The other day I got an e-mail from my friend
Jerrol LeBaron in California. He told me he is
trying to get a movement going in that state that
would require integrity of its legislators. It
seems he's deeply concerned that good laws don't
have a chance of passing because none of California's
legislators reads them. They're guilty, he says,
of something he calls "political malpractice."
Sound familiar? They're too busy, he continues,
trading votes, earmarking funds to benefit campaign
contributors, backdoor politics and not reading
bills to know what they mean or what the ramifications
of their passing are. He claims these offenses
are at best malpractice and at worst illegal.
Nationally, we know these practices as pork barreling,
hog-trading and cajoling. First things first;
he's set up a web site: http://www.honorinoffice.org.
Now I know my friend, and he's a very fair guy
and a real go-getter, the founder and owner of
a successful business. For him to suggest this
sort of thing means he's getting pretty fed up
with the current and previous crops of politicians
that have brought California to its economic knees.
So, what does this have to do with Colorado, you
ask?
How different do you think we are here? Our experience
with California politicians is actually pretty
direct. An amendment to the state constitution
can be put to a vote in a relatively simple way.
The constitution requires a majority of the electorate
in a public election to decide to add something
to it and only a few thousand signatures to get
the proposed amendment on the ballot. That's why
Colorado often finds itself the trial balloon
for lobbying groups from California and other
states "testing" the viability of such issues
as budgetary restrictions, medical marijuana,
euthenasia and gay rights and marriage before
they run a really expensive campaign in their
more populous backyards. Fortunately, our state
has several safeguards.
The first and most important is the requirement
in the state constitution for a balanced budget.
That's right. There's no deficit spending without
voter approval. A recent amendment, the so-called
TABOR Amendment, added in 1992, ironically, by
a California immigrant and Republican legislator
from Colorado Springs, goes further and requires
any indebtedness be voted on by the eligible voters
in the state before a law can be passed sanctioning
it.
It seems ours, being a frontier state with a
"citizen-farmer legislature" designed the whole
state lawmaking process around Colorado's growing
seasons. After crops were harvested, there was
brief respite, then state legislators went to
the capital to deal with the issues of a growing
and increasingly complex society, arguing through
our usually cheery winters for and against various
issues of interest and importance. The session
ended in the spring in time for them to get home
and plant their fields, tend their livestock and
manage their own affairs before turning around
and doing it all over again. This fairly common
sense approach may be the most fundamental reason
why this state, despite the numerous challenges
facing us and our fellow Americans, is relatively
better off than many other states.
This isn't to say, we don't have our problems
and differences. But, the operative phrase is
"common sense." And for common sense to work,
some elements must be added that activate it.
The first is critical thinking. The kind that
asks, like Captain Kirk did near the end of the
Star Trek movie where they journeyed to the center
of the galaxy in search of God, "What does God
need with a starship?" before handing over the
keys to an oversized gnome with a beard. With
the emphasis on success as measured by standardized
tests and proficiency in math and science, it's
hard for all but the most adroit teacher to instill
in his or her students the concept, let alone
the application, of critical thinking. Another
is the elimination of words like "hate" and "fear"
from any political debate. It would be great if
we could eliminate the labels "liberal" and "conservative"
while we're at it. Especially, since those have
really become disguised epithets first, and second,
used as labels, they have confused us. Can anyone
really say, for instance, that the Bush administration
operated within a conservative agenda? While socially,
the answer would have to be yes, fiscally, the
facts show the answer to be a resounding no. Leaving
office, that administration left behind the largest
government bureaucratic growth and national deficit
in our nation's history.
Closer to home the laws and amendments in our
own state that were designed to reign in spending
and prevent us from digging ourselves a fiscal
hole, like Washington seems to enjoy doing, were
put up by both liberal and conservative-minded
legislators. And cleaning up the laws currently
on our books that conflict with each other and
our constitutionally stated goal of a balanced
state budget and efficient government seems to
have fallen to the Democrat-controlled legislature
and a Democratic governor. Those "darn liberals"
are the ones trying to restore a rational and
consistent adherence to the constitution's mandates.
The question is, could we live without the labels
that, as far as I can see, no longer accurately
reflect who these politicians really are and what
they stand for? It might take a generation or
two. But, I think, the confusion, accelerated
by a population devoid of critical thinkers, will
bring us to it eventually.
Gus Nicholson,
the author, is the Denver Political Buzz Analyst
for Examiner.com, the new online newspaper.
