I have a dear friend, my regular reader Jeff (Hi Jeff!). Jeff is a man of many talents and interests, and a while back he took an old food delivery van and converted it into a camper van. Jeff drives around the United States looking for interesting people and places, and he finds them, well, pretty much everywhere. Jeff makes interesting videos of where he goes, and he even set up a website for people interested in what the cool kids call “van life.”

Back in 2019 Jeff decided to visit every place in the U.S. named Aurora. He had such an interesting time that recently he bought a better video camera, set up a YouTube channel to document his adventures, and is now in the midst of several trips to revisit all the aforementioned Auroras. He calls it, logically, the Aurora Project.

As it turns out, depending on how you count them, there are between 20 and 25 places in the U.S. named Aurora. The one in Texas claims to have a buried alien that crashed there years ago. The one in Nevada is the place a young author named Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) was first paid to write. The one in Oregon was founded as a utopian cult.

But the biggest of all the Auroras is our very own city here in Colorado. It is a lovely town, and I was just there last week (to visit Jeff as he passed through) and it’s a delightful place to live. 

Unless, of course, you are a former felon that wants to serve in city government.

A recent Colorado Politics story explained that Candice Bailey, a community activist with many years of working to make her town a better place wants to run for city council. But over 20 years ago, Bailey committed a crime and paid a price. It seems she was involved in an altercation between two groups, and Bailey and a man in the other group fired guns at each other. Everyone missed and Bailey and the other shooter went to jail. Bailey served three years in prison and was released.

In many cities in Colorado, the mere fact of being a former felon generally does not automatically disqualify a person from seeking elective office, after having served out whatever sentence and/or other punishment has been assessed by a court. But back in 1961, the voters in Aurora added a note to the city charter that permanently bans former felons from public office.

Bailey wants to run for city council to continue here advocacy work as an elected official. And having been rebuffed by the city due to the 60-year-old city charter rule, Bailey has enlisted the help of the ACLU, to argue in court that the charter’s ban on former felons is illegal. Back in 2001, the ACLU was involved when my town of Colorado Springs was considering such a ban. The city council here wised up and withdrew the ban.

So, the question seems to come down to what level of punishment is justice and when should people who were convicted of felonies be allowed back fully into society? Do we truly believe in forgiveness and second chances? Or do we embrace the cold and cruel idea that a single mistake is always and forever an unforgivable blunder? Baileys’ conviction was over 20 years ago. Is two decades enough to mitigate the stain of a conviction?

Certainly there would be situations wherein you would appropriately ban former felons from particular lines of work. You might, for example, exclude a person convicted of, say, bank fraud from being elected the county treasurer. Similarly, it might be reasonable to prevent a person who fomented an insurrection from being elected to, say, the White House…? But I digress…

In Bailey’s case, it can be argued that her time in the prison system, and her experiences with the justice system, might well give her a valuable and needed point of view on issues surrounding crime concerns in Aurora. If Bailey lived here in Colorado Springs, the voters would decide if they wanted her on the city council, as is true most places in Colorado. But in Aurora, thanks to that 1961 charter amendment, no former felon, regardless of having paid their debt to society nor how much public service they have provided, can ever serve. That is a darn shame and is also a disservice to the community that might be bettered by such a representative. Here’s a crazy idea: let the voters decide.

As a guy who taught the US Constitution for lots of years up at the Air Force Academy, I get nervous when one’s rights seem to vary by the geography involved. And while our nation is properly committed to embracing the notion of federalism, one cannot help but wonder where the line should be between a local entity being able to run their own city and a citizen’s right to be treated fairly regardless of location.

Aurora Colorado is an awesome place, and while I disagree politically with Mayor Mike Coffman, I do believe him to be an honorable and trustworthy leader. I hope the good people of Aurora can find a way to reject the actions of three score years ago and can help to make their city even more inclusive.