Bringing ACORN-Style Elections to Colorado
April 13, 2010
Colorado Secretary of State Bernie Buescher and Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll have cooked up a scheme that could bring ACORN-style election fraud to the Centennial State, reports the Colorado Statesman. A draft bill would allow same-day voter registration and liberalize the rules for mail-in ballots – two loopholes groups like ACORN have used to commit voter fraud in many states.
Speaker Carroll claimed the bill was drafted “at the behest of county clerks” who are charged with administering the state’s elections. But Karen Long, president of the clerk’s association disavowed any involvement, writing in an email that clerks have “not been at the drafting table on this bill.” Both Carroll and Secretary of State Buescher refused to identify even one clerk involved with the bill’s drafting. One clerk willing to speak up called the bill “horrible” and claimed clerks were being pressured to support same-day voter registration to get changes in mail-in ballots they desire.
In the 2008 elections, ACORN was accused of voter fraud in 12 states; in Nevada alone, ACORN employees were indicted on 26 charges of voter fraud. Is this really a list Colorado wants to join?
Report from Colorado
December 13, 2008
During a recent trip to Colorado, I spoke with a group of business leaders and state lawmakers at the invitation of the Colorado Civil Justice League – an event covered by the online news service “Face the State.”
Over the last 30 years, bipartisan majorities in the Colorado legislature passed 36 separate legal reform bills, each of which was signed by either a Democrat or Republican governor. This bipartisan consensus helped create one of the fairest and most predictable legal climates in the country – an environment that helped propel business investment and job growth in Colorado.
But a reinvigorated Colorado trial bar and sympathetic majorities in both houses of the Colorado legislature are working to derail that progress. Trial lawyer Terrance Carroll is set to become the next House Speaker and the legislature has shown an interest in weakening state laws that protect doctors, hospitals and health care workers from frivolous lawsuits. While Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has always been a strong rule-of-law advocate, there are other warning signs that the state’s liability climate might be taking a turn for the worse.
According to Steve Hantler’s latest ranking of state legal climates for Directorship, Colorado fell sharply last year from having the 10th best legal climate to the middle of the pack – 22nd. Mr. Hantler reports that anti-tort reform Governor Bill Ritter has already signed several pieces of legislation that tilt the courts toward the plaintiffs’ bar. Gov. Ritter’s judicial appointments have created a state Supreme Court that has demonstrated a willingness to expand liability for Colorado businesses.
As I told the group assembled by the Colorado Civil Justice League, legal reform is only as secure as the next Supreme Court ruling, so it’s critical to have judges who respect the will of elected representatives, rather than imposing their personal ideological preferences through their rulings. Progress on the legal reform front is never permanent – especially when a 30-year, bipartisan consensus in favor of a fair, stable and predictable legal climate appears to be breaking down. Colorado businesses and citizens will have to work to defend the gains that have been made, or see the state’s legal climate shift toward the agenda of the trial bar.