Not all special interests are corporate fat cats lined up at the government trough. Would you cut the Assembly term by a quarter?
Despite what you might think, not all special interests are giant corporations lined up at the government money trough.
In fact, special interests are any group that seeks or receives special favors from the government. Knowing that governments do not generate wealth, this means that special interests get the government to take from you and give to someone else.
I've posted about this in the past. Whether or not you agree with the soundness or "rightness" of the taking, whether or not you think it's an overall net benefit to society, you cannot escape the fact that our state government regularly takes from one group and gives to others.
The article below is an example. The Colorado Energy Office is expanding credits on electric bicycle rebates and the Assembly recently sent a bill to the governor to offer yet more incentives on the bikes (in addition to higher rebates on EV rebates and heat pump rebates).
I don't know if you've investigated the numbers on this sort of thing, but I have for my own budget/circumstances and I'm way outside the market for these things--even with the rebates. I doubt I'm alone in this as I consider myself in the middle class and the EV's and bikes I see are in the price range of the upper class (at least on a like for like basis).
So what is the upshot here? My tax money is being taken and given to other, likely wealthier, environmentally-conscious, people to help them electrify.
To be fair, I think you could probably also include the money being given to young people or poorer people with no car who want to skip having a car and go directly to electric bike. I don't know about you, but, while I'm still not jazzed about my money being taken to give to someone else, the idea of it going to someone to in this latter group is a little easier to swallow.
Still, I can't help but think that there are better ways to improve our environment than lift a bunch of money from everyday people to help the wealthy folks along the Front Range salve their consciences with EV's and heat pumps and an e-bike to park alongside their EV.
How about money to help people get rid of their older junk cars? How about money to help buy more efficient gas furnaces?
The money would go further, the distribution would be more level in terms of the people that benefit, and I'd bet that in the end the reduction in pollution would be about the same.
One last caveat to note before signing off. To be fair to the people that wrote the law mentioned above, they at least had the good sense to not burden us with this if the economy is slows down. To quote the article, "Under the bill, if the state's economy grows by less than 4 percent in a given year, the e-bike tax credit would be cut in half."
https://www.cpr.org/2023/05/04/colorado-e-bike-rebates-bill/
My guess is that your thinking on this would scale directly with how much you like the current political landscape in Colorado.
I.e. if you like government intervention and believe it to be helpful, my guess is that you would rather have the length of the Assembly session be as it is now or even longer (I know there are rumblings among Democrats about making our legislature a full-time body).
If you (like me) do not believe in government intervention and think that government that governs best is that which governs least, you probably would support shortening the Assembly session to 90 days.
Given the split and the demographics of this state, I do not think that a ballot measure to shorten the Assembly session to 90 days from 120 would pass.
I think it would struggle mightily to get on the ballot in the first place. See the link below for an article on it (and the screenshot from the Secretary of State's page).
I would sign the petition, I would vote yes, but not enough others would.
The good news for people like me, however, is that I think it would likely be just as tough to change the Assembly to a full time, year round body.
So, my prediction is 120 days stays the name of the game.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2023/04/22/ballot-measure-colorado-legislation-session-90-days/?fbclid=IwAR0nCAaB-kuP41mLMoDnkeB7BIlsI1bLOdGSPEk1ta8Vo4W7oI7AynknsFA