morgan smith
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Aurora’s Steve Hogan set a standard for public service
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(Editor’s note: Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan died Sunday at 69 after a battle with cancer.) “Thirty four years of elected office, many more of consequential service, have passed far too quickly,” says Steve Hogan, the late mayor of Aurora, in what turned out sadly to be his last message. I only served with him for…
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Smith: Anti-NAFTA AMLO, Mexico’s next president?
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Now that the Trump administration has initiated the process of renegotiating the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), let’s hope that this process is marked by thoughtfulness and not rhetoric like the president’s earlier comments that NAFTA was “the worst trade deal in history.” Despite the anti-trade rhetoric, NAFTA has been a great success, resulting…
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Smith: May The Colorado Statesman’s legacy of humanizing politics live on
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Congratulations and best wishes to Clarity Media, the new owner of The Colorado Statesman. I’ve been writing for The Statesman since at least the early 1980s when I was commissioner of the Colorado Department of Agriculture and have always seen the newspaper as a vital player in Colorado’s political life. I see its value even…
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Smith: Kogovsek’s death leaves a tremendous void
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It is an enormous shock to read of the death of Ray Kogovsek, a superb public servant and a tireless supporter of his home town, Pueblo. I had the opportunity to serve in the Colorado House of Representatives for six of the years in which he served in the state Senate and it was always…
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Smith: U.S. ties with Mexico matter now more than ever
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With all the excitement, chaos, turmoil – whatever you want to call it – that has filled Donald Trump’s first days in office, it’s easy to forget that Joaquín Guzmán, “El Chapo,” the world’s most notorious criminal and drug cartel leader was extradited from Mexico to the United States the same day as Trump’s inauguration.…
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Smith: To Standing Rock
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“What now?” my son, Jay asked. It was Sunday, Dec. 5, and we were just north of Dilia, New Mexico, where he has a small farm and where we had loaded his Toyota Tundra with firewood. We were preparing to head out to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota but had just heard…
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? Smith: Next steps in Latin America: A role for the US and Colorado
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In a stunning setback for Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia, Colombian voters narrowly defeated a referendum to approve a treaty between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Oct. 2. The margin of votes was 53,893 out of 12,808, 858 counted so it was a razor-thin loss. The leader of…
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Smith: Bill Armstrong was courteous, thoughtful and a true statesman
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“Bill Armstrong is going to be your co-chairman,” Joe Shoemaker said. “Oh no,” I thought. “Not Bill Armstrong.” It was 1998 and former state Sen. Joe Shoemaker had asked me to co-chair a campaign to build an endowment for the Greenway Foundation called the Greenway Preservation Trust Foundation. He had an excellent relationship with then-Denver…
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Lamm undecided over third term as candidates emerge
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Thirty-Five Years Ago this week in The Colorado Statesman … Gov. Dick Lamm hadn’t decided yet whether he planned to run for a third term in 1982, but the Democrat conceded he could be unseated by Colorado Republicans, who had said their major goal in the next year was retaking the governor’s mansion. “Oh, sure,”…
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Smith: A night with the Ku Klux Klan
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On a steamy Friday night in early August 50 years ago, I was taken prisoner by the Ku Klux Klan outside the small town of Oxford, N.C. I was lucky to survive, but because I got into this mess through my stupidity and the stubbornness of my fellow employees at the Congress of Racial Equality…
