Marc Carlisle: Seasons change, but state politics stay the same

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BY MARC CARLISLE
On the Marc
April 30, 2008

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With only six days left in the legislative session, there’s still time to see your Colorado General Assembly in action, and here’s a tip. Don’t expect to see anything interesting at the State Capitol Building, where both the House and Senate will be droning on laying over bills and calling up the calendar.

Instead, head for Randolph’s, a soon-to-be four diamond restaurant at the Warwick Hotel. There, over lunch, you’ll find the legislative powers-that-be, our champions, doing the people’s business over pate fois gras and a fillet with the lobbyists buying their lunch.

Don’t try to pull up a chair and join the fun — you won’t be any more welcome there than on the floor of the assembly, even though it’s your money and your rights that are up for grabs. Instead, sit close, bend an ear, and listen and learn how the public good is molded.

Until recently, paying bribes to members of the General Assembly was perfectly legal. In 2005, for example, lobbyists gave more than $1.6 million in cash, event tickets, trips, and meals to public officials, an average of $16,000 per member of the General Assembly, to influence their opinions and their votes.

In 2006, we the voters passed Amendment 41 to our state’s Constitution banning such bribes, better known as “gifts,” and closing the revolving door whereby recently retired aka term-limited or defeated legislators could return to the General Assembly the very next year as lobbyists and dispense the “gifts” aka bribes they once received.

Amendment 41 is now the law of the land, Article 29 of the state Constitution. However, in the hearts and stomachs of state officials, there is sufficient ambiguity in words such as “ban” or phrases such as “make public” that little has changed in the way business is done over lunch at Randolph’s.

But today is May 1, May Day. In pagan (i.e. non-Christian) civilizations, May Day was celebrated as the first day of summer, with the giving of flowers and dancing around the Maypole.

Presumably that still happens in some pagan (i.e. non-Christian) lands, perhaps along the Baltic Sea in Latvia or Poland. In more recent years, May Day came to symbolize labor unrest and strength in numbers, to commemorate the Haymarket riots in Chicago at the turn of the century and in communist countries to recognize the achievements of the worker.

Presumably May Day still has that meaning in some pagan (i.e. non-Christian) lands, perhaps along the Baltic Sea in Latvia or Poland. In the U.S., today is Loyalty Day, so designated by the U.S. Congress in 1958 and so proclaimed by U.S. Presidents ever since, as recently as 2007 by President Bush.

Presumably Loyalty Day has some meaning outside Batavia, Illinois, which has had a Loyalty Day parade every year since 1975 (no word on why no parades until then), perhaps in some pagan (i.e. non-Christian) lands along the Baltic Sea such as Latvia or Poland. In Colorado, May Day is meaningless, but we could certainly give Loyalty Day real meaning.

Here, as in most states, we expect full financial disclosure from our public officials, although here, as in most states, as proven daily at Randolph’s, we don’t get full financial disclosure. I propose that we dispense with financial disclosure and insist on full physical disclosure from our public officials.

Using wireless technology, we could outfit our legislators with a microphone and a camera, mounted in a hat band or a choker or a necktie, so that we could see and hear and read everything that they see and hear and read all day, every day, of the legislative session.

May 1, Loyalty Day, would be a time for us to remind our public officials just where they loyalties should be, with us and with the state’s Constitution, and not with their self-interest and with the lobbyists’ cash. We could require them to dance around a Maypole on the capitol grounds, draped only in flowers, to ensure that they complete the legislative session in a spirit of humility and not self-aggrandizement. Forget Batavia — the place to commemorate May Day, Loyalty Day, should be Colorado.

Marc Carlisle writes a Thursday column. He can be reached at summitindie@yahoo.com.