Bruce says his recent conviction won’t make passage of Denver Measure 2A easier
If I were looking for someone to write an article against Denver’s so-called “de-Brucing” ballot measure, I think I’d have to go with…Doug Bruce!
He’s the one who pushed TABOR on Colorado, and he’d be the logical choice to explain why Denver should not be allowed to keep more of the taxes the city already collects.
But for its Oct. 7 point-counterpoint on this topic, The Post chose Mark Ver Hoeve to make the case.
So, to fill in the media gap, I called Bruce for his reaction to The Post’s decision to skip over him in favor of Hoeve.
Bruce started off by telling me he doesn’t “pay attention to The Denver Post.”
“I don’t have a bird cage,” he said.
“They don’t want to get me to write anything. They are trying to demonize me and isolate me.”
Bruce was angry that The Post used the phrase “de-Bruce” in its headline for its point-counterpoint piece against Denver Measure 2A. It’s not about him, he says.
I asked him how his recent legal problems would affect the anti-tax movement.
“I don’t think this is an anti-tax movement. It’s government. I mean, obviously TABOR anticipated that government would try and get more tax revenue.”
“This is a volunteer effort,” he says. “It has cost me a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of grief. It’s now cost me cases and various other things.”
But, still, will Bruce’s recent conviction of tax evasion hurt the chances that Denver Measure 2A passes?
“I don’t think it will,” he said. “But they did their best to destroy me, just so that I couldn’t be a spokesman, you know. I mean, they wanted to destroy my political credibility and so forth. No firearms, now. I’m on probation. My case is under appeal, by the way. It will be overturned because I did nothing wrong.”
Getting back to Denver Measure 2A, he said, “Do we really want to vote for a virtually unlimited tax increase in a recession?”
“They win about half the time.”