POLS 304@CSU Fall 2019

The Colorado Supreme Court is considering reversing a ban on limits to gun magazines. Currently, the state has a law that placed a ban on magazines that can hold more than 15 rounds (Slevin 2019). The law was passed by a Democrat-controlled state legislature and signed by Governor Hickenlooper in 2013 after the July 2012 Aurora shooting in an attempt to decrease the number of deaths from mass shootings. In 2008, the United States Supreme Court handed down District of Columbia v. Heller , which held that Americans, provided by the Second Amendment, have a right to handgun and common firearm ownership for self-defense purposes in their homes and that a 32-year handgun ban in D.C. was unconstitutional. Various gun lobbies, specifically the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) and the National Association for Gun Rights, have been fighting the ban since 2016. A Colorado district court ruled in 2016 that the law prohibiting “the sale, transfer or possession of large-capacity magazines for fi...

Edward Baisley Prof. Matthew Hitt POLS 304 Dec. 2019 Blog Post 3 (TABOR and Proposition CC) Colorado's tax system is very unique in comparison to pretty much every other state in the U.S. Arguably the biggest aspect of the tax system that is unique is the amendment to the Colorado Constitution known as TABOR or the Tax Payers Bill of Rights. This amendment which was drafted into law in 1992, has many implications for Colorado's state and local governments. One of the main implications is that TABOR requires the state and local governments of Colorado to acquire voter approval before any tax increase can be implemented. Some other more less known implications are detailed by Denver Post author Anna Staver, she explains that TABOR: “ Limits how many tax dollars governments can keep … It’s called the TABOR cap, anything a government collects above the cap gets returned as a TABOR tax refund … (TABOR) Limits when lawmakers can ask voters to raise taxe...

According to an article written by Meghan Lopez for ABC Denver on October 31st titled, Five bills aimed at improving school safety in Colorado move forward to the state legislature a Colorado legislative committee has decided to move forward with five pieces of legislation designed to approach the issue of safety in schools. These bills come as a response to the STEM shooting in Highlands Ranch on May 7th, 2019, where an adolescent shooter claimed the life of Kendrick Castillo. Colorado has had a lengthy and horrific history of school shootings, and little has changed to prevent their occurrence, so what makes these pieces of legislation different, and why has little changed to halt the occurrence of school shootings? On the national level, legislators have provided several avenues to solve the epidemic of school violence throughout the years, yet little has changed to curb these horrific events. In fact, school shootings have become more prevalent as the years go by. The graphic be...

The Colorado General Assembly will convene on January 8, 2020. There are many issues to be tackled during this session and it is rumored to be one of the most controversial and busy sessions yet. One of the top priorities of Governor Jared Polis is to repeal tax breaks and lower the state’s income tax. Since 2016, the state auditor’s office has begun the process of reviewing more than 200 tax breaks in Colorado in order to learn of their impact (Frank, 2019). After reviewing these tax breaks in 2018 and 2019, it is up to the lawmakers to decide whether to keep them or do away with them. In order to determine what should be done, a Tax Expenditure Evaluation committee has been created to consider policy recommendations from the auditor’s office. They will then determine what to do with the tax credits. The committee will consist of four Democrats and two Republicans. They will meet up to four times and are able to sponsor up to five bills (Frank, 2019). Taxation is largely a polari...

This semester I have the fortunate opportunity to work with a political campaign manager. I am currently interning for the Fort Collins GOP this semester and experiencing a close look at how campaigning can actually impacting voters decision. There were a number of propositions to vote on this past 2019 November ballot. The majority of the propositions involved taxes, which people were able to vote on thanks to TABOR. For the purpose of this blog post, the focused proposition of this year's ballot is Proposition CC. As part of my internship, I had to learn about proposition CC and more about TABOR. Eventually, once I had all the information and made sure it aligned with my views, I was instructed to inform Colorado voters about proposition CC. The methods I used to inform Colorado voters were through social media and neighborhood door knocking. With these two methods and observing the impact of my co-intern, I realized two important patterns that deals with the persuasion of vote...