March 30, 2018

You Sure About this Keynote Speaker, Colorado Republicans?

Colorado Republicans will hold their big annual event, called the “Centennial Dinner,” on April 13th in Denver. The keynote speaker for the evening is Dr. Thomas Krannawitter, a professor of political science at Colorado Christian University and a “senior fellow” at a right-wing think tank called “The Claremont Institute.”

At first glance, Krannawitter might seem like an ideal speaker for the Colorado GOP’s biggest fundraising dinner of the year (nevermind that he’s not exactly a household name). But if Krannawitter decides to take questions after his speech, things could get a little messy. Check out this Tweet that Krannawitter barfed out on Election Day in 2016:

Yikes!

You may recall that Colorado Republican Party Chair Jeff Hays was a big ally of Donald Trump in 2016. Krannawitter, meanwhile, was less enthusiastic about the Donald:

https://twitter.com/SpeakeasyIdeas/status/794215599253516289

http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/106129/you-sure-about-this-keynote-speaker-colorado-republicans#sthash.IRoVrc1f.dpbs

March 30, 2018

Cary Kennedy continues to gain momentum in Democratic race for governor, new poll shows

Democratic candidate Cary Kennedy is primed to make the party’s ballot for governor in Colorado just as a new poll shows her closing the gap with front-runner Jared Polis.

A preliminary count shows Kennedy has secured about 50 percent of the 4,000 delegates expected to attend the Democratic state assembly in April, according to her campaign.

If it holds, the total easily exceeds the 30 percent the former state treasurer needs to qualify for the primary through the caucus process and shows she is gaining ground in some places from her March 6 caucus victory.

The current momentum behind her campaign is reflected in a new poll of likely primary voters that shows a narrowing Democratic race.

Read more: https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/27/cary-kennedy-poll-democratic-party-assembly/

March 30, 2018

Top Republican in Capitol says accusations against GOP Sen. Tate didnt amount to sexual harassment

Top Republican in Colorado Capitol says accusations against GOP Sen. Jack Tate didn’t amount to sexual harassment

Allegations leveled against GOP state Sen. Jack Tate last year do not amount to sexual harassment, the Colorado legislature’s top Republican said in a letter that also clears Tate of any employment-law violations.

Tate, of Centennial, was accused by a former legislative intern in November of leering at her and making comments about what she was wearing during last year’s legislative session, when she was 18.

An outside investigation, by the Denver-based Employers Council, found that her allegations were based on incidents that more likely happened than not. (The woman has remained anonymous.)

But Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Cañon City, said in a letter released Thursday that the allegations did not rise to sexual harassment.

Read more: https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/29/jack-tate-sexual-harassment-letter/

March 30, 2018

House panel rejects Live and Let Live Act (anti-LGBT bill)

DENVER — A bill many feared would take Colorado back to its 1992 reputation as the “hate state” failed in a state House of Representatives committee Tuesday night on a party-line vote.

House Bill 1206 would have allowed those with “sincerely-held religious beliefs” to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals, according to witnesses who testified on the measure.

The House Judiciary Committee’s five-hour hearing on the bill, dubbed the “Live and Let Live Act,” featured testimony from the couple at the center of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. It ended with a 7-4 vote against the measure.

The bill was sponsored by Republican state Rep. Stephen Humphrey of Severance, who has tried for the last four years to pass similar measures related to the free exercise of religion.

Read more: https://coloradopolitics.com/house-committee-rejects-hb1206/

March 30, 2018

Ruling expected on whether Dona Ana County judge can be on Democrats' primary ballot

A state district judge is expected to issue a decision Friday in the case of a magistrate judge disqualified from running for re-election in the Democratic Party primary after what she claims was a mix-up at a driver’s license office.

Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Samantha Madrid has said her voter registration was changed from Democrat to independent without her knowledge when she obtained a copy of her driver’s license last year.

Only when Madrid was preparing to file this month for re-election did the county clerk’s office inform her she could not run as a Democrat.

A lawyer representing Madrid argued she never intended to change her registration and that keeping her out of the primary election after about 500 Democrats had signed her nominating petition would disenfranchise those voters.

Read more: http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/ruling-expected-on-whether-do-a-ana-county-judge-can/article_d830fd1e-e910-5e29-829b-80f03ec21300.html

March 30, 2018

Drought affecting 99 percent of New Mexico

What you see is what you get when it comes to New Mexico’s mountain snowpacks, and there’s not much to see. In some cases, there’s nothing to see.

The best snowpack in the state, in the Rio Chama Basin, is at 45 percent of normal. The Jemez and Pecos river basins are at 16 and 3 percent of normal, respectively, and the Gila and Rio Hondo basins are at zero.

Royce Fontenot, senior hydrologist in the Albuquerque office of the National Weather Service, said the snowfall season has peaked out.

“We are done there,” Fontenot said during a New Mexico Drought Monitor Working Group session this week. “What we have on the mountains is what you are going to get. What you see is what you get for (spring) runoff.”

Read more: https://www.abqjournal.com/1152182/new-mexicos-drought-intensifies.html

March 30, 2018

Sandia researchers boost nuclear fuel transport test

If an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel like the one proposed in southeastern New Mexico or a permanent repository elsewhere comes to fruition, the fuel may need to be transported thousands of miles before reaching its destination.

Researchers from Albuquerque’s Sandia National Laboratories spent eight months last year testing how safe transporting the highly radioactive fuel would be.

“We hope this will provide more assurances that the transportation of spent nuclear fuel is very safe,” said Sylvia Saltzstein, manager of Sandia’s transportation projects.

Testing was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and also included researchers from Spain, South Korea and the Argonne and Pacific Northwest national laboratories. It involved shipping a cask laden with mock spent nuclear fuel assemblies by truck, ship and train nearly 15,000 miles.

Read more: https://www.abqjournal.com/1152309/sandia-plays-key-role-in-15000-mile-transport-of-mock-nuclear-fuel.html

Cross-posted in the New Mexico Group.

March 30, 2018

Sandia researchers boost nuclear fuel transport test

If an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel like the one proposed in southeastern New Mexico or a permanent repository elsewhere comes to fruition, the fuel may need to be transported thousands of miles before reaching its destination.

Researchers from Albuquerque’s Sandia National Laboratories spent eight months last year testing how safe transporting the highly radioactive fuel would be.

“We hope this will provide more assurances that the transportation of spent nuclear fuel is very safe,” said Sylvia Saltzstein, manager of Sandia’s transportation projects.

Testing was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and also included researchers from Spain, South Korea and the Argonne and Pacific Northwest national laboratories. It involved shipping a cask laden with mock spent nuclear fuel assemblies by truck, ship and train nearly 15,000 miles.

Read more: https://www.abqjournal.com/1152309/sandia-plays-key-role-in-15000-mile-transport-of-mock-nuclear-fuel.html

Cross-posted in the Environment & Energy Group.

March 30, 2018

A decade after Ike, Houston still hasn't spent tens of millions it got to build affordable housing

by Neena Satija, The Texas Tribune and Reveal


When Tory Gunsolley learned that his agency was about to receive $40 million in federal recovery funds in the wake of Hurricane Ike, he was thrilled.

It was 2011, and the Houston Housing Authority director had recently taken the job after leaving a similar position in Newark. He immediately realized that this new pot of money could be a “once in a generation opportunity” to address Houston’s desperate need for more affordable housing — a chance to build as many as 2,000 new units across Houston for lower-income people.

Seven years later — and a full decade after Ike, the disaster that brought those recovery dollars — Gunsolley chuckles when he thinks back to his original plans. Of the $45 million his agency eventually received from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it has managed to build just 154 units of affordable housing with $12 million.

The rest of the money has been embroiled in a fierce fight over how to undo the nation’s legacy of racial segregation in housing.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/03/29/houston-texas-affordable-housing-hurricane-ike-harvey/

March 30, 2018

Iowa man wins lawsuit over calling his hometown stinky

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man threatened by city officials with legal action for saying on a website that his hometown smelled like "rancid dog food" won a free-speech lawsuit Thursday when a federal judge prohibited the city from further threats and awarded him damages.

Josh Harms, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, filed suit in U.S. District Court earlier this month asking a judge to block Sibley officials from suing him.

City officials said they'd sue if he didn't stop criticizing the town's odor problem from Iowa Drying and Processing, which makes a high-protein animal food supplement from pig blood.

The company moved to a vacant building in Sibley in 2013 and Harms began publishing his protest website in 2015. In December, the city's attorney Daniel DeKoter sent Harms a letter saying Harms was hurting the community with his website and threated a lawsuit if he didn't stop.

Read more: https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Iowa-man-wins-lawsuit-over-calling-his-hometown-12791646.php