Andy Kerr campaign kick-off party

"In his short time, he has already proved to be one of the brightest, most thoughtful and compassionate people in an assembly that is short of each one of those qualities.

He is such a decent human being, it is unclear why he would want to be running for the Colorado House of Represntatives."

~Andrew Romanoff, Speaker of the House

Colorado State House District 26 Representative, Andy Kerr, hosted a kick-off tonight of his campaign to retain the seat vacated in March by Sen. Betty Boyd.

At the begining of the year Sen. Hanna, and Rep. Boyd both held their seats by comfortable margins. Hanna's resignation shuffled the cards, and vacancy committees moved Boyd and Kerr into their new offices. Both seats are now in play, and while the Democrats still should have the incumbency edge, the district is nearly evenly divided between Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters.

  This session, Andy lived up to the Denver Post headline, and Hit the House Running both in the electoral sense, and as a legislator.

  Tonight he announced his most recent success, the signing by Gov. Owens of HB-1392, which created a law regulating publicly funded drug treatment facillities.

The former teacher is a warm and engaging candidate, and the event was well attended and convivial.

Many of the party faithful turned out to support the Representative, including Hanna, Boyd, Romanoff, Gwen Green, Stan Davis, and veteran's advocate Bill Holen.

  CD-7 candidate Herb Rubenstein was circulating his petition, and I spoke to him about his 'unbreakable pledge' mailing. He estimated the cost of the plastic infused paper as being around 45 cents a page plus postage, and said he sent out 14,650 pages. I asked if they were sent out with any sort of return envelope for donations, and he said that he was not attempting to raise money at this time. He explained that for the last six weeks he has just been building support and getting out information, and will begin fundraising in earnest after Thursday when he officially submits his petitions.

I congratulated Lynette Mayo on navigating the campaign of CU Regent candidate Steve Ludwig safely onto the ballot without a primary. There is still a possibility that Milt Rogers could circulate petitions, but in a statewide race, Rogers would need to collect a large number from every district, and that would be very difficult for a mostly self-funded campaign.

Mayo also shared good news from D.C. where she said that CD-6 candidate Bill Winter was well recieved and managed to secure many pledges of support and funds.

I spoke to Pam Feely, who was once a front runner for the HD-26 seat before removing herself from consideration. I asked her if she had an interest in running for office down the road. She assured me she was, but it might be some time from now because she valued the people we currently had in place.

EPA enforcement attorney, Karen Kellen and I spoke about her run last year for Lakewood City Council and about her boss, EPA Admin. Stephen Johnson.

Johnson, who likes to use copies of the Hatch Act as drink coasters while at illegal Rick O'Donnell fundraisers, seems to be even more unconscionable when he actually stays in Washington to work.

Ms. Kellen told me about the Jacksonville Florida, "Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study."

The study, which paid low income residents for their participation provided they could demonstrate that their children were routinely exposed to toxins in the home, was put on hold a year ago so the EPA could further review the project and shore up their public relations effort. The horrific project, that goes by the Orwellian acronym (CHEERS), is due to be back up for consideration in June.

June 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Senate today put brakes on government-sponsored testing of pesticides on babies by approving an amendment to a spending bill that would bar such research for at least one year. The measure to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from conducting human pesticide experiments passed by a 60 to 37 margin

In case the emphasis I inserted did not emphasize it enough, let me quote again,

"GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED TESTING OF PESTICIDES ON BABIES!"

It takes more and more to shock me these days, but O'Donnell's friends really kick it up a notch.

It didn't take many stories like that to convince me that we needed to do something about the leadership in this country. If we can take the Governor's mansion, and keep our majorities in the Assembly, then we can at least pass the bill Owen killed that would have permitted State environmental standards to exceed the Federal ones.

That is why I am helping Andy Kerr's campaign in any way I can, lending him my skills, opening my wallet and sending him back to the House. This seat needs to be held by someone who will get the right bills onto the desk of Governor Ritter, and Andy Kerr has already proven to me that I can trust him to do be the one to do it.