Author: The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Every session of the Colorado Legislature has its winners and losers, but sorting them out is an “eye of the beholder thing” to borrow a phrase from Grand Junction’s GOP Sen. Ray Scott. For example, House Bill 1242 would have given Coloradans a chance to vote on a state sales-tax increase dedicated to improving transportation…

Three Republican senators broke with their party Wednesday to block consideration of a resolution to repeal the Bureau of Land Management’s new methane rule. Unfortunately, Colorado’s Sen. Cory Gardner wasn’t one of them. We’re disappointed Gardner didn’t embrace a common-sense measure that protects air quality, gives taxpayers a fair return on oil and gas resources…

For years, economists and local business leaders have been searching for the bottom of the economic trough — the point at which there’s nowhere to go but up. By most indicators, it was in 2012, the year Richard Wobbekind, executive director of the Business Research Center at the University of Colorado-Boulder Leeds School of Business,…

Back in November, voters agreed to unshackle unaffiliated voters and give them unfettered access to vote in publicly financed primary elections. Before Proposition 108 passed, independent voters had been required to affiliate with a party before voting. Proposition 108 changed that by dropping the affiliation requirement. It passed despite last-minute tinkering with Blue Book language…

Back in November, voters agreed to unshackle unaffiliated voters and give them unfettered access to vote in publicly financed primary elections. Before Proposition 108 passed, independent voters had been required to affiliate with a party before voting. Proposition 108 changed that by dropping the affiliation requirement. It passed despite last-minute tinkering with Blue Book language…

The House of Representatives narrowly passed legislation Thursday to repeal and replace Obamacare with hardly any debate on the matter and with no data on the bill’s fiscal impact or how it affects people’s health-care coverage. Talk about flying blind. It’s reminiscent of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s infamous quote about Obamacare: “… we have to pass…

If local builders hadn’t expressly supported a Mesa County proposal to raise the cost of obtaining building permits, would commissioners have raised fees anyway? It’s an important question because it gets to the heart of our elected leaders’ feelings about the value of government services. There comes a point where undermanned government offices can’t meet…

Two recent developments should have Mesa County commissioners looking at some aspect of “de-Brucing,” or asking voters to allow the county to retain revenue in excess of limits imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The first is that the county is preparing to ask voters to approve a sales tax increase to help fund…

Why are three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee afraid to let the people of Colorado decide whether they want a half-cent sales-tax hike to fund better roads? It’s an infuriating development. House Bill 1242 had the votes to pass the full Senate. It was a bipartisan measure representing a hard-fought compromise between Republican Senate…