A good idea is a good idea regardless of party, bills to watch if you like your freedom, and are Assembly Dem's quadratic voting again?
A good idea is a good idea regardless of the party of the sponsor.
As I wrote to this legislator: I likely disagree with you politically on nearly everything, but when it comes to Metro Districts, I like your idea.
I have written about the scourge of Metro Districts in the past. I won't retread that ground now. If you live in one you already know. If you don't, it doesn't matter.
If you're looking to buy a new home, look carefully (and read carefully) before signing on the dotted line for a home in a Metro District.
You can read more in the article below (or on the bill's page--also linked below), but I can give a quick sense of the problem and the solution proposed in the bill.
Prior to any houses being sold in a Metro District, the developer stuffs the board (who makes decisions about the Metro District that future homeowners will need to abide by) with cronies. Technically these folks have to have a stake in the decisions made (such as, for example, they should own property in the district and thus have to live with the consequences of their policy) but there are ways to get around that.
The board makes decisions which benefit the developer and themselves at the expense of the future homeowners.
One such manifestation of this is when, quoting the article, " ... developers — or those who work for them — approve the public financing needed to reimburse them for their expenses, then purchase that debt for themselves, frequently at much higher interest-rate returns than other forms of financing."
Not okay.
Now, in the interest of fairness, there were some arguments in the article made by developers as to why this practice is necessary for affordable housing. I'd be tempted to excerpt them for you here, but I have such strong feelings about Metro Districts that I'd need to shower after doing that and I'm not near a bathroom. I'll trust your better judgement to read it and give it due and proper consideration.
If you feel strongly about this bill, the bill's page is below so you can follow and advocate if you choose to.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/bill-aims-to-bar-metro-district-developers-from-buying-bonds-they-approved-as-district-directors/article_b80c6080-16e9-5317-b8ea-28fb9a58c6d6.html
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1090
Bills to watch if you enjoy your freedom in this state. They’re certainly on my list.
**IMPORTANT: If your Second Amendment rights are a concern, time is very tight on one of these bills. You will need to signup to testify today to catch its first committee hearing.
Let's go in order. The screenshots and corresponding bill page links below go in chronological order by committee appearance.
1st is the bill I allude to above. HB23-1165 is yet another stroke of the knife by the Assembly Democrats in their continuing effort to whittle away at your 2nd Amendment rights. Description by Colorado Liberty Republicans in screenshot 1 or on the bill page below. This one is up for committee TODAY so if you want to testify, get moving. If you, like me, can't make it today, do like I do and add the bill to your list so you can speak up at a later hearing.
2nd bill is one I support and hope to testify on (because it likely will die in committee). The description by CLR is in screenshot 2 and the bill page is second below. Whatever your feelings about renewables and etc, I hope you join me in recognizing that the ability to choose, the freedom to live as you'd like, is an American value. If we don't stand up for it on the little things (like preventing the state from outlawing natural gas appliances), we'll wake up one day to find that all the little nibbles at our freedom to choose have added up to nothing left for us.
3rd bill is one I am hoping to testify against. HB23-1161 IS exactly what I'm talking about above with the second bill. This is one of those nibbles. The description by CLR is in screenshot 3 and the third link below.
One last thing: if you are busy and not a lobbyist by profession, it is hard to keep track of things and find bills that you either want to support or want to oppose.
If you lean conservative politically, I want to repeat what I've said before: you should go to the Colorado Liberty Republicans site and subscribe to their mailing list. I highly recommend it. If you didn't already connect it up, this is how I learned about 2 of the 3 bills in this post.
The link for that is last below.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1165
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1127
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb23-1161
https://rlcco.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e313f08bdb50df74a47b0255c&id=8b709e4e0f
**BONUS RELATED ITEM:
The op ed below is pretty recent and also pretty dour about the sheer number of bills in front of our Assembly and how hard it is for you, I, and frankly, our legislators to follow.
I'll leave it to you to read but the numbers are staggering.
On a similar note, I'd like to direct you to the screenshot (which comes from the op ed). It's accurate. The more I follow the legislature, the more I find that a goodly number of the bills are all about satisfying one group at our expense.
'What is the antidote (or at least something you can do)? Pick an area of interest. Sign up for mailing lists. When you see a bill that fits your "area", email, speak up, share that information with others. Share it with me.
If people are at a disadvantage because as individuals we don't have the bandwidth to follow everything, c'est la vie. By sharing the load among many, we at least stand some chance to be heard.
If I can help or guide you in this, please ask.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2023/02/07/armstrong-how-the-colorado-legislature-plans-to-help-you/
Lastly, are the Assembly Dems back to using their secret, quadratic voting system to decide which bills live and which die?
The Democrats in the Assembly are likely back to using their secret, quadratic voting to determine which bills get air and which likely won't.
**I should note before anything else that, while I've not heard anything about it, I would not put it past Republicans to have a similar system. In fact, I would say that decisions as to which bill goes where being made in backrooms away from the public eye is not a new one. The thing that makes this unique is that it's done on a large scale rather than single people talking in an office, it's the rough equivalent of a caucus meeting which is required to be open to the public, and it has consequences as to what laws even get to the committee or floor for a public vote.
I wrote last Assembly session about the Assembly Democrats using a secret online ballot to determine which bills live or die (alternatively, and just as likely, which should even make it to the floor or not). This system was based on what are termed "quadratic" voting systems. I put in a link to a data science blog first below if you want/need a reference.
This caused quite a stink and got a letter from CFOIC (see the second link below), alleging that it was illegal. This was a letter, that like many sent to politicians, went without response.
If the KUNC article below has it right, the Assembly Democrats may be back at it this term.
To be fair to the other half of this story, I want to take a quote from the Speaker of the House in the KUNC article:
"'It isn't a vote,' McCluskie said of the quadratic voting system last week. 'And it's not crafting policy. It isn't, you know, drafting the words that go on a page for a piece of legislation. It is simply a collection of where people think dollars should be spent.' McCluskie said it’s difficult for lawmakers to find consensus on which bills should be funded without using a private survey. She added the quadratic votes are 'not binding' and instead are a 'single data point' for lawmakers as they decide which bills should get the funding they need to pass."
In response, I would point you to the legal arguments in the CFOIC article and to my simple reasoning below.
Have you ever heard the saying that goes along the lines of "doing nothing is still a choice"? I am reminded of that when reading McCluskie's words. If we stipulate that everything Speaker McCluskie says is true (i.e. that she's not lying), there remains the fact that by voting not to fund a bill, by voting to not even bring a bill to the floor, THEY ARE STILL MAKING A CHOICE.
After all, even though it's not directly crafting policy, they are crafting it by means of having one party decide what to fund (and if money isn't put with some policy, it might as well be dead), and by having one party decide what sees the light of day.
And they do it in secret. Not okay. If I hear that it's being done this year, I'll update.
One last niblet. Take a look at the screenshot. See the boxed words that form the coda to Speaker McCluskie's quote I pulled? Do you ever get the feeling that people just toss equity and inclusion out there because they think they should say them and not because of any meaning or any actual relevance?
https://towardsdatascience.com/what-is-quadratic-voting-4f81805d5a06
https://coloradofoic.org/cfoic-secret-ballot-system-at-statehouse-violates-the-spirit-and-letter-of-colorados-sunshine-law/
https://www.kunc.org/news/2023-01-27/colorado-lawmakers-might-keep-using-secret-ballot-system-that-transparency-advocates-say-is-illegal