John Tomasic Posts

The U.S. Supreme Court today is hearing arguments in a case that will push the most-recent chapter in the breakneck story of American gay marriage toward a major conclusion. Coloradans on all sides of the issue are watching for clues on what to expect here in the Centennial State, where over the last 11 years same-sex marriage was banned by voters, then side-stepped with civil unions, then caught up in state court, then de-facto legalized by a federal court, and then made real on the ground in the offices of inspired and determined county clerks.

Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee advanced a fetal homicide bill Wednesday night that, for limited use, would write “personhood” language associated with the hardline anti-abortion movement into state law.

Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee advanced a fetal homicide bill Wednesday night that, for limited use, would write “personhood” language associated with the hardline anti-abortion movement into state law.

Colorado’s three Democratic members of Congress joined 178 of their colleagues in signing onto a 50-page brief in a court case that has temporarily halted President Obama’s executive actions on immigration announced last November, which halted deportations of immigrants without documentation who were brought here as children or who are parents of U.S. citizen-family members.

Colorado’s U.S. Senators, Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican Cory Gardner, joined with 60 of their colleagues last week to vote in favor of constructing TransCanada corporation’s KeystoneXL pipeline. President Obama plans to veto the bill.

The economy-wrecking doom Obamacare was predicted to visit upon the nation has yet to arrive, but the National Center for Health Statistics reports that the rate of Americans without health insurance has dropped to 11.3 percent — which is “at or near the lowest levels ever recorded across the 50 years for which we have data,” notes the White House Council for Economic Advisers. That drop translates as roughly 9.7 million newly covered Americans.
The Affordable Care Act was passed primarily to address the country’s high rate of the uninsured, a problem that ha

Colorado U.S. Senator-elect Cory Gardner’s office announced his committee assignments today. It will come as no surprise to politics watchers that Gardner has landed on the Energy and Natural Resources committee. A Representative of the Colorado Front Range gas patch for the last four years in the House, Gardner has been a reliable champion of oil and gas on Capitol Hill, and his election campaign coffers have been brimming with oil industry money for years.

The University of Colorado this month provided a great lesson on the difficult question of how best to address climate change. It came not from the science or politics department but from the board of regents.

Conservative groups funded by the oil billionaire Koch brothers dumped millions of dollars this year into electing Republicans to Congress, and now they are looking to take advantage of coming Republican control on Capitol Hill. Groups like Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance are ramping up efforts this week to quash tax credit extensions for wind power that could be passed in the next few months before newly elected Republicans generally supportive of Koch-backed policy proposals take office in January.

Former Congressman Bob Beauprez seemed determined to move the needle in the dead-heat governor's race by taking wide swings at incumbent Democratic John Hickenlooper.
But Hickenlooper delivered his most confident performance yet.

The Supreme Court on Monday decided to green-light gay marriage in at least five states — and grease the wheels for more justice in six others — by deciding not to hear any appeals on state gay-marriage bans this year. Virginia opened the doors to all couples just hours after the announcement, as state AG Mark Herring was quick to instruct the clerks offices across the Commonwealth, while the Colorado AG conceded an inevitability his office has long fought. (Image by Equality Virginia)

College Republicans really stepped in it when they approved an election ad in Colorado that compared choosing candidates to choosing a wedding dress. The tone deaf ad was supposed to show a new, hip GOP's relevance to women. Instead, it did the opposite.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court will begin weighing which cases to hear in its coming session, and at the top of the list is the raft of marriage-equality cases that have lined up at federal appeals courts all year. The High Court’s 2014-2015 session begins a week from today, October 6, but the justices aren’t obliged to fill out the court’s full docket by then. What’s more, with so many marriage cases bubbling up through the system, they may decide to hold off for weeks to decide which if any of the cases to hear.

The story of Jefferson County's education clash has bubbled along for almost a year, but it blew up this week, when the board proposed creating a new curriculum review panel of indeterminate make up tasked with reshaping Advanced Placement U.S. History material to be more patriotic and positive about the American Experiment. The board apparently forgot that kids know how to use the internet.

Colorado Congressman and candidate for U.S. Senate Cory Gardner delivered this week’s Republican Party address. He is one of the swing-state candidates on whom the party is pinning hopes of winning a majority in the upper chamber of Congress this November. The topic of the speech, posted on Friday, will come as no surprise to Coloradans who have followed Gardner’s career, but it registers as deeply out of synch this weekend. At the heart of the six-minute talk, Gardner admonishes President Obama and Democratic members of Congress for delaying construction of the TransCanada Keystone oil pipeline.

Republican strategist Karl Rove is planning a full $6 million political advertising assault on Colorado voters in the coming weeks in support of U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner. The first-round ad hit the airwaves this week. It attempts to persuade Colorado women not to concern themselves primarily with Gardner’s record as a long-standing hardline anti-abortion lawmaker. The ad attempts to do this by changing the subject.

The Voter ID law passed in Texas was promised to be a relatively benign fix to a (non-existent) voter fraud problem. Democrats were wary, and for good reason. Methods for distributing these mandated IDs have fallen far short than what was promised, leaving many likely disenfranchised.

Republican candidate for the Pueblo County Commission Tom Ready is a former Republican Party county chairman and member of the state Parks Board. He’s also not sure whether or not the Sandy Hook school shootings happened the way the media reported them.

Colorado's Cory Gardner, a US Senate hopeful, has a long and storied history of championing an anti-women, pro-business, and far right causes. This record makes his laughable claim to have kickstarted the state's green energy economy a complete farce.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has launched fake news sites in swing districts to post attack pieces on Democratic candidates, including former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff. The headline story that appears at the site today is headlined “Romanoff record out of step with Colorado voters.” It’s written in the style of fact-checking news pieces, but it’s an obvious laundry list of Republican talking points. There are no links, resource cites or quotes provided to readers to support any of the charges.