Judges get an out on their financial disclosure. Thoughts on legal weed and financing via sin taxes. Lastly, Merry Christmas!
Financial disclosure seems pretty simple to me (these are, after all judges who we assume should be pretty intelligent and literate), but, by all means, if they need training, let's give it to 'em.
Following an earlier article by the investigative reporter David Migoya about how a whole host (upwards of 1 in 6!) of Colorado judges had not filed any form of financial disclosure** with the Secretary of State's office as required by law, the state is now offering judges a two day training on how to get compliant.
That's good. Do you suppose that if I got a traffic ticket or other similar misdemeanor I could convince a judge to defer any sort of penalty coming to me and let me do a two day training? You know, something like watching "Highways of Agony" (see the screencap) and writing an essay?
Oh, and in case you were worried about the judges that have been scofflaws avoiding justice, our Attorney General Phil Weiser took some time out of his busy abortion schedule to do ... well ... nothing about this.
Quoting the article, "And no one was tracking whether all the judges in the state had made the required filings. Weiser’s office, through a spokesman, would not say whether its opinion regarding senior judges had been issued [an opinion on whether senior judges need do this sort of disclosure], saying only there was 'no public legal opinion' to share."
**It should be noted that some judges have not done this in years too. This isn't just a couple weeks out of compliance.
https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/local/colorado-judges-trained-in-financial-disclosure/article_38f6a894-9b07-5ee6-aa1c-27936a690a76.html#google_vignette
If I had this vote to do over again, I'd vote no.
I remember being in favor of legalizing marijuana when it came up on the ballot. It's your body, and marijuana, among all the other vices humans can involve themselves in, is pretty low key.
Boy, I'd take that one back. I'd be open to a national law on legalizing it, but it was a mistake to legalize it here prior to everywhere.
And I take the CPR article linked below to be yet more evidence of why.
If you're old enough to remember the vote on it you'll remember how one of the selling points of legalizing marijuana was the stream of revenue it would bring in. In what is a typical move for things like this, they tied the issue to getting more money to schools. Smoke your pot and think of the children? Can you dig it?
Reality, however, has been a bit of a bummer man. Quoting the article, "The state has collected more than $2.3 billion in marijuana taxes since legal recreational sales began in 2014. It’s a large number, but just a fraction of the state’s overall budget. Last year, marijuana tax revenue was just .7 percent of the state budget, and less than 5 percent of just what the state spends on education."
And what money we do get is falling off. If you look at the screenshot attached (also from the article) you can see how the amount we get is starting to taper down from a high in fiscal year 2020-2021.
So we lured a bunch of marijuana-interested young folks here and they brought progressive politics with them and we got some money out of it. Just not a lot. Yeah, wish I had a time machine on this one.
One last thing. As hinted at in the marijuana article and talked about in more depth in the article on nicotine taxes and universal pre-K linked below it, we have a curious tendency in Colorado.
Because it skirts asking the people directly and being accountable to them, we seem to want to fund things with fees and sin taxes in this state (sin taxes being one of the few taxes that the general public seems able to swallow--yes, go ahead and tax those nasty filthy smokers and pot heads).
This is a habit that I think we need to break and we need to break our politicians of.
People vote in these sin taxes and get used to having them fund things. Then we start to run low on money and the programs go wanting, necessitating a fix.
Wouldn't it be easier to just fund it from the get go? Of course, this would also require the politicians having to ask some difficult questions like "why should I give you more when you've not produced with that I've given you already?"
https://www.cpr.org/2023/12/11/cannabis-taxes-have-not-solved-colorados-budget-woes/
https://www.cpr.org/2023/10/24/colorado-universal-pre-k-tobacco-vaping-taxes/
Merry Christmas!
It's that time of the week. The last post of the day, and, in fact, the last one til after the Christmas Holiday.
I'm taking a few days off to enjoy time with my family. I hope you get a chance to do same.
I hope also, in whatever way touches your heart, that you take a minute to think about the season and what it means.
I'm not going to evangelize or proselytize, just want to remind you that, whatever your beliefs, holidays offer a chance to reflect on your life. Where things were, how they are, where they are going.
You'll note the picture attached. I chose an image with bells because they feature in one of my favorite Christmas songs. I linked to a version below.
Merry Christmas! See you on other side of the holiday.