Archive for the ‘Democrats’ Category
State Democrats call for crime ‘intervention and prevention’ instead of increased prison spending | A LOOK BACK – coloradopolitics.com
Thirty Years Ago This Week: While only a few people testified before the Colorado General Assemblys House Judiciary Committee on House Bill 94-1340 and the legislation was expected to pass swiftly through the House Appropriations Committee, two Democratic Party committee members were vehement in their opposition to the measure.
HB 1340 called for the addition of 2,700 new prison beds over the next five years, which would carry a fiscal impact to the state of $92 million for capital construction and $360 million in operation and building expenses.
Rep. Wayne Knox, D-Denver, one of the two Democrats who voted against the bill, said it was a lot of money poured down the rathole after previous prison spending.
It would be nice, Knox said, if we took at least half of that money and put it into prevention and intervention.
Rep. Dorothy Rupert, D-Boulder, who also voted against the bill, concurred with Knox. Rupert said that the House Judiciarys vice-chair Rep. Shirleen Tucker, R-Lakewood, told her that we would prefer putting the money elsewhere but prison overpopulation must be considered.
Tucker presided over the meeting because the committee chair, Rep. Jeanne Adkins, R-Parker, was the bills prime sponsor.
Among the few who testified before the committee was Clarke Watson of the Black Professional Businessmans Association who said, Latino and African-American males make up the bulk of prison populations.
It is rural economic development at the expense of people of color, Watson said, noting that prison facilities were primarily located in rural areas. The idea of building more prison space is terribly offensive.
Barry Frye, a former prison inmate and director of a youth program called Reconstruction, told the House Judiciary Committee that there was no rehabilitation in the prison system, and that this bill is just another emotional decision by legislations.
Twenty Years Ago: Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton returned to Colorado to formally mark the transfer of over 5,000 acres at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal from the U.S. Army to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Once the large-scale clean up was complete, another 10,000 acres would be added to the National Wildlife Refuge.
The Environmental Protection Agencys Superfund program had spent 12 years cleaning the contaminated site to ensure that the highest health standards were met to return the Arsenal for reuse as a wildlife refuge.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge has a rich past and a promising future, Norton said. In celebrating this important milestone and the establishment of the Refuge, we also must remember the history of this site, its role in national defense and the valuable lessons learned here.
Norton grew up in Thornton and said that she remembered hundreds of earthquakes in the area which, as rumor had it, were the result of chemical waste being injected into the ground.
Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment Geoffrey Prosch said the Army was proud to turn the land over to the Department of the Interior for the public to enjoy its abundant resources for generations to come.
U.S. Senator Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who, along with U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, D-CD1, had sponsored the original legislation mandating the creation of the refuge, said it was an extremely exciting day for Colorado and the United States.
After twelve years I am proud to be here today for the transfer of this site, Allard said. We have taken land that had been contaminated by decades of chemical and incendiary weapons and turned it into a premier wildlife refuge. In doing so, we have set the standard for future reclamation projects across America.
Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.
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The "Uncommitted" Democrats (with Tommy Vietor) – The Bulwark
Some voters in recent Democratic primaries have been upset with Joe Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Whether and how he can bring them back onside in November is an open question.
Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor joins Sarah to break down a small but critical part of the Democratic coalition, why they're upset, and what it could mean in November.
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The "Uncommitted" Democrats (with Tommy Vietor) - The Bulwark
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Wisconsin’s ‘Mad City’ is a rational choice for Biden’s appeal to youth – NPR
President Biden gestures after speaking about student loan debt relief at Madison Area Technical College in Madison, Wisc., on Monday. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
This week President Biden took his campaign to save his embattled presidency to Madison, Wisc., the capital of a state he is counting on winning in November.
The capital, sometimes known as "Mad City," is also home to the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin, the largest college in the state. Beyond the state government and education establishment, Madison has become a magnet for white collar occupations and a hard place for many recent UW graduates to leave.
Given the recent voting proclivities of younger voters and especially those who are current or recent college graduates, Madison and surrounding Dane County should be a trove of votes for Democrats. And indeed, they are.
Historically, Democrats have counted on running up big margins in industrial Milwaukee County, long a stronghold of organized labor and the state's most populous county. Dane and a few other populous counties were counted on in supporting roles. If a Democrat was to win statewide, these polities had to counterbalance the strong Republican leanings of the state's more affluent suburbs and farm towns.
But in recent elections, Dane has stepped out to sing lead. It is the quintessential example of a college-and-government population center that has become more than a trove of Democratic votes. It has become a defining feature of the party identity. It is not much of an exaggeration, if it is one at all, that college towns are to the Democrats today what factory towns were through most of the 20th century.
In 2020, for example, Biden carried Milwaukee County by about 183,000 votes over Trump out of about 451,000 votes cast. But he had an almost equal bulge in actual votes in Dane County, where he managed 181,000 votes over Trump out of a far smaller total of about 338,000 votes cast.
In midterm elections, such as 2018 and 2022, the role of Dane County's Democratic turnout has been even more dominant. And the same was true when Wisconsin elected a liberal state supreme court justice in 2023, making it possible to restore abortion rights and throw out Republican-drawn maps for state legislative districts.
So it made sense for Biden to be in Madison if he hopes to keep Wisconsin in his column this fall. And it is hard to overstate the importance of doing so for the president. In 2020 he managed just 49.6 percent of the statewide vote, but it was better than the 46.9 percent Hillary Clinton had in the state in 2016 and just enough to shade then-incumbent President Donald Trump who had 48.9 percent. Trump was only 20,000 votes behind.
Clinton's 2016 loss in Wisconsin had become for some the emblem of her fatal weakness in the Great Lakes region. Michigan and Pennsylvania also fell out of the "Blue Wall" that year after voting Democratic for president every year since 1992 even when the Democratic candidate was losing nationally.
But somehow Wisconsin seemed the unkindest cut of all. Polls there had shown Clinton's lead well beyond the margin of error. And Wisconsin had been voting Democratic even longer than the others, all the way back to 1988. Confident of Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign did not return for events in the state after the primary.
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Wisconsin's 'Mad City' is a rational choice for Biden's appeal to youth - NPR
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