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Jared Polis has gone out of his way as gov­er­nor to appear as non­par­ti­san as pos­si­ble. It’s pret­ty rare to hear the Demo­c­rat bad­mouth oth­er politi­cians — even Republicans. 

Even Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. Since the pan­dem­ic began, I’ve heard him com­pli­ment or thank the Trump admin­is­tra­tion more often than I’ve heard him crit­i­cize it.

On the rare occa­sions when he does go after anoth­er politi­cian, he’s usu­al­ly quite measured. 

This week, the gov­er­nor ral­lied sup­port for Diane Mitsch Bush, the for­mer state law­mak­er run­ning for Colorado’s 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, at Pitkin Coun­ty Democ­rats’ annu­al gath­er­ing on Zoom.

He didn’t utter Repub­li­can can­di­date Lau­ren Boe­bert’s name, but he had this to say about the race: “Lis­ten, go to your Repub­li­can, inde­pen­dent friends and neigh­bors, and have them take a look at these two can­di­dates in that con­gres­sion­al race. Even for main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans, I don’t think they want to be rep­re­sent­ed by some­body who believes in this QAnon con­spir­a­cy and has been cit­ed for vio­lat­ing numer­ous health orders and putting peo­ple in their own restaurant’s health in jeopardy.” 

(Boe­bert says she doesn’t sub­scribe to QAnon’s beliefs, but her cam­paign has large­ly been defined in media — espe­cial­ly nation­al media — by her “Q‑curiosity.”)

Polis didn’t exact­ly throw bombs, but, again, he nev­er real­ly does. 

Speak­ing about the elec­tion in gen­er­al, Polis also told the group, “You know, many elec­tions we say it’s impor­tant, it’s the most impor­tant, but this one is. 2020 is the most impor­tant. There is so much at stake for our state, for our nation, for the world.”

Else­where in this week’s newslet­ter, Justin Wingert­er revis­its a polit­i­cal ad that some are call­ing pre­scient, Con­rad Swan­son digs into the fight over Denver’s bud­get and Saja Hin­di looks at the lack of excite­ment over a sec­ond effort to recall the governor.

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Top Line

The state’s unem­ploy­ment claims sys­tem has strug­gled to keep up with the sheer num­ber of peo­ple laid off or fur­loughed since the pan­dem­ic hit. Joe Rubi­no writes about the lat­est prob­lem — with a tool that’s sup­posed to pay $300 in fed­er­al to Col­oradans who qual­i­fy for at least $100 in state assis­tance weekly.

Capitol Diary • By Saja Hindi

Try, try again? Or not.

The lat­est peti­tion seek­ing to recall Gov. Jared Polis over his coro­n­avirus response has been met weari­ly by Colorado’s polit­i­cal crowd, even some Republicans.

And it’s easy to see why. It would take col­lect­ing more than 600,000 sig­na­tures in 60 days to force a recall elec­tion. A 2019 effort by some of the same peo­ple to recall Polis didn’t even turn in sig­na­tures to be ver­i­fied — one of sev­er­al failed recall attempts by con­ser­v­a­tives that year.

Polling indi­cates the group faces an uphill bat­tle in bring­ing down the gov­er­nor even if enough sig­na­tures could be col­lect­ed. Sur­vey find­ings released this week by lib­er­al advo­ca­cy group Pro­gress­Now showed that 58% of reg­is­tered vot­ers approve of Polis’ han­dling of the pan­dem­ic, com­pared with 36% who dis­ap­proved of it. Of those who par­tic­i­pat­ed, 43% were unaf­fil­i­at­ed, 27% Repub­li­cans and 30% Democ­rats — sim­i­lar to the state’s polit­i­cal makeup.

Those who want to lim­it the governor’s pow­ers and change how the state responds to the pan­dem­ic would be bet­ter off try­ing to flip the state Sen­ate, that chamber’s GOP spokesper­son, Sage Nau­mann, sug­gest­ed on Twit­ter Wednes­day. A net gain of two seats there would give Repub­li­cans con­trol of the cham­ber and pro­vide a check on Polis and the solid­ly Demo­c­ra­t­ic House.

Note to Colorado candidates

The Den­ver Post has emailed — or attempt­ed to email — ques­tion­naires to all can­di­dates on 2020 Col­orado bal­lots for U.S. Con­gress, RTD board, CU Board of Regents and state Board of Edu­ca­tion as well as Den­ver metro area can­di­dates for the state leg­is­la­ture and dis­trict attor­ney. If you are run­ning for one of these offices and haven’t seen a ques­tion­naire — includ­ing in your spam fold­er — please email khamm@denverpost.com to receive a link. The ques­tion­naires must be returned by Sept. 27.

More Col­orado polit­i­cal news

• The governor’s lat­est coro­n­avirus order will allow for some fall sports.
• A law­suit against Col­orado law­mak­ers over Blue Book lan­guage has been dis­missed.
• You can now track your bal­lot. Here’s how.
• El Paso Repub­li­cans are lash­ing out against GOP chair Ken Buck.

#COSen 2020 • By Justin Wingerter

Has Romanoff been vindicated?

Last year, then‑U.S. Sen­ate can­di­date Andrew Romanoff released a cam­paign ad that I’ve heard described as “car­toon­ish­ly grim,” “long as hell,” and a lost scene from Cor­mac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Head­lines called it “apoc­a­lyp­tic” and “night­mar­ish.” Sen. Cory Gard­ner called it “insane.”

Cli­mate activists are now call­ing it some­thing else: prescient.

“When Andrew Romanoff released this ad, he was decried as sen­sa­tion­al­ist and hyper­bol­ic,” the youth-led Sun­rise Move­ment wrote Sept. 9. “Now, mil­lions are trapped indoors by the smoke from cli­mate cri­sis induced fires as the sky is orange or red across the West Coast.”

“Romanoff and Sun­rise Move­ment are owed apolo­gies from every news out­let, pun­dit and politi­cian that mocked his cli­mate ad which fore­cast a future of being forced inside because of heat, ozone and wild­fire,” wrote David Siro­ta, a Col­oradan and for­mer speech­writer for Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The 4‑minute, 16-sec­ond dig­i­tal ad shows a dystopi­an “not so dis­tant future” in which a Col­orado Springs fam­i­ly lives in a bunker and wears haz­mat suits to pro­tect them­selves from 127-degree tem­per­a­tures, an air qual­i­ty index of 420, and tor­na­does. None of that has occurred yet in Col­orado Springs, but oth­er parts of the coun­try have seen 130-degree tem­per­a­tures (Death Val­ley), air qual­i­ty index read­ings of 420 (Ore­gon) and even fire tor­na­does (Cal­i­for­nia).

So, does Romanoff feel vindicated?

“‘Vin­di­cat­ed’ is not on my list,” he said via text Wednes­day. “What I feel is grate­ful for the fire­fight­ers and oth­er first respon­ders, sad for the vic­tims of these dis­as­ters, and angry at the admin­is­tra­tion and any­one else who con­tin­ues to deny the evi­dence all around us.”

More fed­er­al elec­tion news

• Mis­lead­ing vot­er infor­ma­tion from the U.S. Postal Ser­vice is caus­ing harm to Col­orado vot­ers, a fed­er­al judge said.
• A look at Lau­ren Boebert’s rise to Twit­ter fame, the ben­e­fits and lim­i­ta­tions of it, and the tweets that got her there.
• If you’ve been think­ing the Gard­ner-Hick­en­loop­er U.S. Sen­ate race has been … unevent­ful … you’re not alone. And it’s on pur­pose, observers say.
• The U.S. Sen­ate can­di­dates have agreed to a third debate — this one to be held by 9News and oth­er out­lets Oct. 13. 
• In an inter­view with the Duran­go Her­ald, Boe­bert defend­ed her past – acknowl­edg­ing she received a GED this spring – and gave more details about her health care policies.
• Col­orado Pub­lic Radio spoke with for­mer 3rd Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict con­gress­men about what it takes to win – and rep­re­sent – the enor­mous district.
• Gard­ner had to return some dona­tions from John Elway because they exceed­ed donor lim­its, Col­orado Newsline reports. FEC-ordered donor refunds are fair­ly common.

Mile High Politics • By Conrad Swanson

Timing is everything

Expect Den­ver City Coun­cil to pro­pose some sub­stan­tial changes to May­or Michael Hancock’s pro­posed bud­get for 2021. 

The whole process got off on the wrong foot in more ways than one, but the tim­ing in par­tic­u­lar has left coun­cil mem­bers frustrated.

Hancock’s staff released the bud­get pro­pos­al Tues­day, which is pre­cise­ly when Coun­cil mem­bers got their first glimpse of the near­ly 800-page doc­u­ment. And they had just over 24 hours to read and digest the weighty tome before bud­get hear­ings start­ed Wednesday.

“There’s no pos­si­ble way we can be expect­ed to go through this bud­get real­is­ti­cal­ly, absorb the infor­ma­tion and pre­pare our­selves to ask the ques­tions in time for bud­get hear­ings to start,” Coun­cil­woman Aman­da Sawyer said. 

Typ­i­cal­ly coun­cil receives a draft bud­get in ear­ly July, Sawyer said. But this year’s ver­sion was essen­tial­ly worth­less because the city was still reel­ing from the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. They were told none of the num­bers would remain con­stant between then and now, she said. 

Sure, this is a flu­id sit­u­a­tion and Hancock’s office faces com­pli­ca­tions of its own devel­op­ing the bud­get, Sawyer acknowl­edged, but the admin­is­tra­tion should either have delayed bud­get hear­ings or shared the pro­pos­al with the City Coun­cil mem­bers earlier. 

This year’s pro­pos­al includes tens of mil­lions of dol­lars worth of cuts and employ­ee fur­loughs. If the coro­n­avirus resurges it will only take a turn for the worse. The group must adopt a final ver­sion of the bud­get in November. 

“This process was cre­at­ed by design to keep Coun­cil from dig­ging into the details,” said Lisa Calderon, chief of staff for Coun­cil­woman Can­di Cde­Ba­ca. “It is set up to rub­ber-stamp the mayor’s bud­get with as lit­tle push­back as possible.” 

But Han­cock is already see­ing pushback. 

The City Coun­cil reject­ed his pro­posed police union con­tract Mon­day — some­thing that’s nev­er hap­pened before — and a chief objec­tion was over vot­ing on such a sub­stan­tial por­tion of Denver’s pub­lic safe­ty bud­get before see­ing the entire finan­cial picture. 

Even some coun­cil mem­bers who sup­port­ed the con­tract voiced that con­cern, although they said they vot­ed in favor any­way for fear of new con­tract nego­ti­a­tions result­ing in a worse deal. 

Mean­while, it remains unclear what changes are com­ing for the city bud­get. Coun­cil mem­bers have to read the doc­u­ment first.

More Den­ver and sub­ur­ban polit­i­cal news

• The Nation­al West­ern Stock Show won’t hap­pen in 2021 because of the ongo­ing coro­n­avirus pandemic.
• May­or Michael Han­cock pulled the plug on a sec­ond site pro­posed for the city’s first sanc­tioned home­less encampment.
• A com­plaint filed by a Den­ver police offi­cer against City Coun­cil­woman Can­di Cde­Ba­ca has been dis­missed.
• RTD con­sid­ers lay­ing off few­er employ­ees as it wres­tles with how to close a bud­get gap.