Remember during COVID, when the people screaming the loudest for government-mandated jabs were the very same people chanting “my body, my choice” when it came to abortion — I mean, “women’s health care”?
They’re also the folks who insist a 12-year-old is far too young to get a tattoo, but perfectly mature enough to make irreversible “gender-affirming” medical decisions.
The technical term for this is cognitive dissonance. In Colorado, we just call it public policy.
Now, as the new year dawns and another legislative session lurches to life, prepare yourself for the mother of all contradictions: “I will fight Trump’s assault on democracy,” followed immediately by, “and on an entirely unrelated note, here’s my bill to destroy democracy.”
Watch as our governor and his legislative allies solemnly virtue signal us about the grave dangers of authoritarianism — while quietly consolidating power into unelected boards, commissions and hand-picked appointees who never have to face voters or awkward town halls.
The Regional Transportation District, RTD, is a good place to start. After all it is arguably the largest stand-alone government in Colorado after the state government itself. So of course, the governor wants to jettison most of its elected board and install his own appointed stooges. This trumps Trump. Because nothing says “democracy” quite like removing elections.
This, apparently, is what fighting tyranny looks like now.
Let me spell this out slowly, since subtlety has never been Colorado politics’ strong suit. Our elected officials lose all moral authority to lecture us about President Donald Trump’s threats to democracy when they’re busy dismantling it themselves — right here, in plain sight.
They howl about Trump wanting to fire bureaucrats and install loyalists, then turn around and do the same thing, only with better press releases and more use of the word “stakeholder.”
They gripe about President Trump tearing down the east wing of the White House to build a “big beautiful” ballroom by firing the board members in control and installing his own people to get what he wanted.
Put it on steroids and you get Gov. Jared Polis pushing legislation to gut the elected RTD board and replace it with appointed insiders — all in the name of “efficiency,” “equity,” and other words that usually mean “you don’t get a say anymore.” Forget democracy. He wants to install his cronies and build a rail line up to Longmont and the next steel-wheeled pipe dream of a choo-choo from Pueblo to Fort Collins.
RTD’s board exists because the people of Colorado directly voted for a 15-member elected board. That part matters. Or at least, it used to. Now it’s apparently just an inconvenient obstacle to progress.
The irony here is truly epic.
To fight the kind Polis-like things Trump might do as president, Polis launched “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” (GSD) after Trump was reelected. Polis commanded, “In this moment, protecting democracy has never been more relevant or important, and doing so demands strong leadership at the state level.”
He was right: the Polis era has been one long transfer of power away from voters and into the hands of unelected boards, commissions and regulatory bodies that never appear on a ballot. Colorado is now governed by appointment not election, by regulation not legislation, by committee meetings not public debate.
In 2019, with Senate Bill 181, the legislature upended the longtime goal of fostering responsible oil-and-gas development in favor of an appointed panel to execute the industry. The new Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission then did his dirty work of regulating oil and gas to a torturous death.
House Bill 19-1032 “updated” Colorado’s human sexuality education requirements by taking the authority away from elected school boards and the publicly elected state Board of Education. Even grant-giving authority was assigned to an unelected, trans-indoctrinating board.
Recommendations on clean air was once provided by the Air Quality Control Council. That wasn’t enough. An unelected group of automobile-hating environmentalists needed to be endowed with unchecked regulatory authority. Thus, the unelected Air Quality Control Commission was recently created with power on par with the Public Utilities Commission.
And let’s not even start on how the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights is the ultimate form of democracy. Yet the legislature chooses to label tax increases as “fees” to avoid our direct consent.
The question isn’t whether Colorado leaders believe in democracy for America
It’s whether they believe in it for Colorado.
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