Jeffco Pols Posts

From a press release:
Today, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO-07), was appointed to serve on the Conference Committee for the National Defense Authorization Act from the House Financial Services Committee.  This bipartisan conference committee is meeting to craft a final agreement to authorize defense and national security programs for fiscal year 2013.
Perlmutter is responsible for ensuring there are strong consumer protections for our service members and their families against predatory lending abuses as well as measures to help prevent homelessness among our veterans. ...

Democrat Casey Tighe has soundly defeated incumbent John Odom in this year's race for county commissioner, according to the final results posted by the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder.
Tighe was leading by just 251 votes before provisional ballots were counted. After their tabulation, the Democrat's lead has swelled to 738 votes. That's just outside of the 680 vote margin necessary to trigger a mandatory county-funded recount -- a recount would only be necessitated if Odom's ta...

With State Senator Evie Hudak narrowly clinching victory against Lang Sias in SD-19, there remains but one race left to be decided in Jefferson County, that between Democrat Casey Tighe and incumbent Republican John Odom for county commissioner.

Poor Robert Ramirez. The Republican legislator running for re-election in HD-29 has had troubles with his own campaign materials. Now outside political groups trying to help Ramirez aren't doing him any favors. A recent mail piece sent out by the "Colorado Leadership Fund" doesn't make it clear whether you are supposed to like or dislike Ramirez at first glance.
Ramirez was less than pleased with the mail piece when contacted by

9NEWS reported Monday night and we wanted to make sure our readers saw:
A Jefferson County School board member has apologized after she agreed with a Denver radio host that the school's superintendent should be shot.
Radio host Jason Worley, of 560 AM, made the comment about Jefferson County Superintendent Cindy Stevenson in reference to the school's budget.
Worley said, "If you have a [full-time] Facebook person still in Jefferson County [on staff] your superintendent should be shot."
Board member Lau...

With two weeks until election day, we've updated the Jeffco Line to the left to reflect recent campaign developments and each candidate's momentum heading into November.
As always, sound off in the comments below to let us know where you think we got it wrong.  
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As the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging TABOR"s constitutionality, State Representative Andy Kerr has always been vulnerable on the tax issue in his SD-22 bid against Rep. Ken Summers. TABOR is a complex issue, as is Kerr's involvement in the suit that bears his name, but both can easily be distilled by conservatives with one deceptively simple platitude: Andy Kerr wants to raise taxes.
Little surprise, then, that's exactly the messaging that right-leaning Colorado Citizens for A...

Oh, wait a minute!

Concomitant with Jeffco's increasing importance as a swing county this election cycle is increased media attention on local communities. Little wonder, then, that the Los Angeles Times profiled Lakewood voters just a day before Mitt Romney delivered an address in South Jeffco.

From the Los Angeles Times' Don Lee:

LAKEWOOD, Colo. - Summer Tangeman embodies the Rocky Mountain lifestyle and the independent spirit of voters in the suburban areas that make up the swing vote in this closely divided state.

A 38-year-old physician's assistant, she runs, loves the outdoors, identifies with neither political party and finds the partisan bickering of Washington disgusting, especially when she looks at her own economic situation. She's been laid off twice in the last 18 months, most recently in May.

Tangeman doesn't blame President Obama. But she's having a hard time getting over the fact that, for her, there's simply been no recovery.

"It's not been so good for me," she says, her face drenched in sweat after a long morning run along the trails of Green Mountain.

Her assessment captures the mood of many voters as they contemplate the central issue of the 2012 presidential campaign: Obama's record on the economy. Republican leaders blame Obama for unemployment stuck at the highest levels in decades. Democrats counter that no president could have overcome the worst economic crisis in more than 60 years in just one term and that Obama's policies prevented the country from sliding into a full-scale depression. Like Tangeman, many voters in the middle express ambivalence.

Administration officials can claim some success with manufacturing, where exports and overall employment have expanded. But their record is poorer on small business, which has been particularly hurt by the problems of the housing market since many owners of small companies use their homes as collateral to get loans.

...

Many of those effects, for both good and ill, can be seen in this city of 144,000 in Denver's western suburbs. Mayor Bob Murphy [Pols Emphasis] said about $2 million from the stimulus program, known formally as the American Recovery Act, went directly into his town, to fix playgrounds and sidewalks and put energy-efficient systems in public buildings. Residents also benefited from $170 million in stimulus money to renovate the Denver Federal Center, a 90-building campus in Lakewood where 6,200 government employees work.

"I shudder to think of the scenario absent the stimulus plan," said Murphy, a registered Democrat although his position is nonpartisan.

Yet things remain tough for many. Unemployment is stuck above 8% in Colorado and for the U.S. as a whole. And with good jobs scarce and housing prices still soft, many families are continuing to lose ground. More than 2,800 K-12 students in Lakewood and other towns in Jefferson County are considered homeless, up from 2,200 two years earlier.

As election day inches closer, the national lens will almost certainly continue to focus on Jeffco and competitive counties like it around the country.

For folks like Lakewood Mayor Bob Murphy, however, locally-focused mass media election coverage may prove to be more burden than boon. Murphy has been quoted twice in the last month on issues relating to the presidential campaign -- once on NPR during the Democratic National Convention and in the Times' article above. Although Murphy certainly deserves some attention for his leadership in Lakewood, there's no question that being interviewed about a hyper-partisan national election makes him squirm.

Lakewood's mayor, after all, eschews partisan titles and avoids overtly political activity like the plague. That media outlets are now qualifying his title with "registered Democrat" overlooks the broader nature of local governance in Jeffco in search of compelling nuggets relating to the national race.

It's about time Murphy receives some national validation for his efforts in Lakewood's top job. It's unfortunate, however, that hishis newfound political relevance is tied to the presidential horse race.

Fight Back Colorado, the political action committee organized in response to Republican blockage of civil unions legislation in the State House earlier this year, has now officially jumped into the general election fray, setting its sights on State Rep. Robert Ramirez with the release of a new targeted mailer.

From Westword:

Fight Back Colorado, a group devoted to defeating anti-civil union lawmakers, has announced its first target: Representative Robert Ramirez, a Westminster Republican who narrowly won his race two years ago and who Fight Back Colorado says flip-flopped on civil unions. The group has sent mailers to voters in Jefferson County that depict Ramirez as a bomber pilot and say he's "taking Jeffco the wrong way!"

"He didn't vote on civil unions, but he committed to support civil unions and then, when the time came, he basically turned his back on the community," says Roger Sherman, treasurer and spokesman for Fight Back Colorado, which was formed after legislators defeated civil unions. "We had counted on him, and a legislator ought to be held accountable for his word. When he flip-flopped, he became a target."

Ramirez says he supports rights for same-sex couples, but doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. "I told them I supported civil unions, but I don't support the bill they brought through last time," he says. "The bill they brought through last time was marriage."

In many ways, Ramirez is a symbolically perfect candidate for the group to attack. The Republican originally pledged to support this year's civil unions legislation before attending a traditional marriage rally on the steps of the Capitol the day after his party's leadership killed the bill. By launching its opening salvo at Ramirez, Fight Back Colorado is sending the message that nobody who opposed civil unions is safe, least of all the guy who lacks even the backbone to stand by his beliefs.

Attacking Ramirez makes perfect sense from an ideological perspective. More importantly, however, it's also sound strategy. Republicans were able to block a floor vote on civil unions because they maintain a one-seat majority in the House -- a majority Ramirez secured in 2010 when he beat incumbent Democrat Debbie Benefield by fewer than 200 votes.

As one of the weakest incumbent House Republicans in the state right now, the path towards enacting civil unions inevitably runs through HD-29. Democrats and their liberal infrastructure groups simply cannot take back the House and pass civil unions legislation without winning against Ramirez. It's a critical pick-up, necessary to pad against losses caused elsewhere by redistricting.

Although Ramirez's dynamo Democratic challenger Tracy Kraft-Tharp could probably win the race without any outside help, these late-game independent expenditure attacks make her job that much easier as election day approaches.

In fact, Ramirez has been so flaky a legislator and incapable a campaigner that all Kraft-Tharp has to do at this point is not be him.