Steve Pomerance

Given the controversy around the protest filed over the “Three Term Limit” petition, I thought Camera readers might find it useful to have a brief analysis of the charter amendment process for home rule cities like Boulder. The Boulder City Charter, Section 137, references the Colorado Constitution as the authority on charter amendments. The Constitution (Article XX, Section 9) provides the basics, and empowers the Legislature to set the procedures. These are in the Colorado Revised Statutes (mostly in CRS31-2-201 through 31-2-225). For citizen-initiated charter amendments, the CRS are very specific as to the form of the petitions (the documents that voters sign), including size (8.5″ x 11″), orientation (portrait, not landscape), and that the warning (requiring signers to be registered voters, etc.) must be printed in red on every page. Disassembly, such as removal of staples, is not allowed, to help prevent fraud. CRS 31-2-219 specifies, “Any such petition which fails to confor...

As has been reported, Ben Pearlman resigned from being county commissioner as of January 1, with about a year still left in his term. In a meeting unattended by the public just before Christmas, he was appointed to be the County Attorney by the two other commissioners, Will Toor and Cindy Domenico. He will replace Larry Hoyt, who recently resigned after many years on the job. Pearlman’s commissioner seat will be filled by the Democratic Party vacancy committee, and if that appointee is also currently an elected official, his/her vacancy will also be filled by the party. Apparently, the commissioners’ argument for making this appointment and doing it now is that Pearlman is very qualified and knowledgeable and the best of the applicants, and the timing during the holidays was unavoidable. But there are some very good arguments as to why this position should not have been filled in this way. First, both Toor and Pearlman’s terms expire at the end of 2012. They are both term-limited...

The July 5 New York Times science section ran a fascinating article called, “Thirst for Fairness May Have Helped Us Survive.” It argues that “humans have an inherent distaste for hierarchical extremes,” and that “the thirst for fairness runs deep.” But “low hierarchy doesn`t mean no hierarchy,” and “the basic template for human social groups is moderately but not unerringly egalitarian.” This view of human nature is in conflict with our current American society, where wealth is becoming more and more concentrated in a small segment of our population. The effect of this concentration is felt in our political life, where the ability to spend enormous sums on elections has become a dominant determinant of who gets elected. The “Citizens United” decision exacerbated this problem, allowing corporations to make political donations, not as the shareholders might want, but as the corporate officers choose. None other that John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Funds, wrote an editorial for...