It took 20 years of hard work and persistence by a bi-partisan coalition of the Democrat Party and moderate establishment Republicans, headed by Colorado’s richest man, Phil Anschutz, to accomplish one goal. The election returns from the 2022 midterms are in and Colorado, at long last, has one-party Democrat rule. Incumbent Governor Jared Polis won by 20 plus points over Republican Heidi Ganahl. It’s not that Mr. Polis is so uniquely popular. Every Democrat candidate for statewide office in Colorado won close to double digits.
The State Senate went from 21 to 14 in Democrats favor to 24 to 11. In the State House it went from 41 to 24 in the Democrats favor to 48 to 17. In a terrible economy with high inflation and a Democrat President with low approval numbers how could this possibly be true? It’s easy. In over 20 years, as pointed out in last month’s editorial, we have gone from same day voting with 30-day registration requirements to same day registration, universal mail-in ballots with an almost month election period. Only the Democrats ballot harvest. They urge their members to cast their ballots immediately. That leaves Democrats three weeks to go house to house to harvest ballots and cure any faulty ballots.
Republicans are told by its leadership to all vote in person on election day and not to allow anyone to collect their ballots. Even without the enormous fraud that universal mail-in ballot and ballot harvesting encourages, there is no chance a Republican can win a statewide campaign under such circumstances.
Yet not a single prominent Republican has publicly protested this inherently unfair election process. In 20 years, they have not objected to any of more than a score of election process changes that have assured a one-party state from now to eternity. Former Republican state party chair and leading Republican Colorado Congressman Ken Buck has declared the process “the Gold Standard.” Former Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams cut an advertisement with present Secretary of State Jena Griswold to the same effect, paid for with taxpayer dollars, which was continuously in the run up to the election.
Why would Phil Anschutz and the Republican establishment want to hand the state over permanently to the Democrats? Because it assures them, they will be permanently controlling the Republican party even if it is a permanent minority party. They can make deals with Polis for their own benefit. The Republican establishment cannot let the grassroots out of the bag because if they did, they could take over the state Republican party, and maybe even the state, which is exactly what has happened in Wyoming and Nebraska. All Anschutz has to do talk is talk to fellow billionaire Pete Ricketts, the two-term governor of Nebraska and president of the National Republican Governors Association, about what happens if everyday citizens get hold of a state party. It’s July 14, 1789, all over again.
Anschutz can also appreciate why Mitch McConnell withdrew money from the Republican senate candidates in Arizona and Nevada, so the Republicans lost by close margins and lost any chance of becoming the majority in the Senate. McConnell may have assured that Republicans are a minority in the U.S. Senate, but helped guarantee he would be the leader of that minority party.
So welcome to the one-party state of Colorado. Like all one-party states from North Korea to Cuba, the citizens will suffer greatly but the leaders of the uni-party will prosper extraordinarily.
- Editorial Board
Governor Polis celebrates one party rule in Colorado.
