Ballot Guide-a-Palooza (save some room on your plate for judges). Head's up Western Slope, vote! Logan County struggles to pay for a state mandate.
Ballot Guide-a-Palooza
It's that time of year again.
Not much preamble, I present to you below a list of ballot guides from (linked in this order):
Mike Rosen
Mandy Connell
The Independence Institute
Liberty Scorecard
There are other ways to do it correctly, but I believe the best way to prepare a thoughtful ballot is to read the bluebook and then read at least a couple other guides or op eds.
If you're short on time, see if you can find an op ed or guide on the issue you have ambivalence on and read it through. Don't worry about reading the ones that you have a firm handle on.
Another good thing to do is to test the strength of your thoughts and reasoning by reading a guide that offers a perspective opposite yours on a given issue.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/09/29/rosen-ballot-issue-recommendations-november-election/
https://koacolorado.iheart.com/content/2024-09-29-mandy-connell-2024-voters-guide/
https://i2i.org/election2024/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GaCIgHn-jA9gO1JssCJcnqmjAYvcH01m/view?usp=sharing
Related:
Do not (repeat do not!) forget to vote on judicial retention.
The link below takes you to the judicial evaluations for all districts (with a handy list that lets you click on your county to see which district-level judges you will vote on and their evaluations).
If you want my advice, I'd tell you to vote NO on every judge at the appellate level and above in this state. Those folks have shown themselves time and time again to be rubberstamps for progressive concerns in this state.
Only bother reading in detail on your local judges. Decide your vote based on what you see there. In particular, pay attention to how many people voted to retain (or, hell, voted at all--often these committees only have 6/10 people voting!)
https://judicialperformance.colorado.gov/2024-judicial-performance-evaluations
Head's up Western Slope, vote!
Are you a conservative, Republican, fan of individual rights and freedoms, fan of lower cost of living and you are on the Western Slope?
Know someone who is?
Vote. For the love of God, vote.
The Dems are hot on the open state senate seat over there (see the first link below) and if they get it it will only further cement their stranglehold on politics in this state.
Every single vote against progressive dominance of this state matters. Call a friend, tell them to vote. Text a relative. Remind a neighbor.
Just do not forget to vote.
https://www.postindependent.com/news/colorado-election-senate-district-5/
Logan County struggles to pay for a state mandate.
HB21-1110 (linked first below) does a number of things, but right now what it's doing to Logan County is leaving us with a $50K bill for new software to (quoting the Journal Advocate article linked second below), "...even come close to compliance" with the law.
The part of the law in question here relates to accessibility, the idea that public (and sometimes private depending) things should be open and workable for everyone regardless of any disability.
In my own particular experience this involves, for example, making sure that any sort of electronic document I make for student use passes Microsoft's accessibility checker: making sure that pictures have a textual description attached (so-called "alt text"), and that any tables would work with a screen reader.
Take a look at screenshot 1 from the fiscal note of the law,. The part of the law pertinent to our discussion here highlighted at bottom.
In case you didn't catch the meaning of the acronym, it's the Office of Information Technology, the state's own computer department (linked third below if you're curious). What this means is that the state gets to set the minimum for any sort of accessibility issues for computers.
In the grand tradition of Front Range Democrats, in other words, you will follow our rules and buy the things we tell you to. No, silly, we're not going to help you fund this! *eye roll* See screenshot 2, from the same fiscal note.
Oh, and if you don't get what the state mandates, the penalties are there in screenshot 3.
I highlighted the law in the box. That is, if you don't comply you face the prospect of lawsuits. Oh, and the last line? I'm not a lawyer, but I can't help but wonder if this doesn't leave a local government or special district open to suits if a product they were told to buy suddenly changes their software and is no longer in compliance.
Making things accessible to people with disabilities is a worthy endeavor. I want everyone that wants to participate in government to have a chance to do so.
I also want there to be a chance to let fiscal reality in. I want there to be the ability for local governments to meet challenges with flexibility that allows them to accomplish the same substantive goals with the resources they posses, with the strengths that they have.
You don't get that when you have one-size-fits-all requirements from an office located in the Front Range. $50K may not be that much to Denver, but it's a lot out here in Logan County.
And let's not even talk about, for example, the tiny little water conservancy districts out here.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb21-1110
https://www.journal-advocate.com/2024/09/04/state-refuses-to-budge-on-digital-access-compliance/
https://oit.colorado.gov/
Related:
While writing the post above, I couldn't help but remember another unfunded mandate that was quite costly for rural schools.
The Indian mascots bill. Linked below as a reminder of yet another unfunded state mandate harming rural areas.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb21-116