By Tony Corrado
Congratulations to Morgen Carroll for her election as Chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party (CDP). She most certainly will be an improvement over Rick Palacio as she brings legislative experience and a new, progressive energy to the party. However, she also brings baggage to the position and only time will tell if she can move above her professional, establishment mindset as well as her ability to move from paid lobbyist positions to true progressive leadership which the CDP desperately needs.
Many will immediately take exception to this posit by virtue of Carroll’s recent support to the progressive and Indivisible movement positions. By analyzing her oil and gas positions as a Colorado State Senator, the warning signs are present. Carroll has supported a bill that gave preferences to oil and gas companies that agreed to provide methane burning at the onset of their drilling. In essence, the bill provided incentives for better performance. While this is commendable, it is far from sufficient. She failed to support a reduction in fracking nor does such a position address the immense waste of our most precious resource, water. A progressive leader would have required oil and gas companies to recycle all fracking waste water and therefore reject the high pressure, deep injection currently used to dispose of this hazardous and deadly waste product. At $50.00/barrel, the oil companies have almost $25.00/barrel of profit from which to fund all conservation efforts.
In addition, a bill was initiated in the legislature to ban oil and gas wells that were located within 300 feet of residences and public buildings. Such a bill would have acted to preserve real estate values, reduce unhealthful emissions and meet the needs of many front range communities. The bill was killed due to a lack of legislative support. This lack of true leadership does not bode well for the CDP, as we have a governorship as well as state wide legislative elections coming in 2018 and we need a leader, in the manner of Bernie Sanders, not an establishment politician leading the CDP.
There is another litmus test for progressives, such as myself, and that is the elimination of Super Delegates from the National Democratic Party. As the thwarted Bernie Sanders campaign has demonstrated, we, the citizens, do not need “elites” to decide who they will support. It is likely that Carroll will support a move to have all of Colorado’s Super Delegates pledge to vote for the candidate that garnered the most popular votes statewide. Again, this is an improved and more enlightened position, however, it remains insufficient. We need a leader that will work at the national level to eliminate the concept of Super Delegates. This must be accomplished before the 2020 election cycle. Will Carroll prove she is a leader by championing this issue or will she bow to establishment pressures to “get along” and advance her long term political career goals?
There is one final point to be made. The Indivisible movement has been effective, and with continued leadership, will continue to be effective. We are seeing previously apolitical persons voluntarily run for office from school boards to Congress. We have seen the Indivisible movement crowd fund candidates that would not have received nearly as much political attention of funding support such as Ossoff in Georgia and Zinke’s congressional replacement in Montana. It is vital to the future health of our democracy that the Indivisible movement not allow itself to be co-opted by the Democratic parties, either local, state or national. Will Colorado lead or follow?
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