Vail Daily, May 22, on addressing bullying in schools:
The Facebook group called Eagle County Classifieds is mostly a place to buy and sell items. But it's also a place where some pretty broad-ranging discussions take place.
One of those discussions was started recently by a mom who told the story of pulling her daughter out of school because of bullying.
There have been hundreds of responses to the post. Many of those respondents have told their own stories of bullying. Most wrote about their kids being bullied at school and the response, or lack thereof, by school officials.
The conversation paints a picture with an undeniable message: Bullying is a problem in local schools. In fact, it's believed that cyberbullying was one of the factors and there are always several factors that contributed to a girl's suicide earlier this year.
A story in this newspaper in March outlined the extent to which bullying is a problem in local schools. As many as one-third of local middle school girls report being bullied online.
The problem comes with trying to punish bullies. While most of us know bullying when we see it, it can be hard to put that behavior into the black and white of a written report for school or law enforcement officials.
That means responses to bullying are mostly up to us. It's up to parents and others to help a child being bullied.
A Facebook group, Bullying Prevention Solutions & Support of Eagle County, has gained nearly 60 members since just last week.
That's good.
But it's also important that parents understand how to respond when one of their children is accused of being a bully. That has to be one of the hardest facts a parent has to face.
Reports of bullying, on both sides, can be difficult to understand and perhaps more difficult to solve. There's always the concern that a bullying report can lead to still more abusive behavior.
Bullying is as old as childhood itself. But people of good will can work to cut down on abuse and work with children to help create better adults.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2s1UJN4
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The Pueblo Chieftain, May 21, on redistricting reform:
Colorado voters will decide a pair of constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot that would reform the politically charged process of congressional redistricting and state legislative reapportionment.
State Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City, sponsored both referendums with the goal of preventing gerrymandering, which is a pejorative word for drawing political lines to give one candidate or party an advantage over the other side.
"There's nothing exciting about electoral maps, but in order to ensure that our elections are fair and truly represent every Coloradan, it's an issue that needs a solution," he said.
Grantham said the two proposals recognize the growing influence of independent voters by giving the unaffiliated equal standing with Republicans and Democrats in the redistricting process.
Amendment Y calls for taking Colorado's U.S. House district boundaries out of the partisan legislative arena by creating an Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission made up four Republicans, four Democrats and four unaffiliated voters. The 12-member commission would be appointed from a large pool of applicants, none of whom may have a recent history of political office or party activism.
Amendment Z almost has identical provisions for a new Independent Legislative Redistricting Commission to draw the maps of Colorado's 65 state House districts and 35 Senate districts.
Although voters will decide the two issues separately, both seek to remove politics from the process to the extent possible in our political arena.
We support this noble impulse even while recognizing that the legislative leaders who appoint half of the two commission members will be tempted to select commission members who reflect their political agendas.
The other half of the appointments six to the 12-member Congressional Redistricting Commission and six to the 12-member Legislative Redistricting Commission will be appointed by a panel of the three most recently retired state judges.
It's a welcome change from recent Colorado history. In three of the last four congressional redistricting cycles, the state courts have stepped in and drawn congressional district lines because Republicans and Democrats could not reconcile their differences.
If voters approve Amendments Y and Z in November, the nonpartisan Legislative Council staff will draw the new district lines and submit them to the two bipartisan independent commissions for review. The Colorado Supreme Court would review the final plan submitted as to legal form. The ballot proposals are big improvements over the futility of Democrats and Republicans waging another of their partisan wars.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2KOs7hD
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Aurora Sentinel, May 21, on Trump's abortion gag rule:
The Trump administration delivered a gut punch to family planning health care providers across the nation this week, shoving the abortion-rights battle against women into the 2018 voting booth and Aurora's own 6th Congressional District race.
The administration announced Friday it would resurrect a dangerous and disregarded 1980s-era gag rule against any health care provider taking federal funds, prohibiting health care providers from the most important detail women need to know if seeking an abortion where to go.
In what has become typical fashion for the Trump administration, officials offered few details of their plans and a smug, disingenuous tap dance around the truth of their intentions. They are trying to squeeze the life out of Planned Parenthood and end American women's rights to safe abortion services.
The presidential decree would prohibit any health care provider that takes federal money, which is essentially all of them, from referring women to abortion services, Trump administration officials said Friday. It would ban health care providers that offer abortion and family planning services in the same facility from receiving federal funds.
"The end result would make it impossible for women to come to Planned Parenthood, who are counting on us every day," for birth control and cancer-screenings, Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens told The Associated Press. The history of abortion-rights foes in Congress against this important and venerable organization speaks for itself.
Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News that the administration is simply recognizing "that abortion is not family planning. This is family planning money."
She's deflecting from yet another Trump administration lie, something Americans have become accustomed to from Conway and the administration she pitches for.
The money she's referring to is called Title X family planning funds, which critically offers birth-control and cancer screening services to an astounding 4 million poor women each year. Millions of those women depend on Planned Parenthood clinics for those services.
As created decades ago, Title X money has never been allowed for providing abortions. On several occasions, Congress has highlighted that mandate. In fact, health care providers such as Planned Parenthood must already prove that abortion-services they provide are segregated from any Title X money they receive for family planning and cancer screening services.
This new move by the Trump administration is unnecessary to achieve its own, nefarious and duplicitous goals. One of the most dangerous aspects of this scam is that it will undermine huge strides made in reducing the rate of America's teen and unwanted pregnancies. Because of strategic work done by Planned Parenthood and other health care providers in Colorado and across the nation, the number of unwanted pregnancies ending in abortion have dropped dramatically over the last several years. That's according to more than one scientific analysis.
The U.S. Supreme Court and endless case law upholds women's irrefutable right to medical privacy when seeking abortion. Even recently, the Supreme Court has made clear that mendacious schemes like this latest one, created to undermine reproductive rights by closing women's health clinics, are nothing but illegal, transparent lies. In 2016, a thunderous 5-3 Supreme Court decision ended a malevolent attempt in Texas to illegally close women's health clinics. Justices plainly stated that American women have a constitutional right to obtain an abortion, and the government cannot contrive regulations infringing on those rights.
Since the Trump administration regularly rules by decree, unable to draw legislation from even its own Republican-controlled Congress, this immediately becomes an issue for those seeking a midterm seat in the House and Senate.
That brings us back to representative such as Republican Mike Coffman, who has historically sided with efforts to restrict abortion rights and defund Planned Parenthood.
Coffman co-sponsored defunding legislation in 2016 based on a scandal over a fraudulent and discredited partisan video scam to make it appear Planned Parenthood sold aborted fetuses as some kind of ghoulish scam.
This administration has made it clear that it is proud to resort to such chicanery to achieve its goals of ending women's reproductive rights.
Trump's kick against women's rights lands squarely against Coffman, who has worked hard to paint himself as a political moderate in an increasingly blue congressional district. This will be a critical test for him and others like him during this fall's election.
He needs to unequivocally fight against Trump's abortion-rights ruse, or cede this women's-rights issue to whoever his Democrat opponent is this fall.
Americans will not tolerate obfuscation on these critical matters. Coffman and all Colorado lawmakers in Congress and the state Capitol must take a clear and honest stand, and defend what's right.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2GKeVI2
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The (Greeley) Tribune, May 15, on a recently passed bill about mineral rights in the state:
Finding a success story in our state Legislature these days is a pretty tall order, but we think we found one from early this month.
The Legislature passed a bill dealing with forced pooling. Essentially, the measure would make changes to the relationship oil and gas companies have with mineral rights owners.
Among them, oil and gas companies would no longer be able to send letters to unwilling mineral rights holders stating they could be held liable for accidents that occur during the oil and gas operation if they refuse to sell their rights without also telling homeowners how incredibly unlikely that scenario is.
The bill provides more protection for homeowners while also making clearer for oil and gas companies the limitation of liability involved in their efforts to drill, and we like that.
Another way we can sense the bill is a winner: It has the support of people on both sides of the issue, those representing mineral rights owners as well as those in the oil and gas industry.
It's pretty rare to make everyone happy, especially in politics and Colorado politics, at that. Kudos to our state officials who, even just this once, managed to get one right.
Hopefully this leads to a better relationship between the interests involved in oil and gas drilling moving forward.
Editorial: https://bit.ly/2klw7uP