Ballots are in the mail and we’ll be reviewing ballot issues in as many municipalities as possible. Please leave comments below if you’d like to make recommendations on your local issues based on our principles of personal liberty,free markets and limited government.
Statewide, there are 2 Propositions being considered. Our recommendations are below.
Proposition CC: This will allow the state to retain tax refunds under the TABOR amendment indefinitely. More info HERE.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Colorado emphatically recommends a NO vote for several reasons:
The TABOR timeout is permanent. This will effectively eliminate the only tool the people of Colorado have to restrain the growth of government.
The proposition states that the excess revenue will be spent on roads and education, but these priorities can be changed over time at the whim of the state legislature.
The argument that TABOR hamstrings the government from expanding services is disingenuous. TABOR only specifies that in order to raise taxes, the government needs to make a convincing case and put it to a vote of the people of Colorado.
Proposition DD: This will allow sports betting at casinos in Colorado. Wagers will be taxed at 10%, with tax proceeds going to fund the Water Plan Implementation Cash Fund. More info HERE.
The RLCCO takes no position on this ballot issue, due to conflicting principles. On the one hand, we support sports betting on the grounds of personal freedom/personal responsibility. On the other hand, we are opposed to the expansion of government that would ensue in order to collect and distribute the proceeds of this initiative. It also limits sports betting to casinos and creates a fund that would protect those businesses in the event of losses.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Colorado will be holding a Charter meeting on Tuesday, September 24th, 6-8pm at the Independence Institute. If you live in Colorado and you’re into personal liberty, free markets and limited government, please join us. We’ll be discussing the following:
Liberty Scorecard: We had overwhelmingly positive feedback from our 2019 Liberty Scorecard. We plan to expand and improve our scorecard in 2020, but it will require many more eyes on bills and a coordinated effort to compile data. No experience necessary. Training will be provided. If you want to be involved in this effort, or if you’re just interested in how it all works, don’t miss this meeting. We need help from all corners of the state and will be coordinating this effort electronically, so no travel necessary (unless you want to). Online training will also be available.
Proposition CC: the November ballot initiative that would allow the government to keep our TABOR refunds indefinitely. We must fight this.
2019 Officer Elections to be held later this fall. If you’d like to be more involved, please consider running for office or at-large board member. You must be a member 30 days prior to the election to be able to vote. You can join here. Bylaws are here.
Beer, wine, soft drinks and snacks provided. Enter through the doors on the North side of the building, 727 E. 16th Ave. Plenty of free parking. Hope to see you there! Questions: suemoore303@gmail.com, 303-349-6185.
JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST
By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with RLCCO and Mailchimp to receive announcements, updates, and other emails from the RLCCO. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.
For the official call, as well as Bonus Member allocations, click HERE. The State Org meeting is March 30th. To run for Bonus Member, you need to attend your County Org meeting. Most of those will be held in February.
Colorado Charter Meeting, Tuesday, January 29th, 7:00pm
Let’s get organized and discuss our strategy to reclaim some common sense on Colorado’s political scene.
A Colorado baker is being sued by the State again in what painfully looks like Double Jeopardy. It’s no longer okay to tolerate transgenders. You must be willing to celebrate them or find the boot of the State on your neck, litigating you into bankruptcy. Where’s the tolerance there?
Boulder declared an “assault weapons ban” which makes criminals out of citizens who fail to have their weapons “certified” by the city. In other words, you can be arrested for doing absolutely nothing. In what alternate universe does this make sense?
Colorado’s Leftists are out of control and Republicans appear impotent when it comes to reigning in Big Government. What can we do?
This meeting will take place over the phone and online.
This meeting will go over information on the Republican Liberty Caucus, why it exists and best practices on how to organize in Colorado. We will discuss how to make an impact on a local level and how to advance liberty.
If you would like to get involved in the Republican Liberty Caucus of Colorado this is the meeting for you.
The official text for all these initiatives can be found on the Secretary of State’s website HERE.
Amendment V:Lower Age Requirement for Members of the State Legislature – NO RECOMMENDATION
Amendment W:Election Ballot Format for Judicial Retention Elections – NO
Principles: N/A
This is a solution in search of a problem.Might decrease printing costs slightly, but the change might also confuse voters who think they are voting for all judges collectively instead of each judge individually.
Amendment X:Industrial Hemp Definition – YES
Principles: Limited government, Free markets, Property rights
By aligning our definition of “industrial hemp” with that of federal law, Colorado hemp farmers will not be disadvantaged in selling their products across state lines.
Amendments Y & Z:Congressional and Legislative Redistricting – NO
Principles: Limited government, Equal protection/Rule of law
These two are tricky.Y refers to congressional redistricting and Z refers to legislative redistricting.They should be considered together and voted similarly in order to remain consistent in principle.
While this amendment proposes to prevent gerrymandering by the party in power every census year, it also excludes minor parties from participating in the process. Furthermore, it places the power of redistricting into the hands of 12 people appointed by the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court and 3 former justices to create an “independent and politically balanced” board that will determine district lines.Understand that we would be concentrating power in the hands of a few unelected, unaccountable appointees.Recognize too, that this amendment will increase the length of the Colorado Constitution by over 12,000 words or 16% and would be extremely difficult to overturn if it doesn’t work or has unintended consequences.
Amendment A:Prohibit Slavery and Involuntary Servitude in All Circumstances – YES
Principles: Limited Government
It’s time to bury this issue.
Amendment 73:Funding for Public Schools – NO
Principles: Limited government, Equal protection/Rule of law
The reasons to oppose this are many. It does away with Colorado’s flat tax, pours more money into public schools with no accountability or guarantee of improved performance, and will tax corporations and small businesses yet again, driving them to set up shop in lower-tax states.
Amendment 74:Just Compensation for Reduction in Fair Market Value by Government Law or Regulation – NO RECOMMENDATION
Amendment 75:Constitutional Campaign Contributions– NO RECOMMENDATION
Prop 109:Statutory Authorization of Bonds for Transportation Projects (Fix Our Damn Roads)- YES
Principles: Limited Government, Free Markets
While not perfect, this is a huge improvement over Prop 110.No new taxes are involved, but it does increase state debt by $3.5 billion. This initiative serves as a defensive and strategic move on the part of Independence Institute and aligned liberty groups to cut the legs out from under Prop 110, which would increase the state sales tax by a whopping 21% with very little detail about how the funds would be distributed among transportation projects.
Where there’s a willing buyer and a willing seller, there’s a free market.Government should not be allowed to dictate the terms of payday loans.
Prop 112:Statutory Setback Requirement for Oil & Gas Development – NO
Principles: Limited government, Property rights
This is a thinly-veiled attempt to ban fracking in Colorado.While some make the case that local governments should decide whether or not fracking should be allowed within their boundaries, this would violate the property rights of those who would like to sell mineral rights to oil & gas interests.These setbacks would take those rights away from property owners in about 85% of cases.
Ballot Issue 7G:Denver Urban Drainage and Flood Control District Tax – NO
*Because this initiative affects multiple front range counties (Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson), we are including it in our voter guide.
Principles: Limited government, Equal protection/Rule of law
This special taxing district is run by unelected bureaucrats who want to increase the mill levy in some counties by as much as 100%.The district is also asking to be removed from TABOR protections under Article X, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution, allowing them to increase the tax up to $24 million without a vote of the people. This is clearly “taxation without representation”.
We also encourage you to vote for all Republicans on your ballot, especially our endorsees:Tim Neville in Senate District 16, Christine Jensen in Senate District 20 and Tony Sanchez in Senate District 22.
Clear the Bench Colorado evaluates performance of judges
Matt Arnold, RLCCO member and author of Clear the Bench Colorado has done the legwork on judicial performance. For his analysis go to Clear the Bench Colorado
There must be something in the water in Jefferson County.Maybe it’s the same stuff they put in that Banquet beer up there. But if you’re a liberty-minded voter in any of the 3 state Senate races in play this fall, you’ve got a solid Constitutional conservative to vote for.That’s unusual and a cause for celebration.It’s also a call to arms.We’ll get to that later.
The Republican Liberty Caucus of Colorado is pleased to announce our endorsements of all 3 Republican Senate candidates in JeffCo:
Senator Tim Neville (incumbent) – SD16
Businesswoman Christine Jensen – SD20
Political Activist Tony Sanchez – SD22
Our standards are quite high and our vetting process is thorough.Just having an R after your name doesn’t cut it.If you aren’t steeped in the Constitution and the principles of free markets, limited government and civil liberties, you won’t get very far in the endorsement process.
That said, let’s look at our most recent endorsees.
Tim Neville – SD16
Senator Neville has been a force for liberty over his 5 years in the state legislature.He sponsored a bill in 2017 to allow free speech on college campuses that put a stop the practice of “corralling” student activists into a small parcel of grass somewhere far from the student body and calling it a “free speech zone.”Of all places, Senator Neville contends, colleges should be “free speech zones” from one end of campus to the other.This bill was signed into law on April 4, 2017.
Senator Neville was also instrumental in passing a bill to reform the practice of civil asset forfeiture. Confiscating assets from citizens on the mere “assumption” that a crime has been committed without due process has been abused by law enforcement for far too long.SB 17-1313 passed and was signed into law on June 9, 2017.
Tim was also a sponsor of this year’s bill that would require the state to adopt “least restrictive regulations for professions and occupations”.Unfortunately, the bill died, but will no doubt be resurrected in future legislative sessions.
Having a 5-year voting record in the Colorado legislature is both a blessing and a curse for an incumbent candidate like Senator Neville.His Principles of Liberty grade has been a consistent A to B+ for the first 4 years of his public service.Oddly, Senator Neville scored a D+ in 2018, mostly due to his votes on bills where there were conflicting principles at play.Regardless, it was the determination of the RLCCO Candidate Review committee that Senator Neville has, on balance, been one of the most vocal and effective champions for liberty principles in the Colorado legislature.
Christine Jensen – SD 20
Born & raised in Jefferson County, Christine is a mother, grandmother and small business owner in the mortgage industry, employing about dozen people.Christine wants to bring business sense to government, especially in the area of fiscal responsibility.She also thinks businesses are over-regulated on the state level.
Christine has 4 kids and throughout the years has navigated public, private and charter schools, and has experience in homeschooling to boot.She’s well-versed in the strengths and weaknesses of each system and can certainly speak the language at the legislative level.
A 2016 graduate of the Leadership Program of the Rockies, Christine has also served as Chairman of the Arvada Chamber of Commerce, and still serves as the chair of their Government Affairs committee, which she started.She serves as liaison to the coalition of JeffCo chambers and the JeffCo Business Lobby.Christine’s district is very similar in makeup to Sanchez’ and Neville’s, with roughly 30% Rs, 30% Ds and the rest unaffiliated or minor parties.
Christine is running against former HD24 representative Jessie Danielson.In the 2014 election, Republican Larry Queen lost to Democrat incumbent Cheri Jahn by 435 votes out of about 68,000 votes cast.Christine has already raised over 50% more than Queen did in 2014, and has been canvassing her district for over a year.
Tony Sanchez – SD22
Tony has been an activist for conservative causes in Colorado for several years.He ran for SD22 in 2014 and won a decisive victory in the primary over Mario Nicolais, a more moderate Republican.Tony went on to lose the general election narrowly to incumbent Andy Kerr, who is now term-limited.
In the interim, Sanchez created an organization called Freedom For Education, proponents of school choice, education options and skills-based education for those who don’t intend to go to college.
Tony took the fight to the Colorado Board of Education to prevent educational software and app makers from collecting any data that can be linked directly back to an individual student.HB16-1423 is now a nationwide model for this initiative and was signed into law by Gov. Hickenlooper on June 10, 2016.
Tony is opposed to President Trump’s tariff policies, is also opposed to the “Red Flag” bill that was considered by this year’s legislature and he doesn’t believe that having Republicans in control of the presidency and both houses of Congress has played out as well as it should have.Our debt and deficit have continued to balloon out of control and the party isn’t willing to take tough stands on the budget, despite promises to the contrary.Tony says he senses a lot of anger among his constituents on those particular subjects.
Tony is strong on gun rights and TABOR.He feels that TABOR is the only reason that Colorado has continued to have a vibrant economy.He also will emphasize accountability and transparency in government if elected,
Tony is running against Brittany Pettersen, the former representative for HD 28.Pettersen is married to Ian Silverii, Executive Director of ProgressNow Colorado, an extreme left organization.
Additional Notes:
All 3 candidates were endorsed by Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry (CACI) despite the fact that all 3 refused to back the Chamber-endorsed Initiative 153 that would increase the state sales tax by .62% to fund roads and “transportation projects”.Instead, all 3 vocally support the Independence Institute-sponsored “Fix Our Damn Roads” amendment which will fund road and bridge repair without pork projects for bike lanes and multimodal transportation.
All 3 of these Senate races are being targeted by Democrat operatives and big money donors aligned with liberal causes.Think carpenter’s and electrician’s unions, teacher’s unions, NARAL and other national groups trying to paint our state dark blue.
Call to Action:
As an organization, Republican Liberty Caucus of Colorado seeks to identify and endorse liberty-minded candidates, then works to get them elected.It is our view that these three candidates will defend our principles of free markets, limited government and personal freedom at the state level.If you agree, please donate to any or all of these campaigns and volunteer to help them in their quest to defend liberty in Colorado.
You must be a member of RLCCO to attend. No travel necessary. These elections will be held via conference call. If you are a member by midnight, October 13th, you will receive a link to call in. Please consider running for an office or one of the 3 at-large board positions. Your involvement will help us promote liberty principles in the state of Colorado. http://rlcco.org/join.
