The Colorado State Open Thread mostly focuses on issues of concern to Colorado, but since it is an open thread, we do welcome contributions from and about issues that may reach beyond our expansive borders. We do, after all, border upon as many as thirty other states (though some may say we don’t reach nearly that far and others say that’s only if we count waterways originating in our state). I’m not going to count that total, in part because I might not be able to count high enough.
I do have some requests for opinions on some of the statewide ballot initiatives. Oh, not for the candidates — I’m going to be voting for Democrats all the way down the ballot, which means I’ll be voting for Senator Michael Bennet, Governor Jared Polis, AG Phil Weiser, SOS Jena Griswold, Treasurer Dave Young, State Board of Ed Kathy Plommer, Representative Joe Neguse, Janice Marchman (State Senate 15), and apparently my incumbent Republican Representative Mike Lynch now has his district 49 reconfigured and he has much of what used to be House District 13, which is Larimer and Boulder counties rather than Larimer and Weld. I hope that means Judy Amabile, the Democrat who used to represent District 13 can now come and kick out Republican Mike Lynch. It would be nice to have a Democrat representing me.
My request for opinions has to do with the state ballot initiatives. By my nature, I generally want to support the little local businesses, so I’m planning right now on voting against the three liquor related initiatives 124, 125 and 126. To me, I don’t need marginally cheaper prices and being able to buy liquor in grocery stores, I don’t need to get liquor delivered by Door Dash and Grub Hub, and I see a loss of jobs, product diversity and a potential for problems when liquor can be delivered by relatively untrained and disinterested delivery drivers. I realize some of these issues will take more than 15 years to fully come into effect, but I believe that the Mom and Pop shops are integrated into the neighborhoods and they serve purposes beyond just sales. They sponsor sports teams, they have some different areas of knowledge that won’t exist within grocery stores and I agree that the big groceries are likely to raise prices once they drive the little guys out of business. I also know Colorado has lots of breweries, wineries and distilleries that could never compete to get into the big grocery stores but they can get into a local liquor store. I also just today saw a comment about Albertsons (which owns Safeway) and Krogers (which owns King Soopers and Country Market) merging, which would further decrease competition.
I have to admit I don’t know about several of the other ballot measures, including the ones — 123 about dedicating tax moneys to lower rents and spur building of low-income housing (which I would tend to support), 122 which would create a natural medicine board to allow for development and sales of natural medicines like mescalin and peyote (I have no idea on those, though I did vote “yes” for legalizing marijuana and I was out of Denver for the vote on mushrooms), reduction of state income tax, and the various alphabetical measures. I would love to hear your opinions below.
I’ll see you all at the ballot drop boxes or at the mailboxes. Until then, the floor is yours.