This past weekend, a conservative friend and I had a discussion that was a bit more heated than I would like about the economics of immigration.  I won't trouble you with it because to do so would require writing a long, thoughtful essay, something I don't want to do this morning.

One of the points I tried to make was that there were jobs that Americans wouldn't take almost regardless of the wages paid.  Stoop farm labor falls in that category.  If our welfare system weren't so generous, the situation might be different, but it is not.  It is much easier to sit at home and collect welfare than it is to chase transient jobs that are pure hard work.

The Denver Post reports today on a program to use prison labor to replace the illegals on Colorado farms.  I guess that's one solution.  Prisoners have little choice as to the work they are assigned and are not paid that well. 

I'm actually in favor of this program.  It is far better than letting produce rot in the fields, as happened last year.  Even so, there is a certain amount of irony in what is happening.  Hence the title of this essay.

Only every Republican in the state, that's who.  

Peter Blake of the Rocky Mountain News lists the following folks:  Mike Coffman, Secretary of State (I hope not-the last thing Republicans need is Ken Norton as SoS), Scott McInnis (Who showed up at the LPR Retreat for ten minutes to shake hands, but has a mini scandal to live down), Bob Schaffer (Who has to live down his 2004 primary loss for the same job, his sabotage of three moderate Republican legislators in the 2004 general election).

Blake also mentions the following contenders for Tancredo's seat, should he step down:

[A] 6th Congressional District primary would draw a full house of GOP candidates.

One of the names tossed about is that of state Sen. Tom Wiens of Castle Rock, who hasn't forgotten he lost a congressional race a quarter century ago in the 3rd District to Democrat Ray Kogovsek.

Also mentioned is Rep. David Balmer of Centennial. He too has run and lost a congressional race. But it was in North Carolina in 1994. He lost a runoff after he got caught padding his résumé. He has since worked hard to live down the incident, and is known as a successful fund-raiser for Republican legislative candidates.

Former Senate President John Andrews would look at the race, and so would state Sen. Nancy Spence of Centennial and former state Sen. John Evans of Parker.

I guess Retired USAF Major General Bentley Rayburn hasn't told Peter Blake that he would run for Allard's seat if Bob Schaffer doesn't.  Rayburn came out of total obscurity to take third place in a six person race for the 5th CD Republican nomination.  It's hard to see how that qualifies Rayburn as a viable candidate for the Senate seat, but time will tell.

Full Disclosure:  As a retired Army Officer and amateur historian, I don't think men and women with extensive military backgrounds make very good political leaders.  If they did, Congress would be full of them.  It already has a few too many, including Jack Murtha and John McCain.  Eisenhower was an adequate President, but just adequate.  Grant was awful.  Carter (USNA and 11 years)  was worse than Grant.  The post Civil War Republicans nominated almost nothing but Civil War Generals, all immanently forgettable.  Only James Garfield went out with a bang!

I admit that it is a prejudice of mine, but I think it is supported by the historical record.  Other than George Washington, try to name a Representative, Senator, or President who was both outstanding and boasted an extensive military record.  I can't name any, and that's my point.

Yes, I am working on a new idea.  Actually, I have two ideas.  Is it possible that someone with three blogs on three subjects will burn out three times as fast?  I guess we are going to find out.

One of my projects involves the promotion of Colorado blogs which write original essays on Colorado politics.  I came to realize that this kind of promotion was necessary after I went to testify on HB 1227.

HB 1227 was a good government bill.  It can't be described by anyone with a straight face as anything else.  And yet, it was voted down on a party line basis.  The Democrats will pay no price for what they did.

When I got home, I googled several of them.  I found nothing but positive articles.  It made me sick.

Yes, I can, and will write an essay about each of them, but one essay by one blogger doesn't make much of a dent.

If I can find a way to encourage other bloggers to do some honest research and to start writing googleable articles about how the Democrats are voting against their own constituents interest, and they are, then it is far less likely to happen next time.

Take the Make My Day Better Bill that got killed this week.  Once again, three Democrats voted against the public interest.  The Gazette named two.  One of the two was a senator who is the son of a former governor, and who is trying to play both sides against each other for political advantage.  That's a story that the Gazette didn't explore and that the two Denver papers didn't cover at all.  It is a story that needs to be told.

But, who was the third Democrat who voted to kill the bill?  I have no idea and don't have the time to find out. 

You might ask why I am not naming names in this essay.  The reason is simple.  I don't want it googled by Democrats.  Names invite google searches.

This next blog, the one that I hope will encourage others to write effective articles that damage Democrats will not be a townhall blog.  It needs to be a dot com blog so that it can be found easily.  I registered a domain name today.

Law, Lawyers, and Politics will continue to get new daily posts, though perhaps not as many.  Those folks who share my interest in court reform, and look in part to this blog to speak for them need not worry about my losing interest in the subject.

And, yes, I have been intentionally vague about exactly what I am doing, only that I am doing something. 

It is clear to me that the 2008 election cycle will have lots and lots of digital video camera operators out trying to catch the opposition in a "macaca moment."  Even the guy running for dog catcher will want video of his opponent beating his own dogs, or kids, or wife.

It appears that they will have a lot of venues on which to post them, and they might even figure out how to generate campaign cash.  How about $5 per thousand viewers?  Not a lot of money, given that the macaca video brought 100,000 viewers, but still, $500 might just swing an election for dog catcher.  Colorado Common Cause overlooked that source of money when they wrote (gag) Amendment 27.

I digress.  The real story is from the International Harald Tribune titled "Web sites trying to lure away the most talented YouTubers."

Even though I made fun of the story, serious politicos need to take YouTube's competitors seriously, especially if they are kicking conservatives off their site.

Thanks to BillHobbs.com.

Over the summer, I made many hundreds of phone calls for Bob Beauprez.  I learned a lot, and I try to bring what I learned to this blog.

I wasn't a "production" caller.  Production callers don't really care if they actually talk to the person at the other end of the line.  They're just racking up numbers.  Rather, I used some techniques that I described months ago which allowed me to talk to voters in more depth.

I found out early on that Bob Beauprez was in trouble.  It was obvious that he was losing the moderate part of the party, which thought him too conservative, AND he was losing the fiercely conservative part of the party which thought him too moderate (which I found pretty amazing).

The conservatives still held, and probably still hold Bob responsible for Coors winning the Republican primary in 2004.  By and large, they had not voted for Coors in the 2004 general election, and they were determined not to vote for Bob in the 2006 governor's race.  I began thinking of them "occasional Republicans."

The more I dug into the reasons for this dislike for Bob, who was almost certainly as conservative as most, if not all of the occasional Republicans who hated him (hate is a strong, but accurate description, I think), the more I came to realize that at least part of the problem originated with the 2004 state assembly.  It seems that there were about 400 more votes counted in the Senate race than there were state delegates.

This indicated that someone had stuffed the ballot box.  The Schaffer folks thought they had a chance to knock Coors off the ticket if they got more than 70% of the vote.  They thought that the 400 votes were put in the box by the party leadership to keep Coors on the ballot, and they still counted Bob Beauprez as a part of that leadership. 

As someone totally uninvolved in the situation, I thought that almost anything was possible.  It was possible that Coors got the 400 votes as the Schaffer folks suspected.  It was also possible that the Schaffer folks put the 400 votes in to knock Coors out of the race.

This past weekend, I took the opportunity of my volunteering at the Leadership Program of the Rockies retreat to ask the question of a Republican activist. 

He told me it was just a screw up.  The volunteers handing out the credentials weren't properly briefed and they were issuing ballots to both delegates and alternates until they ran out of ballots.  Then, when late arriving delegates complained that they weren't getting a ballot, the decision was made to issue more ballots.  Not replacement ballots, more ballots!

Because the ballots handed to alternates were handed out randomly, he thought it probable that the final results were accurate, percentage wise, even if the vote total was inaccurate.  In the end, percentages are what matter at the assembly.

Bob Schaffer went on to lose to Pete Coors in the primary.  The Schaffer supporters used the ballot mistake at the assembly as a mental crutch for their candidate's inability to win the primary.  They believed that there shouldn't have been a primary. 

After hearing the explanation, I think they are wrong.  Coors got on the ballot legitimately.  Beauprez was uninvolved, and it was dead wrong for Schaffer and his supporters to sit out the 2004 election.  Once Schaffer had taught his supporters that it was "acceptable" to sit out the 2004 election, they chose to sit out 2006, as well.

Even if the leadership understands that the 2004 assembly ballot fiasco was an honest mistake, it is clear that the rank and file does not.  This needs to be fixed, and fixed now.  Otherwise, the war within the Republican party will continue.  Perhaps Dick Wadhams can begin the process at the meeting this Saturday.

In my travels, I found policymedia.com.  I know the author, and he is a good, solid Colorado Republican.  While it is a bit early to characterize the blog, it has two good essays on the language of elections.

I may have hijacked one of them when I wrote a comment as "A Thoughtful Republican."  That essay is titled "How we look at labels."

Who says elections don't matter?  The left leaning Democratic State Senate killed the Make My Day Better bill after it surprisingly passed the house.  All it took was three Democratic Senators.  I want to come back to this story, so this is a placeholder.  The Gazette has an article,  Neither the Rocky Mountain News nor the Denver Post saw fit to inform their readers of this bit of bad policy.

--------
Carroll On Point

Has anyone ever noticed how quick the Denver Post and other papers are to write about judicial ethical lapses in other states, and how reluctant they are to do so in their own state? 

Today, the Post is printing an AP story about sleeping judges in Utah:

A letter published in this month's edition of the Utah Bar Journal is being characterized as a "wake-up" call to the state's judges and the pun is intended.

Sent anonymously, the letter complains about judges dozing on the bench during court hearings.

This past week I attended a House Judiciary Committee hearing on HB 1227.  I didn't realize that the Denver Post had a reporter in the room until I discovered a report on Representative Debbie Stafford's anti-cruelty bill.  Humorously, the report includes a photo of Rep Stafford with me out of focus in the background.

HB 1227 was heard immediately after Rep Stafford's bill, so I have to assume that the reporter remained in the room.

There was some pretty interesting testimony on 1227, including an admission that lawyers consider judges to be their "employers," and so don't criticize them by name, or even privately when asked.

The bill involved the make up and appointment of retention commission members, and the public comment was that the bill provided that six of ten members would be lawyers, which was too many.  A committee member remarked something to the effect that "if four attorneys couldn't handle a commission, we were all in trouble."

I will be writing more on my experiences, but I can't help observing that the Denver Post found none of the testimony, or even the bill's quick demise interesting.

It is just so much safer writing about judicial ethics lapses in other states.  The judges aren't the only ones sleeping on the job!

There is a movement in the Colorado Judiciary to try to shut the public out of information about how it operates.  This blog has written at length about the expense involved in getting court documents, $20/hour plus 75 cents a page in this district.

Today, the Rocky Mountain News editorializes on the difficulty it had in gaining access to the parole revocation hearing this past week for Dunston Sidner.  The hearing was held in a jail, and the warden refused access.  The reporter never made it into the hearing.

Turns out that Sidner's hearing, and many others, are held inside the Denver jail. Why? That's where the prisoners are, said Parole Board Chairman Al Stanley. Oh, and by the way, Stanley added, when the hearings take place in a jail, the warden can deny access to pretty much anyone he wants.

This is just one more demonstration of the level of contempt at which the justice system holds the public.

The Denver Post has published an editorial that is breathtaking in its embrace of bad policy.  It praises Kelo as "wise."  It is easy to overlook the bad outcomes that can occur when a major paper endorses an obviously unconstitutional ruling by five lawless justices:

Events since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo ruling underscore the wisdom of the 5-4 decision that allowed states and local communities to determine what constitutes a "public use" in eminent domain proceedings.

I had to laugh at the Denver Post' next construction of Constitutional Law:

Many Americans cringe at the notion of a city condemning Grandma's cottage to expand Wal-Mart's parking lot. But although the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation," it doesn't define "public use." Rather than pretend that an anti-Wal-Mart clause exists in some mysterious "penumbra," the court turned to 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Anyone who thinks this issue through will quickly realize that this is the very argument that can be used against Roe v Wade.  Lets try out the Post's on argument with just a small substitution of words:  Rather than pretend that [a right to privacy] exists in some mysterious "penumbra," the court turned to 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

But there is more.  While the Post's words support overturning Roe, they don't really apply to Kelo.  One doesn't have to look farther than the Bill of Rights to find some not so mysterious wording prohibiting takings for non public purposes.

Jefferson Davis would doubtless turn over in his grave to know that the Virginia House and Senate both voted unanimously to express "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.  Let him turn.

"This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution," said Delegate A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who sponsored [the legislation] in the House of Delegates, the Denver Post reports.

The measure also expressed regret for "the exploitation of Native Americans." The resolution was introduced as Virginia begins its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. Richmond, home to a popular boulevard lined with statues of Confederate heroes, later became another point of arrival for Africans and a slave-trade hub.

I'm not usually one for apologies, but this one seems appropriate.  Hats off to Virginia.

Two straw Presidential polls were taken at the Leadership Program of the Rockies, one written and one by a show of hands.  I can state that Rudy Guiliani won the written poll, I am short on details as to how the other candidates did (I didn't take notes).

There was also a show of hands straw poll conducted by Frank Luntz.  There were about 300 people in the room.  Most, but not all, were conservative Republicans.  Many were current or former office holders.  I don't know what the percentage of Republican activists was in that room, but I would think it might be 75% or more.

Would anyone care to guess how many votes John McCain got in that room?  I'll give you a hint.  Another Senator who thinks himself Presidential Timber got two more votes than John McCain got. 

While you mull that one over let me tell you that Rudy Guiliani won the straw poll with 40-50% of the room voting for him.  Given the makeup of that room, I thought that amazing.  A lot of people think him to be the strongest candidate and want a Republican naming judges.

That may be the good news.  The bad news is that as Guiliani was winning, I heard someone say under his breath that he wouldn't vote for him.  That tells me that some folks in the party aren't yet tired of losing.  They would rather have a really bad Democrat than a Republican.

Now, for the answer to my quiz.  Sam Brownback got two votes.  John McCain got none!

There is a lesson here.  The press may love John McCain.  John McCain may love John McCain.  The folks who John McCain would need to win in Colorado were in that room, and not one even likes John McCain!

The Broadmoor puts on quite a spread as could be expected of a Five Star Hotel.  Laura Ingraham was the dinner speaker and gave a pretty rousing speech that was geared to a conservative audience.  When it came time for the Q&A, she got an unserious marriage proposal, which drew a good laugh.

It is clear that she was the right speaker for this audience.

One of her major messages was that to be successful, the Republican Party should move farther to the right.  She also thought that for the Democrats to be successful, they should also move to the right. 

I wished I had a crystal ball as I listened to this message because it didn't seem to make sense to me.  Crystal balls prevent blog authors like me from writing really dumb stuff, which may be about to happen.:

It seems to me that the Democrats were successful this last cycle because they had recruited candidates which matched their districts.  In short, after a long leftward tilt, they did lurch rightward.  No, that doesn't mean that the public will notice a more moderate Democrat party.  On the contrary, the fuzzy headed liberals are still in power, and the folks who put them there are the moderates.

If that strategy worked for the Democrats, and it did, it seems counter-intuitive to have her proposing the opposite strategy for the Republicans.  Moderate Republicans would put conservative Republicans in power.

On the subject of immigration, she claimed that a majority of Americans wanted strong controls and wanted a fence built.

I made hundreds of phone calls this past summer to Republicans around the state.  For part of that time I was using a seven question survey.  One question was on immigration and another was on the fence.  If my survey is big enough, and I think it is, only about one-half of Republicans want a strong immigration policy. 

Even more astounding is the fact that of the half that wants a strong immigration policy, only half of those wanted a fence.  The other half were concerned that building a fence sent a "Berlin wall" like image to the world. 

When the Republican Congress authorized the fence, it could have funded it.  It didn't. 

Politicians live and die by polls.  It seems reasonable to assume that the Republicans in Congress were getting the same message that I got-that actually building a fence would potentially lose Republican votes.  Authorizing, but not funding the fence wouldn't be the first cynical act by Washington politicians.

OK, so why would Laura Ingraham's experience and view of the issue and mine be so different?  I think it may be the selection process.  She listens to a self selected sample of callers who are doubtless strongly anti-immigration and pro-wall. 

My sample, other than being registered Republicans, was totally random.  Each day when I arrived to make phone calls, I took sheets off a pile of call sheets and made the calls.  That evening, other volunteers made calls from the same pile, meaning that my selection of call sheets was randomized based on the number of intervening calls made by other volunteers.

We've had an intervening election, and the election results bear out my observations.  They do not support Laura Ingraham's claims on the subject.

This last eight days has been busy for me.  My blogging time has been drastically reduced.  I've written about my Grandson visiting, and I also wrote a part of what I intend to write about my first trip to the state legislature.

Friday and Saturday were two volunteer days for me.  I had been asked to volunteer to help at the annual retreat for the "Leadership Program of the Rockies."   It was held at the Broadmoor Hotel, which is easily Colorado's finest hotel.  Many prominent people attended. 

I had no idea how many friends from the Bob Beauprez campaign I would meet and work with.  The last time I saw most of these folks, they were paid staffers and I was a volunteer, if a pretty steady volunteer (3 days a week over 5 months).  I cannot tell you how pleased I was to see them, and each and every one made their pleasure at seeing me abundantly clear.  I got hugs and handshakes, and lots of smiles.

From a volunteer's eye view, the retreat was probably the best organized event I have ever participated in.  Each volunteer got a personalized red folder that not only identified the events, but told each volunteer by name where he/she was to be hour by hour.   Shari Williams, Nicole Aldonas, and Jenn Harmann can take credit for this very well organized retreat.  Hats off to them!

I was a badge checker.   I had a lot of fun with the job and the folks coming through the door seemed to be having fun as well.  If they teased me my covering up their badge, I would ask them if they had a code that didn't exist.  When they realized their own leg was being pulled, we would all have a laugh.  I would happily do it again.

The program was impressive.  The master of ceremonies was LPR Chairman, former Congressman Bob Schaffer.  He is a pretty amazing speaker in his own right.

The Dinner speaker was Laura Ingraham and the Luncheon speaker was Fred Barnes.  Also speaking were Dinesh D'Souza, Jed Babbin, Secretary of State Mike Coffman, Ward Connerly, Frank Luntz, and Grace Marie Turner.

There was also a panel discussion that included Bob Schaffer, Dan Caplis, Mike Rosen and Jim Spencer.  Aaron Harber was also supposed to participate, but did not.  I missed the reason, but it was probably weather related.

Over the next few days, I will be writing about portions of some of these presentations.

The NYT has a story titled "The Marriage Lasted 10 Years, The Lawsuits? 13 Years and Counting."

This is a story about a well educated man who now considers his business to be a litigator.  He sues everyone in sight.  While he could afford a lawyer, he chooses to do it Pro Se, for himself.

If the courts are troubled by the appearance of people like Michael Melnitzky, they only have themselves to blame:

On the last day of the trial, Mr. Melnitzky finally got around to his argument that the watches were not marital property, Justice Tolub wrote. When Mr. Melnitzky tried to present the invoices, however, the judge balked and ordered him to submit them in a post-trial motion.

“Will it be lawful?” Mr. Melnitzky asked.

“I worry about lawful,” the judge said.

Five weeks later, when the judge returned from vacation, he found three volumes of documents from Mr. Melnitzky awaiting him. But despite Mr. Melnitzky’s having followed his instructions, the judge ruled that considering his documents at that point would have been costly and highly prejudicial and would have unnecessarily prolonged the case.

Multiple appeals were unsuccessful, and no judge since has looked at the invoices, repeatedly ruling that the matter was already decided.

Essentially, a Judge gave the word of the State of New York that the State would consider evidence that he owned property he claimed to own, and then he broke it.  In the process of breaking the State's word, the Judge created a situation where no other judge would look at the issue.

Now the courts are unhappy with the monster they have created, but choose not to take responsibility.

Thanks to overlawyered.com.