Yesterday I traveled the state talking with members of the media about the report AFP Colorado just released. The report, Colorado in Transition: Killing the Golden Goose, details the critical economic point in which Colorado currently finds itself. The report reaches a simple but poignant conclusion: Colorado is only one generation away from becoming another California. Without an about face from the state‘s policy-makers, the state‘s business environment will be plagued by excessive taxation, uncontrollable spending, and a regulatory, health care and tort environment downright hostile to job growth.

This comprehensive 71 page report can be viewed here. One thing is for sure – this report has set off a firestorm from those who want to defend the status quo and believe that government is the answer to every problem.

Here are some key findings of the report:

* Colorado is in the midst of a political and policy pivot point of tremendous consequence that is putting Colorado‘s fiscal and economic future in serious jeopardy.

* This is the heart of the policy transformation that has gripped Colorado since 2005 and became more fully consummated in 2009: a deference toward the individual, the entrepreneur, the innovator and private citizens is increasingly being replaced by Governor Bill Ritter and the current Democrat legislature with a mindset of government control – the notion that for every problem there must be a government solution, and that government knows better how to spend our money and decide our future than do private citizens

* Studies show that Colorado‘s heretofore reform-minded direction in tort reform, health care, and education and its limits on taxes and spending have treated Colorado well. With its relatively low and predictable rates of taxation, well-educated workforce, increasingly diverse economy and attractive quality of life, Colorado can still be positioned for success, if its leaders resolve to tend to the state‘s real challenges.

* The bottom line: Colorado needs to institute pro-entrepreneurial policies that inspire innovation and ingenuity.

I hope you will take a few moments to read this report and urge your state legislators to enact pro-growth legislation that will help keep Colorado competitive.

Jeff Crank , Colorado State Director

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This is a copy of my Fax sent directly to John Salazar in Washington DC…

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Coloradans’ presidential votes at risk

By AMY OLIVER

The Colorado Senate will be debating the relevance of our state in the next presidential election and the legitimacy of our nation as it considers HB1299.

If passed, our state will join a compact of other states. All nine electoral votes will go the leader of the national popular vote, regardless of the will of Colorado voters. This end run around the Constitution is known as National Popular Vote or Koza scheme, named after multi-millionaire John Koza who concocted the plan to destroy the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote without a constitutional amendment.

Ever since the 2000 election when Al Gore narrowly won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote to George W. Bush, some Democrats have been on a mission to destroy the Electoral College.

It’s important to remember that had Gore been able to win even a single Southern or border state – such as his home state of Tennessee or Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas – he would have been president. George W. Bush won the popular vote in 30 states, giving him the necessary number of electoral votes to win the presidency. Middle America was able to avoid the tyranny of the East and West coasts.

Inherent in this movement to rid the country of the Electoral College is a misguided notion that the United States is a democracy rather than a republic. Our Founding Fathers recognized the danger of a democracy where 51 percent rules 49, and thus created a republic where the rights of the individuals are protected from the whims of the majority. The Electoral College is vital to maintaining our republic. It forces a presidential candidate to garner support that is both broad and deep, not concentrated on the coasts or urban areas.

In 2004, a handful of Democrats bankrolled by a Brazilian millionaire asked Coloradans to change how the state awards its nine electoral votes. In a vote that wasn’t even close, nearly 66 percent of voters said, “NO!” and rejected proposed Amendment 36.

In 2007, then-Sen. Ken Gordon introduced legislation that would force Colorado to be part of the Koza scheme. It passed the Senate but died in the House.

This year, state Rep. Andy Kerr introduced the Koza scheme in the House where it passed on a 34-29 vote. It now awaits voting by the full Senate.

What about a regional presidential candidate? A candidate could enjoy overwhelming support along the Eastern Seaboard and the Northeast and not even be on the ballot in Colorado. If he is the winner of the national popular vote, Colorado’s electoral votes would go to a candidate on whom Coloradans had no say.

Also, political instability would be the rule rather than the exception especially in close elections as states demand recounts if their candidate of choice does not win the national popular vote.

In Senate Committee testimony, Law Professor Robert Hardaway concluded that had the Koza scheme been in place during the 1960 election between Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon, the country would have endured years of lawsuits with no declared presidential winner until the 1964 election. In this case, the speaker of the House would serve as an interim president.

It was the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., who warned in 1979 that without the Electoral College, “the drama, the dignity and decisiveness and finality of the American political system is drained away in an endless sequence of contests, disputed outcomes, and more contests to resolve outcomes already disrupted. … That is how legitimacy is lost.”

Amy Oliver is director of operations for the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Golden.

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