The American Tradition Institute (ATI) in Washington, D.C., has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Colorado, challenging the constitutionality of a requirement that 30% of electricity from investor-owned utilities (like Xcel) in Colorado be generated by renewable sources by 2020. The ATI contends the requirement violates the Commerce Clause.

“The heart of the lawsuit addresses both the uneconomical and environmentally harmful nature of wind-generated energy,” according to a press release with the lawsuit, which includes a Colorado plaintiff, Rod Lueck. “In addition to higher costs than traditional generating sources, wind energy creates more pollution because it requires coal or natural gas as backup generation when the wind either does not blow, or when it blows too hard and causes systems to shut off.”

The mania for renewable power generation in Colorado was politicized under former Gov. Bill Ritter, who (according to Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll) now has trouble articulating and defending the economics of green energy.

Current Gov. John Hickelooper made it a point to support the 30% standard as part of his campaign last year.

But Paul Chesser, head of the ATI, wrote this in The Washington Times…

“Colorado’s law mandates that 30 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources by the year 2020. That discriminates – by mandating the purchase and use of renewables – against other legal, less costly, less polluting, safer and more reliable in-state and out-of-state sources of electricity. You read that right – ‘less polluting’ and ‘safer.’”

In the video above from December, Chesser describes what he calls climate-change alarmism.

That’s part of what’s driven the agenda in Colorado and we’re living the economic consequences. According to William Yeatman, an electricity rate expert for ATI, writing for the Independence Institute:

“Over the next decade, Colorado working families and businesses will have to pay at least $3.8 billion in additional electricity costs that will not be subject to any rate cap in order to meet the [Renewable Electricity Standard] and will be collected from ratepayers via the [Electric Commodity Adjustment],” he wrote.

Colorado state Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, is fighting the 2007 executive order that allows state employees to organize. We talked to him last month about the hurdles he anticipates trying to get his legislation through the process. As Mitchell explained, his bill was sent to the Senate State Affairs committee, or “killer’s row” as he put it. Now that we have a date that the hearing is set, Monday Feb. 7, we have a few days to create an outcry. The members of the State Affairs Committee are listed below:

Chair Rollie Heath (D-Boulder): rollie.heath.senate@state.co.us

Vice Chair Bob Bacon (D-Fort Collins): bob.bacon.senate@state.co.us

Senator Betty Boyd (D-Lakewood): betty.boyd.senate@state.co.us

Senator Bill Cadman (R-Colorado Springs): bill.cadman.senate@state.co.us

Senator Kevin Grantham (R-Cañon City): kevin.grantham.senate@state.co.us

Please take a few minutes to contact each and let them know how you feel about Mitchell’s bill. The Senate State Affairs Committee hearing will be just the first step in a long process for this legislation, but when citizens write to their representatives, it makes a difference. Throughout my years at the Capitol, the only bills that have defied expectation are the ones that the people decide are important enough to voice their opinions on. Whether that’s by testifying, or writing their representatives, the voice of the people is a powerful force. Here’s a sample of what I wrote to each member:

Dear Sen. _______________,

The Executive Order signed by former Gov. Ritter in 2007 that allowing state-employee partnerships created a dynamic where the best interests of state workers may be contrary to the best interest of the taxpayers.

You have an opportunity to help correct this situation, as the State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee on which you serve will be considering a bill that rescinds that order – SB 11-038 – on Monday Feb. 7. I urge you to carefully consider this bill and give it your approval in committee so that the full state Senate may debate. The public that pays the bills deserves no less.

Sincerely,

Kelly Maher

[Updated 2/4/11]

Colorado state Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, has proposed legislation to overturn the executive order signed in 2007 by former Gov. Bill Ritter that gave state employees union muscle in negotiations.

The Denver Post editorialized that Gov. John Hickenlooper “with a flick of his wrist” can, and should, overturn Ritter’s order. But, as we noted during the gubernatorial campaign in October, “Wary of ‘outraged’ unions, Hickenlooper sweet-talks labor.”

And Hickenlooper’s appointment of Ellen Golombek (formerly with the SEIU and the AFL-CIO) to head the state Department of Labor and Employment further shows that the self-styled “pro-business” governor is very eager to keep the peace with labor unions.

That leaves it to good-government reformers like Mitchell to make the case…

“We simply can’t afford to have a policy that encourages, and invites state employees to become a separate interest group and to lobby for more generous benefits against reform,” said Mitchell. “There are a lot of reasons that it was a bad idea in the first place. Colorado’s public employees are better paid than employees in surrounding states. They have tremendous job security, constitutional tenure and civil service protections. And they should implement the public policy that the political process establishes. They shouldn’t be a separate interest group lobbying against reform. Which is what unions do, is lobby against efficiency and reform.”

The chances of passage? Slim.

“Democrats still control the state Senate and President Brandon Schaffer sent my bill to the State Affairs Committee, which is a tough committee for any enlightened or efficient policy to survive,” said Mitchell. “So getting past the ‘Killer’s row’ of the State Affairs Committee in the Senate is the big hurdle.”

Unfortunately, this can often be the case. Politically savvy State Senate Leadership knows that if they can kill a bill that could have some great press and popular support before it even has the chance to get to the floor, then those people standing up for fiscally conservative interests won’t have a chance to either lobby or have a vote on the record from more moderate Democrats. Lesson: if you kill it early, you don’t have to go on the record. But all Coloradans end up paying the price.

An out-of-state organization is spending $750,000 for a highly misleading commercial against Ken Buck, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Colorado. The commercial presents a distorted tale of Buck’s role in standing up against the political persecution of three licensed firearms dealers.

The ad is sponsored by a group called “Campaign Money Watch,” based in Washington, D.C., whose main activity appears to be buying negative – and in this case, inaccurate – TV commercials. A full disclosure of their 2010 donors is not available.

Major donors in the past include anti-gun billionaire George Soros, Colorado heiress Pat Stryker, government employee unions such as AFSCME and SEIU, the Colorado First Project (funded by government unions) and Moveon.org.

The commercial presents a deceptively selective version of a clash between Ken Buck and Tom Strickland. At the time, Buck was the chief of the criminal division of the United States Attorney’s Office in Colorado, and Strickland was his boss, the U.S. Attorney for Colorado.

Here are some crucial facts omitted from the advertisement:

In 1998, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office to bring a prosecution for alleged straw purchases of firearms. Buck determined that the case was unfit for prosecution. He was backed up by Colorado United States Attorney Henry Solano, who had been appointed by President Clinton in 1993.  The case involved a pawn shop run by Gregory Golyansky, his brother, and his cousin.

The day after the Columbine High School murders in 1999, Strickland took over as U.S. Attorney. Strickland had been defeated in the 1996 U.S. Senate election. He ran as a strong advocate of gun control, and he would run again in 2002. Strickland insisted that the case be prosecuted.

Not one career prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office would take the case. Assistant United States Attorney Stephanie Villafuerte, who later served as a top aide to Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, wrote a lengthy memo dissecting the many problems with the case.

Because none of the career prosecutors would take the case, Strickland gave it to two political appointees he brought into the office.

Gregory Golyansky and his relatives were apparently targeted for prosecution because of his outspoken advocacy on Second Amendment issues.

Indictments were issued in 2000. When the case proceeded, the Federal District Court for Colorado and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit unanimously agreed that the prosecutors in the case illegally withheld exculpatory evidence. United States v. Golyansky, 291 F.3d 1245 (10th Cir. 2002).

In particular, the prosecutors disobeyed the direct order of Federal District Judge Daniel Sparr to turn over certain evidence to the defendants. Instead, the prosecutors concealed the evidence for years. Judge Sparr determined that the prosecutors had violated the Judge’s “specific orders in this case.”

The evidence which prosecutors had been hiding showed that their main witness was a homeless drug addict with bipolar syndrome, whose credibility was obviously extremely weak.

The prosecutors’ abusive and unlawful delaying tactics exhausted forced the defendants to sell their family business in order to pay for their lawyer.

Before any indictments had been issued, Buck discussed the facts with Colorado State Rep. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield. Buck incorrectly believed that rules for attorneys allowed such discussion, because no formal case yet existed.

Strickland filed a complaint against Buck, and tried to coerce him into resigning. Strickland’s successor, John Suthers, formally determined that Buck’s “conduct was not intentional,” but that Buck should take further training regarding the rules. Buck took a one-day ethics class.

Golyansky, out of money, accepted a plea bargain in November 2002 to a single misdemeanor. Judge Sparr chose to sentence Golyansky to only a single day of probation. The sentence clearly showed Judge Sparr’s disgust with the prosecutorial abuses of grotesque overcharging, and of illegally concealing evidence.

For additional information on the Golyansky case, read this article by Ari Armstrong, for Colorado Freedom Report; this well-researched article from the Denver Post; a report from 7News; and watch this 15-minute video by the Golyansky family detailing the persecution.

[Video cued up at 5:51]

The Campaign Money Watch “validation” for the advertisement provides citations to The Denver Post article.

But the self-validation elides the essential, and false, claim of the advertisement: the twice-repeated assertion that Golyansky was an “illegal gun dealer.” To the contrary, Golyansky pleaded guilty to a single charge of not filling out paperwork properly. 

Tom Strickland utterly failed to prove that Golyansky ever sold a single gun to a person who was not allowed by law to buy guns. If Strickland’s team had a solid case, they would not have spent years illegally concealing the evidence. Indeed, the illegal concealment is itself strong evidence of attempt to use the 37-felony charges to frighten the three defendants into pleading guilty, so that the prosecutors would never have to reveal how weak their charges of illegal gun sales really were.

Buck’s opponent, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., claims that he supports the rights of gun owners. If he means this, he could denounce this misleading advertisement, and forthrightly stand up against the political persecution of Second Amendment activists.

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.

Back in January we posted an interview with Colorado state Sen. Morgan Carroll over the need for more transparency in talks involving Gov. Ritter’s office on the fate of Pinnacol Assurance, the quasi-governmental worker’s comp insurer.

“Whatever the proposal looks like, if it’s so good, why not bring it out for everyone? You know, if it’s such a good idea, I think it would stand on its own merits,” said Carroll after a town hall.

Carroll, D-Aurora, is saying “Told ya so” after a legislative audit – and a KMGH News 7 investigation showed lavish spending by the Pinnacol board in Pebble Beach.

Today on KFKA 1310, Sen. Carroll will be talking with Dave Williams and me. I plan to ask her what she sees for the future of Pinnacol. Listen in the 5:00 hour at http://www.1310kfka.com/

He’ll have plenty of company. The facts speak for themselves. This ad and website from the Republican Governors Association clearly shows the track record Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper will have to try to explain in his run for governor of Colorado.

Here’s the buzz….

RGA spending upwards of $500K for ad hitting Hick & Ritter (or Hickenritter, if you prefer), The Denver Post

“No Jobs John,” Anyone?, ColoradoPols

GOP Governors Group Swings into Action, The Wall Street Journal

And some background…

Businesses saying goodbye to Denver hit civic pride, The Denver Post

Denver area lost 2.9% of its jobs in a year; March unemployment at 8.5%, Denver Business Journal

Denver lost 39,700 jobs in 2009, Denver Business Journal

Contractors: Colorado lost 31,600 construction jobs in one year, Denver Business Journal

Colo. job losses far steeper in ’09, revised figures show, The Denver Post

See what they said about each other at the recent Sustainable Industries Economic Forum in Denver…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUV8tn5AEa8]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUV8tn5AEa8

HICKENLOOPER: “Before I get started I want to recognize our great governor, Bill Ritter over there, because he’s done more to do, to mold public sentiment, in terms of his ability to…This week he officially named Colorado, our renewable energy standard, the highest in the Rocky Mountains, the second highest in the United States. That brand, what people think about when they hear the word ‘Colorado’ is critically important to our, to the future of our economy, to the quality of life, to the choices that our children and grandchildren will have. And certainly I think one of his legacies will be that Colorado is now associated with the new energy economy. We are one of the leaders, really, on the vanguard of how these transformations are going to take place.”

RITTER: “I would just acknowledge that the mayor said some very nice things about me, but back at him. He has been a great partner. He was elected in 2003. I wasn’t elected governor [until 2006]. I started serving in 2007. But in that time frame we’ve had, clearly, a synergy in how we think about sustainability and how we think about energy issues. And to have the mayor of the largest city in the state thinking in the same way in how we move forward and how we make progress has been very helpful.”

“And for those things that are going to cost money, we hope to get ‘Race to the Top’ funding in the second phase. But if we don’t, we’re going to have to look at how we pay for that reform agenda and not let kids lag behind.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyUMUmQdDAM]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyUMUmQdDAM

The scramble among states for “Race to the Top” money appears compromised because the competition gives great weight to buy-in from teachers’ unions and not enough focus on charter schools, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Why not pour the billions into creating more proven successes like the Denver School of Science and Technology?

That charter school, founded in 2004, serves a student body that is substantially minority and/or low income. Yet, for the third year in a row, it reported in December, 100 percent of its senior class was “accepted into a four-year college or university.”

It also received a silver medal in the U.S. News & World Report analysis of “Best High Schools.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSb4Ul9cTy8]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSb4Ul9cTy8

“This is a radical approach, apparently, at this late stage of our democracy, it turns out we have to defend the proposition that senators ought to be picked, not by governors, not by presidents, but in fact, by people,” Romanoff said Friday night a pre-caucus rally at the Aurora History Museum.

Obama endorsed Bennet for the seat the day after Romanoff announced he would run, drawing barbs since then from Romanoff supporters like Polly Baca that Obama is meddling in a Democratic primary.

Ritter, appearing in February for Bennet at a Denver rally (at which Obama also appeared) said Bennet was “head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd” when Ritter appointed him to fill the seat vacated by Ken Salazar, who became U.S. Interior Secretary.