I’ve always been curious why Treasurer Cary Kennedy is seen as a rising star in Colorado Democratic politics. I think I figured it out: she seems so happy to be relieving taxpayers of their money.

All I can say is, voter beware.

“I am working to make sure that, as our economy recovers, the first dollar that comes in the door goes into the classroom.” said Kennedy at the Democratic Party state assembly in May [see video above].

“I created the law to protect education funding,” said Kennedy in a 2006 campaign ad during her run for state treasurer. She used the same words in a campaign ad for re-election this year.

That law, Amendment 23, amounted to a $1.9 billion increase, according to the math below.

Approved by Colorado voters in 2000, Amendment 23 provided for an annual increase in core public school funding of 1% above inflation from 2001-02 to 2010-11. Over the first eight years, that has meant a $1.9 billion taxpayer-funded increase (to $5.7 billion) in school funding – or a 50% increase during a period when inflation increased 15% and student enrollment grew by 12%, according to Ben DeGrow of the Independence Institute.

How about Referendum C? That led to at least $3.6 billion more in the state’s coffers that otherwise would have had to be returned to taxpayers under the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), according to The Denver Post.

“In 2004-2005, Kennedy served as the policy director for House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, and assisted in developing an historic budget compromise, Colorado’s Referendum C, which was approved by Colorado voters in 2005,” according to Kennedy’s biography.

Less well-known about Kennedy – and somewhat less sunny – is this report from Education Week in August 2008 that Kennedy…

…said that Democrats would win a ballot initiative to “drive a stake in the heart” of the state’s Taxpayers Bill of Rights–a conservative cost-cutting measure.

That effort to fund schools, Amendment 59, was beaten badly at the ballot box.

And don’t forget the mill levy freeze (passed legislatively in 2007) that increased revenues by $117 million in 2008, according to this 2008 Rocky Mountain News report, headlined, “Treasurer admits bill increased property tax tab.”

…Kennedy said she came up with the idea in 2003 that the ballot measures already adopted by most districts permitted the state to freeze mill levy rates and boost revenue. At the time, Kennedy was working as a school finance analyst for the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the newspaper reported.

The freeze, upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2009, added “hundreds of millions of dollars to state coffers that otherwise would have gone back to property owners,” according to The Denver Post.

[Headline and story revised 8/10/10 with link to list of Bennet endorsements from March that includes Hickenlooper; as well as his donation record to Bennet's campaign.]

Interesting question. . . nobody’s asked it as far as I can tell.

In his TV ads, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet touts his experience as Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s former chief of staff. Their ties are deep. Hickenlooper’s commencement address at his alma mater in May included this:

“As Mayor, we recruited the best and the brightest, many from business and taking large pay cuts. You better believe I took advantage of my Wesleyan connections. I recruited Michael Bennet, ’86, from the corporate world as my Chief of Staff and then Superintendent of Schools. And it turned out that he liked the life – now he’s the Senator from Colorado, running for re-election.”

The month before, speaking at the Arapahoe County Democratic Party assembly, Hickenlooper studiously avoided favoring either Bennet or primary challenger Andrew Romanoff.

“If you look out over the landscape of anywhere in the United States, I don’t think there are any two more talented candidates to be in the U.S. Senate than Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff,” Hickenlooper said.

Hickenlooper also said, “What we have to do is make sure, as they work through this campaign, we keep it very positive on both sides.” (Well, it’s been so positive that Dan Balz of The Washington Post singled out the Bennet/Romanoff  primary for its “sheer nastiness and personal ill will…“)

So, maybe there was little to be gained by Hickenlooper, who’s running for governor of Colorado, making a big push for Bennet in a contested Democratic Senate primary.

But that didn’t stop the entire Democratic Colorado congressional delegation from backing Bennet. U.S. Sen. Mark Udall and Reps. Ed Perlmutter, Jared Polis, John Salazar, Betsy Markey and Diana DeGette all threw in with Bennet over Romanoff.

I sent an e-mail to Hickenlooper’s campaign spokesperson this morning, making sure I didn’t miss a Hickenlooper pitch for Bennet and asking “..is there a specific reason considering how close their working relationship has been in the past?”

If I get a response back, I’ll post it here. (In February, Hickenlooper did donate the maximum of $2,400 apiece to Bennet’s primary and general election campaigns.)

Should Bennet survive Tuesday’s primary, none of it may matter. However, if Bennet loses, and particularly if he loses narrowly, here’s my question: how many votes could Hickenlooper have moved with a well-timed push for his old pal?

Andrew Romanoff is going for broke against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in their Democratic primary, launching an attack this weekend that plays off Friday’s front-page New York Times story questioning a refinancing deal Bennet spearheaded while superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

“…I approved this message because you and I are going to shut their casino down,” said Romanoff in the ad, continuing his campaign theme that special interests (with Bennet complicit) are running a game in Washington.

“…for sheer nastiness and personal ill will, few (GOP primaries this year) can match what Democrats are doing in Colorado,” wrote Dan Balz in the Washington Post today.

Romanoff has relentlessly hammered Bennet, whose response was, “The New York Times just got it wrong,” in this video from The Colorado Independent.

Bennet campaign spokesman Trevor Kincaid was a little earthier with Fox News, quoted as saying, “First of all the New York Times article is b******t.”

If Bennet wins Tuesday, he can say he did it his way and then will face an even more bruising fight with the Republican nominee in the general election.

If Romanoff wins, the question becomes much more interesting: Would the Democratic Party establishment in Colorado and nationally, whom Romanoff stiff-armed by running against Bennet in the first place, embrace him and provide the resources he’ll need to compete in November?

Andrew Romanoff’s effort to knock off incumbent U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet relies on a tricky combo: convincing enough Democratic primary voters in Colorado that Bennet is captive to corporate interests while raising enough money to compete on TV against Bennet’s bankroll.

Both angles were apparent at a Romanoff rally in Denver on July 19, though his remarks – and that of former state Sen. Ken Gordon – sound a little different given subsequent events.

“‘The reason I’m supporting Andrew is because he’s the only person in the race – Democrat or Republican – who’s not taking corporate money,’” said Gordon, recalling conversations with potential voters while walking precincts on Romanoff’s behalf.

Romanoff’s halo on that issue was tarnished in recent Politico stories about whether he would (if he won the primary) accept money from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which does receive corporate PAC money. Romanoff’s response showed the audacity of hope: “I vowed to ask the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) to exclude any PAC dollars from contributions or expenditures it makes on my behalf.” The DSCC reportedly has a carve-out for events at which President Obama appears by not accepting PAC donations.

During Romanoff’s remarks on July 19, he made a desperate and funny (or desperately funny?) plea for donations, noting that it costs $800, each time, to run a 30-second campaign TV ad.

“If you can contribute that much to this campaign tonight, we’ll name the ad after you,” he said.

Four days later, Romanoff sold his home in Washington Park as part of a loan to his campaign of $325,000.

Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Colorado, nearly had Republican me swooning over his tax policy…IF only he’d stopped when he was ahead.

“My goal is to make our tax code as efficient, as equitable, as transparent as possible and to make sure that we’re not punishing the kind of activities that we ought to instead be rewarding,” he said at a July 20 forum in Colorado Springs, hosted by the Coalition for a Prosperous America.

YAY! Finally! A guy who’s speaking my language! He must really get it. We need wholesale tax reform to save the Republic. WOO HOO!!!

“When you tax something you get less of it. We tax work. We impose an income tax to provide the revenues that government needs to supply the services that citizens want.”

Right on, brother! I loooove logical politicians. This is logic at its best! No more income tax! Don’t penalize success! Win!

“It seems to me the best way to design a tax code would be to instead encourage activities by taxing them less, activities like work or savings, research/development, investments of those kinds…”

I found my unicorn! A Democrat who understands the fundamental purpose and folly of taxes. THIS MAKES MY DAY!

“…And instead discourage the activities that disadvantage us. Like, for example, carbon emissions.“

WAIT! WHAT? Nooooooooo. . . you were so close! SO CLOSE!

“I want to also make sure, and I think that some of the earlier conversation reflected this, that as we’re designing this tax code, we don’t unfairly disadvantage the folks who have the least ability to pay. I think progressivity is an appropriate part both of CPA’s platform and of our own tax code.”

Sigh. I knew it was too good to be true . . . I KNEW IT! I should have known better.

Have you ever had your heart built up only to have it torn down again? Send your sob stories (FISCAL only, please) to whosaidyousaid@gmail.com.

That’s the question Democratic primary voters in Colorado might be asking themselves given the state of debate between the party’s two U.S. Senate candidates in the run-up to the Aug. 10 Colorado contest.

Watch their back-and-forth toward the end of this “Your Show” clip, hosted by Adam Schrager of KUSA Channel 9.

“But the thing that I object to is that idea that when I take a vote that (Romanoff) automatically says that it’s because I received PAC money from somebody,” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet says at 7:52 of the clip. “That’s false.”

“An hour before this debate – the first, by the way, we’ve had in months since my opponent has turned down nine other occasions – (Bennet) held a press conference calling me a liar and asking the lieutenant governor to call me a hypocrite,” challenger Andrew Romanoff said at 8:58 of the clip. “That’s not exactly the kind of respect that Coloradans deserve.”

Andrew Romanoff is WAY too far left on economic issues like climate change and single-payer health care to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate. Yet, an anti-incumbency wave could propel him past U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the Aug. 10 primary to become the Democratic Party nominee.

One thing Romanoff has going for him is that he hangs loose on the campaign trail. When a WhoSaidYouSaid videographer showed up at his tennis tournament and fundraiser on Saturday in Denver’s Washington Park, Romanoff let it roll. He even hit a few lobbed questions, such as who would win a Romanoff/Bennet tennis match?

“Obviously, if it were in Colorado, I’d have the home-court advantage,” said Romanoff. “If it’s in D.C., he’s got a lot more friends there. So, we’d probably have to play somewhere in the middle of the country to be fair.”

Bennet, too, likes to portray himself as a man of the people, with his campaign spokesman telling The Denver Post that his events are “open to the public and that Bennet usually takes all questions on any topic until there are none left.” Yet, his campaign doesn’t want “uncredentialed” new media at events and Bennet has reportedly said he “doesn’t confuse the blogosphere with real people and real voters.” When asked his position on card check at a public event in Boulder with a camera rolling, he ducked.

Maybe Romanoff hangs loose because he’s got nothing to lose, having already taken on his party’s establishment by challenging Bennet. Or, as the primary gets gritty, Romanoff is at ease running hard left while incumbent Bennet runs left, right and center – anywhere to keep from losing.

At the Western Conservative Summit on Sunday morning, Dick Morris joked that the reason Andrew Romanoff didn’t take a White House job (and skip challenging U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the Democratic primary) is that since he’s a Romanoff, he really wanted to be a czar.

On Monday, Romanoff proved him right.

At a MoveOn.org rally in Denver on Monday protesting the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. FEC,  Romanoff talked about the undue influence he claims big business has on politics and policy – and portrayed himself as a protector of the people’s interest.

“It is a little lonely, as Ken was saying, to be the only candidate, apparently, in the race for the U.S. Senate in Colorado, and one of the very few in the country, I guess, who believes that people ought to govern a democracy.”

Does Romanoff realize that most of the “people” in a democracy also do business with big business – and enjoy the benefits of that commerce? But there was more…

“You can see the corrosive influence of big money on politics in virtually every area of public policy that we now face. You can see it in the debate over health care reform, when big insurance and drug companies were able to protect their profits at our expense; able to kill consideration of a universal single-payer non-profit plan and to wipe the public option off the table. You can see it in the debate over financial reform, when Wall Street banks were able to turn the Senate Banking Committee into a wholly owned subsidiary, and destroy consideration of the Glass-Steagall law and protect themselves as ‘too big to fail.’ And you can certainly see it now, in the most important debate that the Senate is not having, the debate over revolutionizing energy policy so that we can end our addiction to fossil fuel and accelerate our transition to a new cleaner renewable energy economy, that’s a cause worth fighting for.”

What Romanoff misses is that business interests lobby so intensely BECAUSE the government inserts itself into all aspects of commerce. When the government is bailing out some companies over others, regulating more and more aspects of industry; telling companies what benefits they must provide their employees (i.e. health care); and trying (and failing) to socially engineer our economy, businesses rightfully stand up and advocate for their interests.

Romanoff, who has spent much of his post-collegiate career in public service, may pride himself on representing “people” and not “special interests,” but many of the individuals giving him donations no doubt work for, do commerce with, and even own stock (gasp!) in, the private sector.  Separating “big business” and “the people” is a false division because business (big or small) is merely the vehicle through which people produce. The more government hampers that effort, the more the people behind those businesses will feel the need to advocate for their best interest.

What’s so misleading about Romanoff’s populism is his advocacy for an even GREATER role by government that would obligate businesses to lobby EVEN MORE.

[Post updated 7/14/10]

Were there any influential Democrats NOT trying to get Andrew Romanoff a job in 2009?

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter acknowledged this week that he put in a word with the Obama Administration on Romanoff’s behalf in early 2009. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper “spoke to ‘dozens of people’ about getting Romanoff a job prior to his leaving his position of speaker of the House in May 2009 and afterward,” The Denver Post reported earlier this month.

Instead, in September, Romanoff targeted the U.S. Senate seat held by Ritter appointee Michael Bennet, causing a split in the party and juicy disclosures ever since about a White House effort at the time to lure Romanoff away from the primary.

It’s worth recalling that Hickenlooper’s January announcement that he would run for governor (after Ritter declined to run for re-election) came amid chatter that Romanoff might switch races to run for governor himself or even become Hickenlooper’s running mate.

When asked if he had talked to Romanoff, here’s what Hickenlooper said at his Jan. 12 press conference announcing his bid for governor.

“If I start discussing everything we talked [about], I suspect that the tenor of our conversations would change dramatically,” Hickenlooper said. “Let me say that I haven’t offered him any jobs or tried to do a deal. He in no way ever tried to dissuade me from doing this.”

The next week, Romanoff endorsed Hickenlooper. And Hickenlooper has appeared to stay neutral in the Senate primary, praising both Romanoff and Bennet at a county assembly in April.

If you’ve ever wondered what U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., stands for, it turns out his Democratic primary opponent, Andrew Romanoff, has the same question.

At a campaign event in Aurora on Sunday, a woman said to Romanoff, “I really do appreciate your willingness not to badmouth your opponent. However, why should we vote for you rather than for him?”

The former Colorado Speaker of the House, without mentioning Bennet by name, said, among other things:

- “I believe I’m better qualified for this job.”

- “Politics doesn’t reward modesty, so I’ll tell you this: I’ve been recognized as the best legislative leader in America by the National Conference of State Legislatures.” [Romanoff shared that award in 2006.]

- “It’s not just my opponent, it seems to be the leadership of the entire Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate that’s forgotten: at some point, we’re in charge, we need to start acting that way, not split the difference before these debates ever begin.”

- “With respect to policy differences, I believe my positions are closer to where we ought to be. Frankly, I have positions on issues, which itself distinguishes me in some [cases] from my opponent.”

- “It’s very difficult for me to distinguish myself from a candidate who refuses to tell us where he stands. I will. I am, right now. And in the course of our debates on health care policy, on financial reform, on energy and the environment, on campaign finance reform, my positions are clear.”