The Conscience of the Colorado GOP

Even if you don’t live within Denver city limits, the policies of the next mayor will most likely affect you. Is there a liberty-friendly candidate on the ballot? Join us Monday, 3/25 6:30pm at South High School to find out. Send your liberty questions to suemoore303@gmail.com for consideration.

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.

In case you missed it, HERE is the video from our first online charter meeting.  Tune in for announcements of future meetings.

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.

RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/1998307143802443/

Join the Online Meeting: https://join.freeconferencecall.com/republicanlibertycaucus

Dial-in number: (712) 775-7270

Access code: 784496#

2018 Voter’s Guide to Ballot Issues

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. 

Prop 110:  Statutory Transportation Funding – NO

Principles:  Limited Government, Free Markets

See Prop 109 above.

Prop 111: Statutory Payday Loans – NO

Principles:  Free markets, Limited government, Individual liberty/Individual responsibility

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”.

Official text for 7G can be found HERE.

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.

www.nevilleforcolorado.com

www.tonyforcolorado.com

www.christineforcolorado.org