No use denying the way political wind is blowing

Republicans across Colorado are bracing for another annihilation on Election Day 2020. The spin coming from the right- wing chattering class is as dizzying as a tilt- awhirl atop a carousel chained to an enormous see- saw bolted to a centrifuge. It is apparently the job of every conservative politician, talking head, and Twitter troll in the state to pretend in advance that they aren’t really losing the election despite another impending Democratic landslide.

You’ve heard all of this before. The same arguments were made — and rubber- stamped by the local media — after 2018 delivered Democrats historic majorities in the Colorado legislature, all statewide elected offices on the ballot that year, and victory in the GOP- held 6th Congressional District. Mike Coffman held that seat for a decade, but lost in an 11 point drubbing to nowCongressman Democrat Jason Crow. This year, Congressman

Crow is cruising to reelection, facing a token challenge from former GOP state party chairman Steve House. Even the red 3rd Congressional District held by the GOP for a decade is in play, thanks to the nomination of an unqualified, far- right candidate Lauren Boebert against the immensely credentialed Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush.

In 2018, Republicans attempted to spin the defeat of a few ballot measures — an education tax increase, a confusingly- written road- funding initiative, and an oil and gas setback law that faced millions of dollars in opposition spending — as a conservative victory despite massive Democratic wins up and down the ticket. In truth, there were roughly an equal number of ballot initiatives from conservative and progressive interests, and the vast majority of them failed. The exceptions, were electoral no- brainers: Amendments Y and Z to create an independent legislative and congressional redistricting and reapportionment commission, cracking down on payday loans, industrial hemp, and literally the abolition of slavery from Colorado’s constitution. It was progressives who fought for Amendment A to abolish slavery, and Proposition 111 to regulate predatory payday loans. It was a bipartisan group that fought for independent redistricting. In the end, the scoreboard was still advantageprogressives when all the votes were tallied.

In 2020, the game remains the same. Conservative operatives will point to the likely passage of a favorably- worded tax cut as evidence that Colorado is “fiscally conservative,” and on that basis claim Democrats who will have just won basically every competitive election in the state somehow do not have a mandate to govern and enact their agenda. Coloradans also are poised to approve a generous and universal system of paid family and medical leave.

One difference this year is that the same self- appointed “business community” frequently cited by Republicans as their core supporters now opposes the regressive tax cut found in

Proposition 116, as well as Proposition 117 which takes the terrible idea of TABOR and makes it even worse. They may have finally begun to understand the harm to our economy these “conservative” fiscal policies do at the expense of schools, roads, and health care for the rest of us.

Unlike TABOR’s semantic rigging of revenue- increasing ballot measures, nothing in the language of Proposition 116 tells you that it will cost the state upwards of $ 250 million per year.

Tax cuts are perennially popular with voters, especially when you don’t have to disclose the consequences. Paid leave is popular too. Those are understandable choices for individual voters, who are not and shouldn’t be expected to be fiscalpolicy experts. For that matter, nor are they health care experts, bioethicists, ecologists, sociologists, public health professionals or any of the other expertise needed to make these policy decisions.

That’s why we elect representatives to chart fiscal policy. If you live in Denver, you had to vote on twenty- three separate initiatives this year, and nearly every one of them was a decision better made by policy experts and elected officials. Having to weigh this many obscure and confusing choices makes voting miserable and regrettable, and discourages thoughtful participation.

But I digress. Colorado voters handed Democrats a powerful mandate in 2018, and in all likelihood will do so again next Tuesday. Voters in Colorado elect Democrats to carry out a Democratic agenda. Everything else is cheap spin to console the election’s losers and their pricey consultants who continue to cash big checks as long as they can convince big conservative donors that Colorado is still, indeed, a swing state.

Ian Silverii is the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest progressive advocacy group.