You want a columnist to have an opinion but only if the facts supporting it are actual factual facts.

Pueblo Chieftain Managing Editor Steve Henson got the opinion part of the columnist’s job right on Sunday, but he dropped the ball when it came to the facts.

In his column, Henson asked if it should matter to Pueblo voters that Republican George Rivera, who’s running to replace Democrat Angela Giron in a recall election, opposes all abortion, even after rape or incest.

In explaining why abortion shouldn’t matter, Henson wrote:

First and foremost, the entire issue of where a candidate stands on abortion is irrelevant. The courts have controlled this issue for more than 40 years and that’s where the debate will end up in the future. Plus, no one state-elected official will have any control over what is a national issue.

Anyone who follows abortion issues knows that it’s actually factually false to say that no state lawmaker has any influence on abortion issues.

States across the country have passed a volume of laws restricting a women’s right to obtain an abortion. I mean, did Henson miss the drama in Texas just last month? The Guttmacher Institute has a handy dandy chart that Hansen might want to take a look at, summarizing the 9 categories of laws passed in each state.

One category, for example, is “state-mandated counseling.” The Guttmacher Institute chart states:

17 states mandate that women be given counseling before an abortion that includes information on at least one of the following: the purported link between abortion and breast cancer (5 states), the ability of a fetus to feel pain (12 states) or long-term mental health consequences for the woman (8 states).

Waiting periods in nine states effectively require women to make two trips to a clinic prior to having an abortion. Some states mandate abortions to be performed by a licensed doctor at a hospital; states prohibit abortion at various stages; state laws restrict public funding and private insurance coverage of abortion; and states require different types of parental notification.

Whatever you think of these state laws, you’d have to agree that abortion is not irrelevant to voters anywhere, even in the far corners of Pueblo. (It’s relevant at the federal level, too.)

A phone message to Henson at the Chieftain was not immediately returned.

You can see on the Guttmacher chart that Colorado is less restrictive than many states when it comes to abortion laws, and the state Leg is controlled by pro-choice Democrats.

Still, the makeup of CO state government could easily change. So stuff like the five bills introduced during the last legislative session (HB-1032, 1033, 1131 and SB-55, 56), which would have restricted access to abortion services or banned all abortion, could become law in Colorado–as  well as other restrictions passed in other states. (See Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado‘s legislative scorecared for more on this.)

Henson concluded his Sunday column with a pledge that the Chieftain would be cover the recall election fairly:

For our part, we are working very hard to present our coverage of this recall issue in a fair, balanced fashion.

I predict that will become much more difficult in the days ahead, but we want you to know that every story we do will be done with fairness to all candidates and all sides of the issues foremost in our planning, our writing and our published reports.

Henson could put substance behind this airy promise by explaining in a future column why abortion issues are, in fact, relevant to state lawmakers.

And why it matters that recall candidate Rivera is opposed to giving a girl, raped by her father, the option of having an abortion.

Last Tuesday, KLZ radio host Ken Clark had a conversation with Jonathan Keyser, who’s running for CO House District 25.

Clark acted as if Keyser will be challenging Rep. Cheri Gerou in a GOP primary, even though Gerou hasn’t filed to defend her HD25 seat.

Clark described Gerou this way:

Clark:  “And for those of you that don’t remember, Cheri Gerou is the gal that got into that – oh, I don’t know, she was the one that had some expletives to say at Joe Neville, who is a lobbyist for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.  Her Principles of Liberty scores are just slightly better than the Democrats…  She was at the bottom of the barrel for Republicans.  She scored less than five points higher than the best Democrat.  Um, ya think that’s somebody screaming out to be primaried?  Yeah, I do.”

Later, Clark said of Gerou:

Clark: “She is the worst Democrat that has an ‘R’ next to her name, that we have in the state of Colorado.”

Keyser tried to correct Clark about the Gerou race, saying, “Right now I’m not challenging Representative Gerou.  She hasn’t filed.  You know, and so I don’t know what her intentions are.”

But Keyser couldn’t slow down the Grassroots Radio Colorado co-host:

Clark:  “All right.  Well, you’re running against Cheri ‘Stump the Chump’ Gerou, and those are her words, not mine.  Those are her words.  She called herself  ‘Stump the Chump’ Gerou, so I can only go off of what she says.”

One wonders if Clark had any inkling that Gerou might not face Keyser, whom Clark described as a fellow 2012 graduate of the conservative Leadership Program of the Rockies.

ColoradoPols speculated last week that Gerou might decide to “challenge former Sen. Tim Neville (father of RMGO’s lobbyist Joe) in a GOP primary for the chance to run in Senate District 16 against Sen. Jeanne Nicholson.” If so, Pols noted, the “clash between Gerou and Neville would be an acid test of the much-ballyhooed power of the RMGO in Republican primaries.”

If this happens, you think Clark would side with Gerou or Neville?

Correction: This post was corrected to state that the CO Constitution gives recall candidates until 15 days before an election to qualify for the ballot.

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What led to the latest court ruling in two recall elections in southern Colorado is an apparent conflict between Colorado’s Constitution, which gives recall candidates until 15 days before the election to qualify for the election ballot, and Colorado law, which gives them 10 days after the election date is set.

But it wasn’t Colorado’s new election modernization law (HB13-1303) that set the 10-day deadline.

It was actually a 2012 law, sponsored by Republican Keith King and Democrat Nancy Todd. It set the 10-day window. Here’s the relevant portion of HB12-1293 that’s now on the books:

1-12-117. Nomination of successor. (1) FOR PARTISAN ELECTIONS, a candidate to succeed the officer sought to be recalled shall meet the qualifications of a party candidate or an unaffiliated candidate as provided in part 8 of article 4 of this title and shall be nominated by a political party petition or an unaffiliated petition as provided in part 9 of article 4 of this title. Nomination petitions MAY BE CIRCULATED BEGINNING THE FIRST DATE ON WHICH A PROTEST MAY BE FILED and affidavits of intent to run as a write-in candidate shall be filed no later than fifteen TEN CALENDAR days after the date on which the appropriate governing body convenes and DESIGNATED ELECTION OFFICIAL sets the election date AS PROVIDED IN SECTION1-12-111. 

The Denver Post got it wrong in a Spot blog post yesterday, reporting that the new election law set the 10-day limit, and the Associated Press made the same implication in a story yesterday.

If it weren’t for the 2013 election law, county clerks would have been able to choose not to run an all-mail-in-ballot recall election, because the law mandates all-mail voting. But they still would have had to rely on the 10-day deadline for permanent vote-by-mail voters and for absentee and overseas ballots, including ballots for military personnel. So the statutory conflict with the state constitution would have come up anyway.

In fact the problem would have arose had a recall election occurred anytime since Colorado started using mail ballots in the 1990’s as ColoradoPols has pointed out yesterday, citing former GOP Secretary of State Donetta Davidson.

I can’t blame reporters for being confused, however, when you have the state’s top election official, Scott Gessler, spreading false information about this topic and promoting himself in the process.

On KOA’s Mike Rosen show Aug. 13, Secretary of State Scott Gessler held up himself as  white knight who tried to fix the 10-day-deadline problem in the election modernization bill, even though the new law isn’t the cause of the problem. Listen to Gessler here @4 minutes into the recording.

Rosen: “A judge ruled that a provision of the state Constitution, that apparently only applies to a recall election, says that you only have 15 days prior to the election to turn in enough signatures to get your candidate’s name on the ballot. And the lawsuit brought by the Libertarians says instead they were given only 10 days after the Governor set the election date…It’s a little confusing, since the Constitution conflicts with election-reform legislation passed in the last session. Now it all lands back in Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s lap… I gave a brief summary. Put some more details on it. ”

Gessler: “Well, your summary is pretty accurate. We had tried to harmonize the statute and the Constitution. Ironically, I was very much opposed to the legislation that went through last year but found myself in the position where I had to defend it….”

Rosen: “How about the conflict between what the state Constitution says, that apparently applies only to recall elections, and what was in the new legislation passed this year?”

Gessler: “Well, the judge held that it was a conflict. We had tried to harmonize it, but it is what it is. So our approach is, you know, we’ve got to make this work.

Rosen should have Gessler back on his show to explain that the 2013 election-mondernization law did not lead to the latest court ruling in the recall elections, and media outlets who published misleading articles should clarify.

Reporters covering the signature-gathering campaign for the so-called Brady amendment, which would change the definition of “person” and “child” under Colorado law to include “unborn human beings,” might wonder whether to call it “personhood” initiative.

Apparently, anti-abortion activists have had the same question, prompting Gualberto Garcia Jones, who’s listed on the CO Secretary of State’s website as a “designated representative” of the initiative, to send an email July 24 to supporters clarifying the issue:

Some of our supporters have asked whether the Brady Amendment is a personhood amendment. The answer is yes! A personhood measure is any proposal that constitutionally seeks to recognize (without exceptions) that unborn babies are persons deserving of our love and protection by law….

One need look no further than the section of the Colorado law that deals with homicide to see how central the concept of personhood is: the homicide section is appropriately titled “Offenses Against the Person.” The Brady Amendment recognizes that all human beings, not just those who are born, are persons and amends the criminal code to that effect! …

Whether it is a drunk driver who avoids facing any charges for the death of a baby that is just days from birth, or a hospital that avoids malpractice liability for the death of unborn babies in its care, or an abortionist who kills children in the womb for a living, the fact is that all three rely on the same reasoning: the baby in the womb is not a person and therefore his or her life has no value in the eyes of the law.

[Read Garcia Jones’ entire email at the end of this blog post.]

But in contrast to Jones’ email and Colorado Right to Life’s recent comment in the Colorado Statesman, the official website of the initiative’s backers doesn’t mention “personhood” at all. It frames the initiative as a way to protect “pregnant mothers and their unborn children from criminal offenses and negligent and wrongful acts.”

In the FAQ section of its website, called “A Voice for Brady,” the initiative’s backers state:

“The Brady Amendment is not about politics, it is an amendment that will protect pregnant mothers and their unborn babies from violent and dangerous criminals.”

To make matters more confusing, the name backers have chosen for their initiative, the “Brady Amendment,” refers to an unborn child killed by a drunk driver in Longmont. Prosecutors couldn’t press charges of vehicular homicide because the mother, Heather Surovik, survived, and Colorado law did not allow prosecution for reckless acts against Brady, her an unborn baby.

All this might lead reporters to label the Brady Amendment a “fetal-homicide” initiative, designed simply to allow prosecution in cases like Surovik’s.

But a 2013 law now enables prosecutors to charge a drunk driver who terminates a pregnancy, like the driver who slammed into Heather Surovik. A GOP-backed bill, mirroring the initiative, died in Committee.

And even if there were no such law, the intent of the initiative, as Garcia Jones wrote, is broader. The initiative would change the definition of “person” and “child” to “unborn human beings.” This change would be mandated not just in the Colorado Wrongful Death Act but in the entire Colorado Criminal Code.

The vague phrase “unborn human beings” would be left to the interpretation of a judge. Opponents have pointed out that a judge could rule that all stages of human biological development, from conception on, should be considered “unborn human beings,” thus making personhood the law of the land in Colorado and banning all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

I asked Jones, who’s also legal analyst with Personhood USA, via email, why his website doesn’t mention “personhood.”

Jones: Not calling the Brady Amendment the Personhood Amendment is not about running away from Personhood, it is about honoring the short life of Brady Surovik.

Heather and Brady’s story stands on its own and it is a powerful real-life example of what happens when the preborn are not considered persons.

Planned Parenthood is in trouble and they know it, they can talk about fertilized eggs all day long, but they can’t answer the simple question: was Brady Surovik, a baby only days from being born a person with basic rights?…

Obviously, Planned Parenthood understands that if a child in the womb like Brady is recognized as a person then the logic behind the lucrative abortion industry is severely shaken.

I asked Monica McCafferty, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, to comment on Jones’ email describing the Brady Amendment as “personhood.” I also asked her to respond to Jones’ view that Brady Surovik was a person.

McCafferty: Questions about when life begins are personal. For some, it’s based on faith, for others it’s a matter of science or medicine. But this isn’t a question that belongs in the state constitution.

From a policy standpoint, the majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. Yet what we also know based on polls conducted by our national office, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is that most voters don’t identify with the terms ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life.’ It’s a complicated topic and one in which labels don’t reflect the complexity.

What most Americans get behind is the ability for women to make their own decisions about pregnancy, and that politicians do not. This sentiment rings true for Colorado voters and in relation to the past three ‘personhood’ attempts, all of which have failed.

Whether you agree with Jones or McCafferty, the scope of the debate about Jones’ initiative clearly goes beyond reckless acts of violence against pregnant women.

Both sides agree that what’s on the table is a personhood measure, aiming to ban all abortion, and reporters should describe it as such.

——

Jones’ July 24 email to Personhood USA and Brady Amendment backers:

Some of our supporters have asked whether the Brady Amendment is a personhood amendment. The answer is yes! A personhood measure is any proposal that constitutionally seeks to recognize (without exceptions) that unborn babies are persons deserving of our love and protection by law.

In the infamous 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that:

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the case for abortion, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed.

One need look no further than the section of the Colorado law that deals with homicide to see how central the concept of personhood is: the homicide section is appropriately titled “Offenses Against the Person.” The Brady Amendment recognizes that all human beings, not just those who are born, are persons and amends the criminal code to that effect!

The language from the Brady Amendment that makes it a Personhood measure is the following:

Section 2.  In the interest of the protection of pregnant mothers and their unborn children from criminal offenses and negligent and wrongful acts, the words “person” and “child” in the Colorado Criminal Code and the Colorado Wrongful Death Act must include unborn human beings.

Whether it is a drunk driver who avoids facing any charges for the death of a baby that is just days from birth, or a hospital that avoids malpractice liability for the death of unborn babies in its care, or an abortionist who kills children in the womb for a living, the fact is that all three rely on the same reasoning: the baby in the womb is not a person and therefore his or her life has no value in the eyes of the law.

The Brady Amendment has the potential to personalize the struggle to recognize the right to life, just like Emmet Till did for the civil rights movement. In honoring Brady with the hard task of collecting signatures, we honor the millions we have lost and we honor God.

In 2008 and 2010, hundreds of thousands of Colorado voters signed petitions to try to pass amendments to the Colorado constitution that would recognize the due process and equal protection rights of the unborn.

The abortion industry (with the willing cooperation of the media) characterized the personhood amendments as extreme, the product of a fringe group of people intent on giving rights to “fertilized eggs.” But Brady Surovik was 8 pounds and 2 ounces when on July 5, 2012 a drunk driver ended his life in Longmont, Colorado. At the time, several thousand pro-life volunteers were collecting signatures for the 2012 Personhood Amendment. Brady’s family collected signatures for personhood at Brady’s funeral.

Shortly after the drunk driver ended the life of Brady Surovik, Boulder District Attorney, Stan Garnett, stated that the drunk driver would not be charged with homicide because under Colorado law unborn babies like Brady are not considered persons. The Brady Amendment, while honoring the memory of Brady Surovik, would apply to all human beings who have been deprived of their personhood.

If the Brady Amendment passes in November 2014, it will be the greatest victory for the personhood of the unborn in the last 40 years. That’s why we need your help to be a voice for Brady.

For life,

Gualberto Garcia Jones, J.D.

Director, Personhood Education

Update:   I posted Ross Kaminsky’s response to my questions at the end of this blog post.

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On KHOW radio Friday, U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck said voters can “absolutely” count on him to vote his conscience. (Listen to Ken Buck @6:50)

Normally, you might think this would be a good thing. But when it comes to Ken Buck, and you recall his conscience-laden opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape and  incest, you realize that Ken-Buck-voting-his-conscience may not be so great for women.

Given how desired women are by political campaigns in Colorado, it’s astonishing that Buck is already doing what he did during the last election. That is, trying to say abortion doesn’t matter; no one cares about it.

As Buck told the Colorado Observer when asked if his abortion position had changed:

Buck: You know, what I believe is Congress has voted to ban late-term abortions, and I’m one who opposes late-term abortions, and voted to ban federal funding for abortion, and I’m one who opposes federal funding of abortion. I’m tired of people talking about issues that are not relevant to the public. I’m a pro-life candidate.

How is abortion not relevant when pretty much everyone agrees Buck lost last time because of abortion and women’s issues?

And politics aside, abortion issues are addressed in the U.S. Congress. In addition to countless bills that go nowhere, but create PR fodder, the issue gets real-time play. Remember in 2011, funding for Planned Parenthood was at the center of negotiations that almost led to a government shutdown. Federal money for the United Nations Population Fund, whose health services are a life saver for tens of thousands of impoverished people, was also under attack by Republicans with a conscience.

With any luck, reporters will respond to Buck’s nonsensical no-one-cares-about-abortion defense like Gloria Neal did during a televised debate on CBS4, when Neal asked Buck, “Will you really make a raped woman carry a child to full term?”

Buck said that “we need to stay focused on the issues that voters in this state care about, and those are spending and jobs.” Neal responded:

“Social issues are important to the voters in this state. I am one of them. So I need you to answer that question, because in addition to votes and jobs and all of that abortion is very important, and when you start talking about rape and incest, that is important to the voters. So, please, answer that question.”

Buck then said:

“I am pro-life, and I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape and incest.”

That’s the kind of questioning I’d like to have seen from KHOW’s Ross Kaminsky.

So what if Kaminsky is a fellow conservative. If he’s going to demand that Ken Buck vote his conscience, he should dig into what Buck’s conscience would do to women.

Partial transcript of Ken Buck’s appearance on KHOW Friday. (Listen to Ken Buck @6:50)

Kaminsky: Can I count on you, Ken Buck, that if you get in the U.S. Senate, and there’s some vote.. [and] you want to vote yes, and Senate leadership asks you to vote no, can I count on you to vote yes? Can I count on you to vote your conscience?

Buck: Oh, you absolutely can. I have to tell you. I think that’s a huge problem in Washington DC. And I’m not just talking about bipartisanship. I’m talking about people who are doing the right thing regardless of special interest groups, regardless of their future.

I asked Kaminsky why he didn’t ask Buck about abortion:

Kaminsnky: Although I do not share Ken Buck’s conservative views on “social issues,” the issue I was trying to raise was not abortion (though I knew it would come to mind for many people) but rather my impression that so many politicians (with Democrats seeming slightly worse than Republicans) vote the way leadership tells them to vote rather than casting a vote which fits both the legislator’s views and his constituent’s interest. Noting an amusing video from May, 2009, even ultra-liberal David Sirota complained about both Senator Udall’s and Senator Bennet’s vote flipping, where they both voted “no” on a measure then switched to “yes” after asking permission from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Republicans are far from politically pure, and I disagree with them on many things, but I prefer to elect someone whose votes are mostly predictable based on the candidate’s stated principles rather than someone who will be a marionette for leadership, regardless of party.

As for following up with an abortion question, three things: One, I ran out of time. Two, Ken made it clear that he learned from 2010 that he’s going to focus on issues he thinks the electorate cares most about, which right now (in my view) are economics/jobs, health care, and terrorism.

Three, what could Ken answer that everybody doesn’t already know about him?

The Colorado Statesman’s Peter Marcus provides an excellent update today on a personhood-backed ballot initiative aiming to change the definition of “’person’ and ‘child’” under Colorado law to include “unborn human beings.”

Signatures for the fetal-homicide measure, criticized by pro-choice activists as a backdoor abortion ban, are due by Sept. 30.

But the question still hanging out there is how Republicans, who favor the personhood position against abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, are going to deal with the latest infant-mortality measure, which is at a minimum a step toward such a ban.

Will reporters let candidates brush it off, as Coffman did in 2012, saying it’s not their focus, even though Coffman was later held up as the poster-child for Personhood USA?

Marcus couldn’t get answers from top 2014 candidates about the so-called Brady Amendment, but he provided this useful roundup on some past positions on abortion and personhood.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, last year said he would not endorse the initiative, despite his pro-life stance and past support for the effort. And former Seventh Congressional District candidate Joe Coors also would not endorse the initiative last year, despite past support.

Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck also found trouble in 2010 when he ran against Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Buck softened his stance on personhood after Bennet attacked Buck for his position. Buck’s campaign later backtracked, saying he would not vote for personhood. Buck on Wednesday filed paperwork to run for U.S. Senate again in 2014 against Democratic incumbent Mark Udall….

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican who is running for governor in 2014, declined comment until Hickenlooper publically speaks out on abortion. Tancredo points out that OnTheIssues.org does not have a recorded stance for Hickenlooper on abortion.

State Sen. Greg Brophy of Wray, who is also seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for governor, did not return a request for comment left by The Statesman.

The positions of candidates on both sides of the aisle regarding the Brady Amendment might be influenced by the stance of the Denver Archdiocese, which, as the Statesman reports, has previously opposed personhood measures but has signaled support for fetal-homicide laws.

Laura Carno, whose organization donated over $55,000 to recall Sen. John Morse, has been claiming Morse is an extremist on various conservative talk-radio shows.

Yet on “Politics and Guns” July 23, she said of Morse that, before this year, “you wouldn’t have been able to guess that he was a Democrat.”

So Carno’s problems with Morse are very recent, lending credibility to The Denver Post’s view, as expressed in an editorial titled “John Morse Recall Is an Abuse of the Political Process,” that the recall effort an extreme over-reaction to a policy dispute.

The statement invites questions for Carno about whether she thinks The Post is right that the Morse recall is a “perversion of a process that should be reserved for corruption and incompetence.”

Here’s a partial transcript of the radio interview, as well as the audio:

Carno: @31:52  Yes.  That’s correct.  And that’s one of the common questions that the recall committee got when they launched this,  “Why don’t you just let him finish out his term?”  So, there are a couple answers to that.  One is, he didn’t get everything he wanted in the last legislative session.  And just as a reminder to your listeners, Senator Morse was a very moderate Democrat.  You wouldn’t have been able to guess from his legislative agenda from the previous terms that he’d been in there,  you wouldn’t have been able to guess that he was a Democrat.  He is former law enforcement.  He had some good pro-police bills,   pro-military bills.  He even sponsored in 2007 a reciprocity bill for  Conceal /Carry holders for Colorado – a very pro-gun bill.

Click Here for Audio

Last month, Rep. Cory Gardner said he’d block an extension of the federal debt ceiling to “reduce the size and scope of government.”

Today, Gardner stated on the radio that he’d allow the government to shut down, by holding up annual budget negotiations, in order to repeal Obamacare, explaining that “if the government gets shut down, it’s going to be the President’s decision to do so.”

KOA’s Mike Rosen let Gardner’s salvo go by as if Gardner were talking about the weather.

Rosen: “Perhaps we can talk about some other items on the agenda, such as the current dispute, even with the Republican Party, about whether Republicans, who have a majority in the House, ought to take a stand now, as the continuing resolution question comes up, take a stand on Obamacare, and refuse to fund it, while at the same time, agreeing with a continuing resolution that would allow the rest of the federal government to operate. Have you got a position on that?

Gardner: I want to do anything and everything I can to stop Obamacare from destroying our health care, from driving up increases in costs. Whether that’s through the continuing resolution, I want to defund everything that we can….

Rosen: There’s a political concern that if the Republicans stand their ground on this [repealing Obamacare], they are going to be blamed for shutting down the government.

Gardner: Well, I think if the government gets shut down, it’s going to be the President’s decision to do so. I believe that we don’t need to shut down the government because we ought to just lift this health-care bill out of the way and let America work.

Listen to Gardner saying he’ll shut down government to repeal Obamacare 8.1.13

Rosen should invite Gardner back for a full discussion about the economic and political ramifications of a move by the House Republicans to block funding Obamacare and shut down the government in the process.