Did you miss me? I’m just back from a week away, camping in southern Colorado as part of my local astronomy club’s annual star gazing event. The skies were mostly clear, and the weather cooperated and about 400 people and I’d guess 300 telescopes peered upward. It was a fun week, and now I’m back and catching up on the goings on in Colorado politics.

Where to start? You may have heard that old joke about how a school’s faculty meeting is the place where things of little importance are argued about vociferously (and I’m proud of myself, I spelled “vociferously” correctly on my first try). I was reminded of such faculty meetings when I read the CoPo story about the ongoing squabbles within the state GOP. It seems the vice chair of the Colorado Republicans resigned in great frustration, feeling ignored and pushed aside by the state chair, Brita Horn.

Therefore, the GOPers will hold a virtual meeting this month to pick a successor. And given the near-complete lack of success of the Republicans in Colorado in recent years, you are not going to be surprised to learn there is a kerfuffle (which I did not spell correctly on the first try) going on about a successor. Her carpetbag likely still warm from being dragged in retreat across the state, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (amazingly, the senior elected Republican in the state, which is more a statement about the party’s ongoing electoral failures than her achievements) has announced her support for a hard-right person who is personally loyal to her (that personal loyalty, rather than loyalty to the greater good, seems to be trickling down from somewhere).

A few days later, the three rookie GOP U.S. House members from Colorado, Jeff Hurd, Jeff Crank, and Gabe Evans, announced they were backing someone else and the squabble is afoot! The person the three newbies are supporting just happens to be the person who ran against Boebert in the 4th CD primary last year. And continuing the GOP’s ongoing and bizarre obsession with sex and such, the rival, Richard Holtorf, once complained, during a primary debate, that he thought Boebert dressed “like a prostitute.” Wow.

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When allowed to offer a response, Boebert started to say “I’m happy with my clothing options and I don’t dress —” at which point the classy Holtorf interrupted to talk about (mansplain?) her, well, frisky activity while attending a performance of Beetlejuice the previous summer. Classy behavior all around, right?

But I’m not going to talk about that.

Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to another CoPo story which discusses Nebraska’s recent new law banning transgender athletes from competing on women’s and girl’s teams. Now, I’ll admit there are legitimate concerns around this issue, although often not what the bill’s supporters might think. They might want to consider what some trans men look like, given that the lawmakers would want these folks to compete as women.

There are differences though, but gender is only one of them. A high school boy who stands, say, 6-foot-8-inches tall will definitely have an advantage if he played on the girl’s team, but he would also have that same advantage, albeit likely a bit less) on a boys’ team. As others have mentioned with regards to this issue, Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time (and, I must mention, a University of Michigan product) has arms that span an incredible 6-foot-7-inches. That is a massive advantage and that physical condition helped him garner 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold, more than double of any other athlete in Olympic history. If you were standing on the starting blocks next to Phelps as a race was about to start, would you demand his arms be somehow bound to eliminate his “natural” advantage?

Similarly, Usain Bolt, the greatest sprinter of all time, has eight gold medals during the course of four different Olympic games. He stands 6-foot-5-inches, a full four inches taller than his nearest competitor. That height means his giant legs take fewer and longer steps when sprinting. Is that “unfair?” Should Bolt have been required to, say, wear leggings that restrict the length of his stride?

Finally, can we talk about the actual numbers involved? How many people should be affected by a proposed law before we consider passing a piece of legislation? Aside from what are called “private bills” at the national level, that are specific bits of legislation, often to undo a wrong against a single person, most laws are drafted because there is a significant societal problem that needs addressing.

And the science isn’t even clear regarding whether trans athletes really do have an advantage. Since the International Olympic Committee began allowing trans athletes to participate opening back in 2003, fewer than a dozen have qualified. That’s roughly one every other year. And heck, in Nebraska, fewer than 1- transgender athletes have applied to take part in junior high and high school sports since 2018. We are talking one or two kids per year at the most.

Is that really worth a state legislature’s time? Couldn’t the issues be considered locally as they come up? Do you really think you are paying your state legislators to decide on a single kid every couple of years?

The next thing some might say is a state legislature in, say, North Dakota, should spend time and hundreds of thousands of dollars to install flush toilets at a state historical site honoring the birth place of long-dead band leader Lawrence Welk, a site in the remote lands an hour south of Bismarck, where in all of 2024, only 650 people stopped by. That’s roughly 1.78 visitors per day, and the state is going to install flush toilets (at $150,000 each) at the site. Good use of time and money? That kind of money adds up, like a one, and a two, and a…

Darn, out of space.

Stay tuned…

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.