When the governed stop consenting

(Denver Post, July 15) The recall elections pending for two state senators and the movement for ten rural counties to secede from Colorado, along with the chaos in Egypt, got me to thinking about political legitimacy. No, it’s not a topic trending on Twitter right now. Stop 20 people on the street, and 19 of them couldn’t define it if you put a gun to their heads. But legitimacy matters, and it actually relates to guns in a couple of ways. If we start to lose it in this country, as they already have in Egypt, look out. So bear with me. Political legitimacy is the minimum level of confidence that a government needs to have among the populace to keep civil order from breaking down and anarchy from breaking out. President Morsi’s elected regime in Cairo couldn’t sustain its legitimacy. Now the generals who toppled him may not be able to sustain theirs either. Rough waters ahead for a rudderless ship of state.

All this may seem like a far cry from the cat fight between liberal Senate President John Morse and his conservative Colorado Springs constituents, or the semi-comic rural revolt out in Akron last week, where a ballot issue to form the new state of North Colorado was kicked around. It’s not, because the same deadly serious political realities are involved.

The power for a few of us to rule the rest of us by passing laws and compelling obedience, taking our money or property, locking up the uncooperative, and even using lethal force, isn’t a natural thing like gravity. It’s a social convention like language. To endure and succeed over time, that power requires what the Declaration of Independence calls “the consent of the governed” – which shows signs of strain in our state right now.

“Hey, we didn’t sign up for this,” the petition-signers against Morse in Colorado Springs and his fellow Democrat, Sen. Angela Giron in Pueblo, as well as the angry farmers in Weld and neighboring count I saying that Denver’s Civic Center will end up like Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a seething mass of violent protesters? Of course not. The headlines from near and far are simply evoking once again the concern explored in my 2011 book, “Responsibility Reborn,” that the old age of nations will overtake America if we don’t pick up our game.

Legitimacy doesn’t collapse all at once. It frays, fades, and falters over time. American self-government has been steadily losing its grip on popular consent for at least a generation. Polls show it. To renew itself, the country needs a higher order of statesmanship from politicians in both parties than what we’re now getting – and a higher order of citiies, are saying in effect. Are they fed-up freemen or merely sore losers? Opinions will differs? Of course not. The headlines from near and far are simply evoking once again the concern explored in my 2011 book, “Responsibility Reborn,” that the old age of nations will overtake America if we don’t pick up our game.

Legitimacy doesn’t collapse all at once. It frays, fades, and falters over time. American self-government has been steadily losing its grip on popular consent for at least a generation. Polls show it. To renew itself, the country needs a higher order of statesmanship from politicians in both parties than what we’re now getting – and a higher order of citizenship from we the people than what you and I see in the mirror.

Secession by the Greeley gang isn’t going to happen. Still it must be heeded as what our therapeutic age calls “a cry for help.” Recall of the two state senators by voters may or may not happen. (And recall of our U.S. senators definitely won’t, despite Tea Party voices in favor; it’s not constitutional.) But we should view all of this as symptoms of legitimacy at risk, and think hard about how to rebuild a deeper, wider consent.

Even if you are not interested in politics, politics is interested in you. So warned Pericles, 2500 years ago in the Athenian republic. That’s “res publica” from Latin. It means the public thing, everybody’s concern. No one can opt out, sorry. We’re all in this together.

It's called weather, Chicken Little

Recent wildfires in Colorado aren't a symptom of catastrophic climate change,says John Andrews in the June round of Head On TV debates. Susan Barnes-Gelt disagrees, alleging that earth is warming at a dangerous rate. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over the NSA data dragnet, rumblings of northern Colorado secession, and the 2014 races for senator and governor. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for June: 1. FOREST FIRES & CLIMATE CHANGE

Susan:  Think there’s a relationship between wildfires raging in Colorado and climate change? Nah. Just because earth’s average temp has risen nearly 2 degrees since 1915, and projected to rise another 2 – 11 over the next century.  - Unprecedented floods, droughts, & rising seal levels. Just Ma Nature being cranky. Right?

John: Liberal crybabies call it climate change and get their diapers in a knot. Ordinary people call it weather and get on with their lives.  Temperatures stopped increasing 16 years ago, and soon the worriers may again proclaim global cooling, as in the 1970s. Colorado forest fires are as old as the forest itself.

Susan:  The gentleman doth protest too much . . . Alaska had 90 degree temperatures last week. Unprecedented! Keep whistling Dixie if it makes you happy. But if I were you, I wouldn’t make plans to retire to South Florida anytime soon.

John: I can’t whistle anything in this drought.  My lips are too dry.  But Susan, look – global warming, climate change, greenhouse gases, carbon credits, cap and trade – the whole thing is a giant scare tactic cooked up by guilty rich liberals and power-hungry politicians. Exhibit A: Al Gore, the world’s biggest hypocritical fraud.

2. NORTHERN COLORADO SECESSION THREAT

John: Suppose there was a 51^st state with liberty as its motto, world-class agriculture as its economy, and Greeley as its capital. That’s the vision of conservative leaders in Weld County and northern Colorado. Far-fetched? Maybe. But they mean it. The state’s ruling liberals are that far out of touch.

Susan:  My first ever political campaign was – Norman Mailer / Jimmy Breslin “make NYC the 51^st state’ 1969 mayor/comptroller effort.  It was a fun, lively, engaging and quixotic experience for a sassy NYU student.  Colorado redux? Quixotic without the fun and lively!

John: When Weld, Mesa, and other counties threaten to form a separate state of North Colorado, seeking local voter approval this fall, they can’t realistically expect a green light from the legislature and Congress. It’s a deadly serious sign of the times, however. Bloated government plus diminished freedom equals grassroots revolt.

Susan:  The problem isn’t bloated government.  The problem is irrelevant government. Like spending $50 billion to build the Berlin Wall at our border with Mexico. Why not invest the money in roads and bridges?  The problem is no local, state or federal leadership – what’s next?  Anarchy?

3. NSA DATA DRAGNET: ARE WE WORRIED?

John: The NSA data dragnet is scary. 1984 has arrived.  But Americans have ourselves to blame. We want protection from Islamic terrorism.  We love our electronic connectivity with no thought of privacy from corporate providers. Big Brother government was bound to be next. One and one make three. But I hate it.

Susan:  I hate it too.  The question is how far is too far.  Holder’s squelching of the Associated Press is too far – an attempt to staunch leaky spigots in the government – not save the country from terrorists.  Of course 1984 is here.  It arrived in 1998 with the internet boom.

John: Claims from our leaders in both parties that the all-knowing NSA database is necessary and safe do not reassure me at all.  Rather they indicate that most of those leaders and both of those parties have forgotten that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  This issue is huge.  It could make Rand Paul president.

Susan:  Oregon’s Senator Wyden and Colorado’s Mark Udall both have access to classified security info.  They dispute spying on American’s phone records has stopped 50+ terrorists plots. The two Dems introduced a bill to limit unchecked surveillance.  Here’s hoping the Repub’s  fall in line.

4.  HICK IN TROUBLE FOR 2014?

John: Gov. John Hickenlooper is the ice-dancer of Colorado politics. Picture a tutu.  He has skated along with high popularity and low accomplishments. But his failure to lead is glaring. Coloradans heavily disapprove his reprieve of the murderer Nathan Dunlap.  Polls indicate even a no-name Republican could now beat Hick.

Susan:  Hick’s Hamlet routine on Dunlap may have moved the approval needle.  Yup, from 70% to 55.  On the other hand unless Hank Brown or your boss, Bill Armstrong or possibly Becky Love Kourlis throw a hat in the ring, Hick’s a sure bet for re-elect.

John: Your sure bet belongs at the racetrack, not the Hickenlooper dog and pony show. His unpopular gun bills, tax increases, and dangerous mess in the correctional system add up to weakness bigtime. The façade is crumbling. He’s vulnerable to Gessler, Brophy, or Tancredo. And there will be others.

Susan Gessler has huge problems.  It’ll be tough for him to raise money. Respected Repub’s won’t support him.  Chances are, he can’t even hold on to his Secretary of State gig. Tancredo & Brophy? Non-starters.  Hick’s got  problems, but the R’s don’t have a bench.

5.  SENATORS UDALL & BENNET POLLING POORLY

Susan:  Approval ratings for Congress are in the low single digits.  Both our Senators – Udall and Bennet are well below 50-percent.  Does this mean they are vulnerable? Unlikely.  Bennet’s not up until 2016 and no one, I mean NO One has surfaced to take on Udall next year.

John: 2014 will be a good year for the party of more freedom and less government, the Republicans. Senate Democrats will feel the voter backlash from Obama’s health care mess and his tangle of scandals. Michael Bennett and Mark Udall are both mediocre senators. A conservative darkhorse could unseat the liberal Udall.

Susan:  Once again John, you cannot beat someone with no one.  And El Paso County state legislator Amy Stephens, a far-right wing nut, went rogue and supported Obamacare. Truth is, the Republican bench in Colorado is so weak, they can’t come up with a folding chair.

John: Udall has been a lackluster senator, Hickenlooper a lackluster governor.  Neither is riding a wave of popularity. Obama’s unpopularity hurts them both. Each will face a strong challenger, mark my words. It’s still early. Sen. Ben Campbell and Gov. Bill Ritter looked strong at this point too. Neither was reelected.

How to run against Hickenlooper

(Denver Post, June 2) “Colorado can do better.” Four words, scarcely a sound bite. But if you start hearing them in reference to Gov. John Hickenlooper as 2014 approaches, you’ll know the election is not a walkover for him after all. Because when it comes to policy results from the state’s chief executive, those words are true. Leave personalities out of it. We don’t know who the incumbent Democrat’s ultimate Republican opponent will be. We don’t even know if Hick will run again. We just know that current state-to-state comparisons don’t flatter Colorado. Jobs, schools, roads, public safety – none of these yardsticks indicate top performance by the governor.

Never mind his gibe that GOP gubernatorial hopefuls “sat around the campfire and figured out they’ve got to act excited” about winning next year. Never mind his coyness about presidential ambitions in “The New Yorker.” The fact is, Hickenlooper has not led. So on the fundamentals, as they say in sports, he is beatable.

For the same reason the Rockies changed managers and the Buffs changed coaches, Coloradans could decide to change governors. It will be game on, the minute a forceful challenger – unfazed by Hick’s folksy mystique – starts connecting the dots and asking him the obvious questions.

Why is it, Governor, that Colorado has the worst unemployment rate of any state between the Mississippi and the Sierras, with the exception of Arizona and Nevada? Are we supposed to be content with that? Whatever became of your “TBD” job-creation plan? Will it remain “to be determined” throughout your second term, if we reelect you?

What makes you think, sir, that this fall’s ballot proposal for raising Colorado’s income tax rate to pour another billion dollars into status-quo public schools is either economically or educationally beneficial?

You’re not aware of the research showing that states with lower income tax rates (or none at all) outperform the rest on economic growth? (See the American Legislative Exchange Council’s study, “Rich States, Poor States.) You see no benefit in going with Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Maine, Arkansas, and Missouri down the tax-cutting road?

How can you still believe in the education-spending tooth fairy, Governor, after America has seen no improvement in test scores while real dollars per child in the public schools have tripled since 1970? Can we put you in touch with some of your counterparts – Bobby Jindal in Baton Rouge, Jan Brewer in Phoenix, Rick Scott in Tallahassee – for a tutorial on how parental choice is helping every child in their states, poor kids above all?

As for transportation, sir, we know your motor scooter (or state limo) zips through traffic quite effortlessly. But has anyone told you about the congestion still prevailing on I-25, despite light rail? Or about the slow crawl on I-70 to the mountains in ski season and last Memorial Day weekend? Why is the Hickenlooper highway expansion program also TBD?

At the risk of sounding like Columbo, Governor, just a couple more questions. Who allowed the massive state parole breakdown that cost Corrections Director Tom Clements his life? And why the spike in metro Denver gang violence? And the marijuana legalization that has the whole country laughing at us – with more of a campaign couldn’t you have defeated that? We hardly recognize our state any more.

Gov. Steve McNichols (D) in 1962 and Gov. John Vanderhoof (R) in 1974 were thought to be safe incumbents. They lost to John Love and Dick Lamm, respectively. Gov. Roy Romer (D) was thought a lock in 1990, and he was. I got creamed. Will voters in 2014 decide Colorado can do better than Gov. John Hickenlooper? Place your bets.

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John Andrews (andrewsjk@aol.com) is director of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University and a former state senator. He was the Republican nominee for Governor in 1990.

Obama Messiah is no more

A leftist agenda playing loose with the law has cost Obama his messianic aura, says John Andrews in the May round of Head On TV debates. Susan Barnes-Gelt disagrees, blaming the welter of scandals on arrogance at the top and incompetence of underlings. John on the right, Susan on the left, also go at it this month over immigration, school taxes, recall of legislators, and Hickenlooper's record. Head On has been a daily feature on Colorado Public Television since 1997. Here are all five scripts for May: 1. SCANDALS ENGULF OBAMA

John: IRS intimidation of anyone who gets in Obama’s way politically – Christians, Jews, conservatives, you name it – is the latest example of Chicago-style gangster politics that are bringing this administration into disgrace with Democrats and Republicans alike. I worked in the White House during Watergate, Susan, and this looks very familiar.

Susan: Given the 24-hour news cycle, twitter, IM and Facebook – and an ability to hire the best and brightest – Obama is strangely unplugged. If he expects to move his agenda, he’d better hire some strong critical thinkers: old dogs in touch with history.

John: The President and his palace guard – Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Susan Rice, Jack Lew, Jay Carney – believe their leftist agenda is so righteous that it justifies disregard of the law and the truth. IRS abuse, spying on journalists, covering up Benghazi, gun running to Mexico – Obama as Messiah is no more.

Susan: Obama’s overreach has nothing to do with a leftist agenda – Watergate? Iran Contra? The problem is out of touch, arrogance of power of those in high office and their staff, who forget they’re accountable to the public. Obama needs to replace the hallelujah chorus with savvier advisors.

2. IMMIGRATION REFORM

John: “Give me your huddled masses yearning to breath free.” So proclaims the Statue of Liberty, and as a conservative I agree. But the American dream attracting immigrants from all nations is opportunity and liberty under law, not simply crash the gates and then claim amnesty. The Senate bill is fatally flawed.

Susan: The US immigration system is fatally flawed. And if the United States Congress doesn’t get it together, the nation’s future is at risk. Anyone born in this country should be a citizen. Foreign nationals, educated at our best universities, should be encouraged to stay. End of story.

John: Birthright citizenship and a global brain drain to America already exist. What liberals and Sen. Schumer want now, and what conservatives and Sen. Rubio must not give them, are 10 million new Democratic voters legitimized by a fast track to citizenship and a slow stall on border security. Just say no, Republicans.

Susan: I continue to be surprised at your assumption that Mexican and Latin American immigrants are automatic Democrats. If the Grand Old Party (emphasis OLD) relied on demographics and economics instead of emotion, immigration reform would be on top of your must do agenda.

3. HICK & THE 2013 SESSION

Susan: Governor Hickenlooper gets points for the 2013 legislative session. Despite Democratic control of both houses, he maintained his trademark a-partisan, brand. Progressive on social issues: gay marriage and gun control; while supporting business interests on energy policy and fiscal restraint. Like Colorado – the guv is bright purple – tilting blue.

John: A-partisan, you say? Never in 40 years has one party rammed through its extreme ideological agenda as brutally as Democrats in 2013. It sets up common-sense Republicans for a 2014 comeback. Hickenlooper shares the blame, and it will hurt his presidential ambitions. Same-day registration, ripe for voter fraud, scares me the most.

Susan: Nearly half-dozen R’s are lining up to challenge Hick in 2014. For the most part, they are either unaffiliated unknowns or single issue opponents to the guv’s support for responsible gun control. Forgive the metaphor, but that dog can’t hunt in a state that’s experienced Columbine and Aurora.

John: Hickenlooper, Mr. Folksy, Mr. Indecisive, won with a bare majority in 2010. How is the state better off since then? Better schools, no. Better roads, no. Economic boom, energy boom, no. More crime, yes. Marijuana madness, yes. Hick can be licked. Challengers Gessler, Brophy, Tancredo, or Laffey could all do it.

4. BILLION DOLLAR SCHOOL TAX – GOOD IDEA?

Susan: Senate Bill 213 proposes to increase K-12 statewide funding. The key element – how to fund – is TBD. Supporters must reach agreement on whether to raise Colorado’s flat income tax to 5.3% or move to a graduated approach. Then – gather 86,000 sigs for the November ballot. Heavy lifting.

John: Only in the Alice in Wonderland world of big government does persistent mediocrity justify ever greater funding. American public education has tripled its real dollars per student since 1970 while test scores remained flat. Colorado doesn’t need a billion dollar tax increase for teacher unions. We need parental choice.

Susan: Obviously – Colorado has parental choice: charter schools and private and religious schools. That’s not the issue. In truth, urban districts – especially Denver – must air-condition every building and go to a 12-month school year and longer day – before asking for an operational tax hike.

John: You don’t have choice until the school dollars go in every child’s backpack so mom and dad can send kids where they learn best and are safest. Government monopoly schools are a fraud on Hispanic and black and poor families. Higher taxes, no. Tax credits or vouchers like Douglas County, yes.

5. LEGISLATORS FACE RECALL OVER GUN VOTES

Susan: Four Colorado Democratic legislators: Sen John Morse, Evie Hudak & Angela Giron and Rep. Mike McLachlan face recall attempts over their support for the responsible gun control measures. Even pro-gun advocate Dudley Brown thinks it’s a waste of resources. Even conservative Coloradans aren’t puppets of the NRA!

John: Legislators aren’t anointed to rule by decree, they are elected to represent you and me. The recall process – petition signatures followed by a vote – lets us unelect them for bad representation. The recent gun grab laws, rejected as unconstitutional by 54 county sheriffs, may cost some senators and representatives their seats.

Susan: Efforts against Durango Rep. McLachlan have failed to get enough signatures – same is likely against Hudak and Giron. El Paso County Dem John Morse is the real target – national gun rights groups are funding the effort. I don’t think Coloradans want outside interests to dictate local policy.

John: John Morse holds a high position of trust as Senate President. Holding that job years ago, I learned you can’t come on too extreme. Sen. Morse may learn that the hard way, by constituents booting him this summer. His agenda is way, way left. Conservative Colorado Springs may tell him sayonara.

A very different Colorado

(Denver Post, Apr. 28) Watch closely as the legislature enters its final ten days of the 2013 session. This year is shaping up as a game-changer for the way Coloradans govern ourselves and seek the common good. Over the decades, we’ve seen a Republican-led House and Senate confronting a Democratic governor, and vice versa. We’ve seen the House and Senate controlled by opposite parties. We’ve seen the GOP in complete control, as they were briefly under Gov. Bill Owens, and the Dems in complete control, as they are now under Gov. John Hickenlooper. But never in my 40 years here have we seen so aggressive an ideological agenda rammed through by one party – and with a nasty kicker in the form of rigged election rules that could lock in the dominant party’s gains for a generation. That’s what I mean by game-changer.

House Speaker Mark Ferrandino and Senate President John Morse, with Hickenlooper riding along, have done nothing wrong. Democrats got the car keys when voters turned over five House seats last November, and their leaders wasted no time in steering leftward and mashing the accelerator. Fair enough.

It’s been a joyride for the Obamian progressives. The result for Colorado working families, however, may be a hollow feeling like that bumper sticker you’ve seen: “The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” After this year’s liberal legislative rout, we’ll all be diminished as citizens – because bigger, bossier government is on the way.

Majority Dems in both chambers are decent people with good intentions. Most are sensible enough to see the joke in saying you’re from the government and you’re here to help me. Yet they’re also utopian enough to think that in their own case, it’s really true. So from a leftist viewpoint, no doubt their 2013 agenda looked noble. But not when viewed from the right.

For all of us who believe that citizens’ possibilities are nearly unlimited when government is limited, the future that Morse, Ferrandino, and Hickenlooper envision is a very different Colorado than we’ve known – a Colorado where opportunity and liberty are narrowed.

Look at what this legislature has done with the bills that have already passed, or that are likely to pass before adjournment on May 8. They’ve impaired job-creators and employers to the advantage of unions and trial lawyers. They’ve obstructed oil and gas production and raised the cost of electricity with draconian green mandates. Economic growth will be the worse for it.

They’ve infringed the constitutional right of self-defense with unenforceable universal background checks and pointless ammunition restrictions. The emotional outlet of passing such laws won’t prevent the next Aurora massacre – but it may embolden the next Tsarnaev brothers.

There’s more. The legislature has signaled “Come on in” to border-jumpers and visa-jumpers with subsidized college tuitions and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. If this is the rule of law, Chris Christie is a ballerina.

They’ve doubled down on a dysfunctional Medicaid program – unsatisfactory for patients and providers alike – by expanding it with megabucks of borrowed federal money; the same money Dick Lamm recently called “economic cocaine” in these pages. And that money will soon taper off, sticking Coloradans with the tab; the same Coloradans this legislature hopes will raise school taxes by a billion dollars.

The diabolically clever topper is something called House Bill 1303. It mandates fraud-friendly same-day voter registration. Upon its passage (effective even this fall), presto – Democrats will have tilted the electoral playing field permanently their way. Republican chances for regaining power and repealing any of this stuff will fade.

When progressives in 1913 passed the income tax, currency manipulation by the Fed, and new election rules for senators, they gave us a very different America. Progressives’ legislative rout in 2013 will give us a very different Colorado. Brace yourself.