GovTrack, Markey voted no on House Vote #866 which was “a final opportunity to revise” it before passage.  A motion to recommit sends legislation back to committee with instructions on how to fix the bill.  It can be used constructively or can be used to kill a “bill before it moves to a final up-or-down vote in the House.”  If Markey is serious about health care reform but not this bill, why vote to move it along instead of fixing it in such a way that she can support it?

Another example of Markey voting with democrat party leadership on rules and procedures for unpopular legislation then voting against them on the final tally is H.J. Res. 45 to increase the statutory limit on public debt.  This one is interesting because 38 Democrats voted not to raise the debt limit, 22 are freshman lawmakers facing competitive races in the fall, 17 are Blue Dogs.  Of the 17 Blue Dogs, only four enabled party leadership with procedural votes that allowed the debt limit resolution to go to the floor of the House.  Markey was one of those four. 

Markey voted yes on Roll Call Vote #45, which ordered the question: “Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 45) increasing the statutory limit on the public debt.”  She then voted no on Roll Call Vote #46 on “agreeing” to an increase. 

Markey played the same game with H.R. 1106: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, which allows bankruptcy courts to modify mortgage contracts.  She enabled democrat leadership when she voted no to recommit and yes to proceed.  On the final vote she said no. 

These aren’t the only examples.  I’ll highlight more as we get closer to the November vote.

The 4th CD is the heart of Ag country in Colorado.  Weld County is the 8th largest Ag producing county in the United States.  While Congresswoman Markey can claim to be a fiscal conservative, our sensitive olfactory receptors can detect a load of manure when we smell it.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should…

I get it.  Democrats are in charge in Colorado and therefore they can pass or defeat pretty much whatever legislation they want.  They do not need Republicans at all.  But just because they can doesn’t mean they should.

Tonight the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs defeated SB 51 along a party line vote.  This bill, sponsored by Senator Scott Renfroe and Representative Jerry Sonnenberg, would have eliminated the Governor’s authority to suspend or limit the sale, distribution and/or transportation of firearms during a time of state disaster emergency.  

This bill was designed to prevent the gun confiscation that occured in New Orleans right after Katrina.  So at a time when Coloradans will be most vulnerable, government can limit our ability to protect ourselves.  You can thank Democrat Senators Rollie Heath, Bob Bacon and Betty Boyd.

Not to be left out, House Democrats killed Representative Glenn Vaad’s excellent bill on priority based budgeting.  HB 1126 would have created a biennial priority-based budgeting process.  One way to kill a bill is to weigh it down with an unrealistic fiscal note.  That’s exactly what happened with Vaad’s bill.  According to legislative council, it would cost taxpayers roughly $350,000 over the next two years for the state to prioritize its budget.  The real question is how much does not prioritizing the budget cost Colorado taxpayers every year?

During the Long Term Fiscal Stability Commission meetings I learned that Colorado state statuted requires a zero-based budgeting process.  I was told by Democrat Representative Mark Ferrandino, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, that the process has been abandoned because it is “too hard.”

Of course, Ferrandino’s bill, HB 1119, which would require performance-based budgeting and strategic planning, has a fiscal note of a mere $25,000.  It passed out of committee just before Vaad’s was defeated.

Also killed, HB 1087 Republican Representative Spencer Swalm’s bill to change employer state income tax withholding from mandatory to voluntary. It was tagged with the most absurb fiscal note of nearly $19 million and over 60 FTEs over three years.  Although that may be cheaper and create more jobs than some stimulus projects. The fiscal note was so bad, Swalm said even some Republicans wouldn’t support his bill.

Barring a miraculous, last minute stay of execution, Representative Amy Stephen’s bill concerning transparency in gifts, grants and donations will be dead tomorrow.   It has NO cost to the state and would allow taxpayers to see what organizations are funding legislation and interim committees.  It is simply a good governance piece of legislation.  And chances are it won’t pass because Stephens is a Republican.

Democrats would be wise to remember that power is cyclical.

State Senator Suzanne Williams (D-Aurora) has come to senses.  She pulled her Indian mascot bill.  SB 107 was a silly attempt to force public high schools and charter schools to get permission to use any kind of an Indian mascot or pay a fine.  Even those sympathetic to her politics criticized her for trying to legislate political correctness especially when the state faces more pressing issues.

Looks like the Eaton Fightin’ Reds mascot is safe — at least until my University Bulldogs beat the Fightin’ Reds in baseball this spring.

From Coloradoan editor Bob Moore’s blog:

The first debate among Northern Colorado’s four congressional candidates is coming up Feb. 4, and we’re asking voters to submit some of the questions.

The debate will be from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4, at Windsor High School. The public is welcome to attend but if you can’t make it, the debate will be livestreamed on coloradoan.com and 9News.com.

Is there a question you’d like to see asked in the debate? If so, e-mail it to me at bmoore@coloradoan.com by Tuesday. I’ll forward the questions to Adam Schrager at 9 News, who will be the moderator of the debate.

We have just a couple of guidelines for the questions. Phrase the question so it can be asked of all four candidates, and include your name and hometown in the e-mail. We want to give proper credit to questions submitted by voters.

The four candidates appearing at the debate are Loveland businessman Dean Madere, University of Colorado Regent Tom Lucero, former Fort Collins City Council memberDiggs Brown and state Rep. Cory Gardner.

Also, KFKA will be airing the debate live. 

Not really.  My son plays varsity baseball for the University Bulldogs in arguably the most difficult league — the Patriot League in Northern Colorado.  I am no fan of the Eaton Fightin’ Reds because they win all the time.  They are like the New York Yankees. But I’ll be darned if I am going to let a bunch of yahoos at the state capitol try to destroy legislatively a tradition, a culture, an icon of Northern Colorado. 

Typically, I’d simply laugh off SB 107 “Concerning the Use of American Indian Mascots By Public High Schools.”  But this ridiculous bill is dangerous.  It intends to legislate political correctness by requiring any public high school or charter school that

uses an American Indian mascot to either cease using the American Indian mascot or obtain approval for the continued use of the American Indian mascot or another American Indian mascot from the Colorado commission of Indian affairs…

If a public school doesn’t comply, the state will fine the school district $1000 each month.  The money goes into the state education fund.

The bill’s primary sponsor in the Senate is Suzanne Williams, who claims to be one quarter Comanche. Williams told the Denver Post  that 

she’s concerned with American Indian mascots that are caricatures — ‘with a funny nose or something’ — and wants communities to have a ‘healthy dialogue about their heritage.

What Williams and the other misguided legislators sponsoring this bill (see list below) don’t know is that the Fightin’ Reds mascot, described as “an Indian with a misshapen nose, eagle feather and loincloth” is a symbol of pride and instills fear in the hearts of their opponents.  Yes Eaton is that good.

The legislators sponsoring this legislation should be ashamed of themselves.  First, the state faces much more pressing issues such as how to close a billion dollar budget shortfall.  State Senator Scott Renfroe, a former Eaton School Board member and an Eaton Red himself, explained ”It’s such an overreach in a year when we are faced with budget challenges.”

This bill is a classic example of why legislators should not be granted five bill titles.  It’s a waste of time.  Legislators look ridiculous spending time arguing high school mascots when our state unemployment rate just increased six-tenths of one percent to 7.5 percent. 

Second, legislating morality and political correctness are non-starters and divisive.  Third, the school district mascot is something the Eaton community should decide.  SB 107 abuses local control. 

My suspicion is that this ridiculous piece of legislation at least will pass out of the Senate Education committee, where it has been assigned, because four of the Senate sponsors are members of the committee.

As long as legislators threaten one of our own in Northern Colorado, I will be a Fightin’ Red. Consider joining me or join one of the several other rural Colorado high schools – Yuma, Lamar, Montrose — caught up in Denver’s moral righteousness.

But come baseball season, I hope my Bulldogs rip the Reds to pieces!  Go Bulldogs!

Sponsors of SB 107 and their contact information:

Senator Bob Bacon, 303-866-4841, bob.bacon.senate@state.co.us

Senator Rollie Heath, 303-866-4872, rollie.heath.senate@state.co.us

Senator Nancy Spence, 303-866-4883, nancyspence@qwest.net

Senator Pat Steadman, 303-866-4861, sen.steadman@comcast.net

Senator Abel Tapia, 303-866-4878, abel.tapia.senate@state.co.us

Senator Suzanne Williams, 303-866-3432, suzanne.williams.senate@state.co.us

Representative Mike Merrifield, 303-866-2932, michael.merrifield.house@state.co.us

Representative Su Ryden, 303-866-2942, su.ryden.house@state.co.us

Representative Sue Schafer, 303-866-5522, sue.schafer.house@state.co.us

Representative Judy Solano, 303-866-2918, judy.solano.house@state.co.us

Representative Nancy Todd, 303-866-2919, nancy.todd.house@state.co.us

Hell No! We Won’t Go…to Obama Care.  Make Colorado a “sanctuary state” for free choice in health care. 

Jon Caldara, my boss at the Independence Institute, is calling for an amendment to the Colorado constitution that would opt our state out of the onerous health insurance mandates being forced upon us by the federal government.   Check out the Colorado Right to Health Care Choice Initiative ballot language.

Concerned citizens are rallying today (Tuesday, January 19) on the west steps of the Colorado state capitol in Denver from noon to 1 pm.   For more information visit Free Our Health Care Rally!

If you cannot attend but want to make your voice heard, visit my friend and fellow transparency activist Natalie Menten’s Web site where she has contact information for both the state house and senate, as well as our congressional delegation.

Just about the time I think pompous members of Congress and other elected officials at the state level have done everything possible to infuriate me, I read something like from the CBS News: “Copenhagen Summit Turned Junket?”  

Fifteen Democrat and six Republican members of Congress, their staff and their families spent hundreds of thousands of our dollars going to Copenhagen, including Colorado’s own Diana DeGette who bragged about her taxpayer-funded, all-expenses-paid “junket” in the Denver Post.  She concluded her second “dispatch” with this observation:

At the time of this writing, the final agreement has not yet been approved. It is almost certain that the final binding deal will not be reached in Copenhagen, but we have every reason to believe that we are moving in the right direction.

Thank goodness they don’t have a “final agreement.” It’s one of the few times, I’ve been thankful that wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars resulted in nothing other than wasted money.

Or I read something like this about our state government: “Go on take a free ride.”  Parole bought more than 60 2009 hybrid sedans in the midst of the “worst recession since the Great Depression.”

Or this: “Road trip to Beaver Run Resort.”  Apparently Colorado spent nearly $300,000 on things like “official functions” and “customer workshops.”

If you really want to get MAD check out the US Debt Clock.

Is anyone really surprised at the anger that launched such movements as Tea Parties and 9.12 Projects or my new group Mothers Against Debt.  Please join MAD.  No dues.  No meetings.  Just a pledge to hold accountable any elected officials who recklessly spend our children’s money pushing them further into debt.  Let me know what you think of the new logo.

I love being right (on many levels)!  Back on June 23, 2009, I discussed Governor Bill Ritter’s “war on Weld County” and posted the following:

Thanks to Governor Ritter and his environmental policies, Weld County is seeing high paying jobs go to other states and its tax base rapidly eroding.  Ritter won Weld County in 2006.  He won’t win it in 2010.

Turns out I was right.  Of course, I did not anticipate that Governor Bill Ritter would not seek re-election and therefore could not win Weld County. 

Let the speculating and handicapping begin.   Wise conservatives will realize Ritter’s exit is not necessary good news for the Republicans.   He would have lost.