Thanks to the Daily Sentinel for chronicling the shenanigans of State Rep. Douglas Bruce ˆ author of the famous TABOR Amendment to the Colorado Constitution and recently made infamous by kicking a photographer at the State Capitol (during a prayer, no less!) (“Resolution refusal costs Bruce spot on military committee,” AP, Feb. 16).

Now that his fellow-Republican and House Minority Leader Mike May has “de-Bruced” the Colorado House‚s Veterans and Military Affairs Committee by removing Bruce from that Committee, maybe it‚s time to start talking about “de-Brucing” the entire state of Colorado — which is increasingly tied up in budgetary knots by the TABOR amendment.

In defense of Rep. Bruce, however, he claimed that “it was wrong to use 100 members of the military as props for their political theater in this building. Instead of wrapping themselves in the flag, they‚re wrapping themselves with the military.” I agree.

Just as it was wrong for President Bush to use a staged landing on an aircraft carrier and its crew as props under the “Mission Accomplished” banner for political purposes, so too is it wrong to substitute nonbinding ceremonial resolutions for substantive assistance to our returning Veterans. Unfortunately, because of Bruce’s own TABOR Amendment, Colorado lacks the fiscal flexibility to deliver meaningful assistance where needed.

Likewise, it was wrong (if not illegal) for Commissioners Craig Meis and Janet Rowland to use former Solicitor General of the State of Colorado Richard Westfall as a prop in a theatrical “public hearing” staged to rubber stamp a partisan political decision already made to join the “mill levy freeze” lawsuit. To Westfall’s credit, the most compelling reason he offered for Mesa County’s needless participation was that “Mesa County would make a better plaintiff than Douglas Bruce.” That was “damning with faint praise!”

Now, having failed to address the education funding crisis themselves, Republicans are using the TABOR amendment to bludgeon Democrats attempting to solve the problem. With Veterans and our kids already innocent victims of TABOR, who’s next?

BILL HUGENBERG
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.