Hope for Colorado conservatives: Why small steps still count in a blue state

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Hope for conservatives in Colorado

Being a conservative or Republican in Blue Colorado is tough. I have noted multiple emails and comments on my writing that fall somewhere along the lines of “it’s hopeless” or “why bother getting involved, it won’t change anything?”

I understand the sentiment. The thing is, situations are hopeless until they aren’t. Things won’t change until they do.

What I mean is that change is not a sweeping jump. Change, whether in your life, in nature, in Colorado’s politics, is more often than not a gradual process. Think more water wearing down rock than mountains crumbling in an earthquake.

Doing nothing because it will not immediately fix the problem is the wrong orientation to have. The Democrats did not gain control over Colorado overnight. Bringing much-needed balance, compromise, and reason back to this state will likewise take time.

I wanted to share the Free State Colorado video linked below not only because it gave me entree into the homily above but also because it is an example of someone who got involved in a truly no-win situation (Denver Republican Party–with only Boulder’s Republicans being worse off) and is doing exactly what I talk about above: the small efforts to engage other likeminded people, the small efforts at activism, in a situation where it would be easy to throw in the towel and walk off. It’s worth a watch.

If you’ve stopped doing things because it felt hopeless, start again. If you’ve never started, do so.

Do a little thing to help. Do it consistently. Encourage others to do same. Keep your head down, one foot in front of the other without comparing your progress with others.

And when you look up, you’ll be surprised how far you’ve gone and how much you’ve gotten done.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/xFR624Z-oS0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

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Some unusual wording on my Logan County property tax statement

I got my Logan County property valuation in the mail the other day. I noted some wording that perhaps I’ve missed in the past, but I can’t recall.*

The wording was “Without state aid your school tax rate would be 75.00200 instead of 35.399.” Meaning that if the state didn’t chip in on schools, my effective tax rate would be much higher.

That phrasing and it’s (to me) sudden appearance on the valuation got me curious. Who asked that it be added?

The story’s longer than I want to write, so I’ll give the short version.

A call to the Assessor’s Office here told me that it was required by state law. I followed up to ask which state law and was told to look up CRS 39-10-103 (a copy of that statute on a commercial website is linked first below).

A couple false starts later and an email to the Legislative Council Staff got me to the latest update to the law requiring the statement I saw. The changes trace back to a 2025 bill (linked second below) and a 2024 bill (linked third).

The relevant quote is from p 82 of the 2024 bill and I attach that here as a screenshot.**

As I ran all this down, I couldn’t help but think about a third bill, this one from 2021 (linked fourth below). That bill requires that, among other things, any time there was an initiative that would increase revenue to the government, the title would have to include a statement crowing about how the measure increased or improved some public service like education. Any guesses about an initiative that decreased revenue?

These two struck me as related because in both cases it’s about how the government is doing good things. I don’t know if it was the state or Logan County that chose the wording on my property valuation (by my reading of the law there’s not any specific word-for-word recipe), but “state aid” to me connotes help or magnanimity just like the statement extolling the wonderful things that extra money going to the government via initiative does.

I’m not sure if this is the case, especially given that this notice might have been on my statement for a while now, but if you were tempted to be taken in by something like this, don’t be.

Our schools in Colorado are funded (by and large, there’s some other whatnot in there, but it’s small) from 3 distinct streams of revenue: there is federal money coming in, state money coming in, and local property tax money coming in. When they say that your local property tax is smaller because the state is adding “aid” to your local school district, they’re taking your tax money at the state level and sending it back to you. Gift wrapped. With a nice reminder that they’re helping you.

If there were no state aid coming down, the state wouldn’t be taking as much. Your local rate might go up, but your state rates of tax would decrease.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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