Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Shad Murib has been one of the loudest critics of the state election overhaul being pursued by Kent Thiry, the former CEO of the Denver-based dialysis giant DaVita. Murib has made his opposition clear on social media and during gatherings with Democrats across the state.
But why is he so against the change?
We caught up with Murib to talk about why he opposes Thiry’s ballot measure, which would shift Colorado’s primaries so candidates from all parties run against each other, followed by a ranked choice general election among the top four vote-getters. He believes a ranked choice system would make it harder for candidates who want changes to the political status quo.
“What I think Kent Thiry is trying to do is ideological stagnation that benefits people that have as big a bank account as him,” Murib said. “I don’t think he’s trying to push moderate candidates. I think he’s trying to elect candidates who have the same viewpoints as him, which I would not qualify as moderate.”
Murib said he thinks income inequality is a feature, not a bug, of the nation’s economic system and that people like Thiry have a vested interest in keeping it that way.
The chairman also said that a lack of diverse ideas in politics is a bad thing, and that he sees Thiry’s initiative as leading to more stagnation. Murib believes that having state lawmakers who are devout progressives serving alongside lawmakers who are more moderate Democrats leads to good policy.
“We spent a lot to create the best election system in the country, and for him to just, like, wander in with a few million bucks to try and destroy it — it pisses me off,” Murib said.
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HOW DEMOCRATS PLAN TO PUSH BACK
So what do Democrats plan to do about Thiry’s initiative, which still hasn’t qualified for the November ballot?
Colorado Voters First, the Thiry-funded group pushing the initiative, has until Aug. 5 to collect about 125,000 voter signatures to get the measure on the ballot. It will take some time after that for state elections officials to go through the signatures and verify they are sufficient.
Murib said Democrats plan to fight the measure, Initiative 310, by talking about how Colorado already has the gold standard election system and how that system leads to ideological diversity in the two main political parties.
Separately, an issue committee called Voter Rights Colorado formed June 13 to fight the measure. It hadn’t reported spending or raising any money through June 26, but Ellen Dumm, a spokeswoman for the group, said that’s coming.
The groups that are signed onto the coalition behind the issue committee include Colorado Common Cause, New Era Colorado and the Working Families Party.
COLORADO VOTERS FIRST
Colorado Voters First had raised $2.5 million through June 26. Thiry accounted for $1 million of that, while Unite America, which Thiry is on the board of, gave the committee another $1 million.
Walmart heir Ben Walton gave Colorado Voters First $250,000 in June, as did Marc Merrill, a video game developer.
The group will next report its fundraising and spending Aug. 1. Here are some of the consultants it has paid so far:
WHAT TO WATCH
THE NARRATIVE
The 2020 defeat that led a Colorado tenant rights group to find a foothold at the state Capitol
At the height of the pandemic four years ago, tenant advocates huddled in a state Capitol stairwell for a bitter debate: Whether to take what they considered a bad deal, or no deal at all.
With their hopes for a statewide eviction moratorium dashed, they opted for no deal, declining to endorse a proposal during the June 2020 special session that would have let tenants facing eviction stay in their homes an extra four days.
The decision marked a disappointing end to the first foray into state politics for the Community Economic Defense Project, an eviction defense group. But it was also a beginning, said Zach Neumann, the group’s executive director, at an event this week.
“We realized something — we were always going to lose,” Neumann said. “Most of the legislators in that building were completely insulated from what was going on (the eviction crisis). And because of that, we never had the votes.”
But that wasn’t CEDP’s only problem. “None of us had been in that building before,” he said. “And despite our good intentions, we quickly find ourselves struggling to keep up with the landlord lobby, and all of the attorneys that they have in the building. They really know what’s going on — and we really, really don’t.”
With that experience came the realization: “We have to be in the state Capitol,” Neumann said. “We realized that if we aren’t in the building, and more importantly, if our clients aren’t in the building, nothing would ever change.”
After that bad night in the stairwell, Neumann said, CEDP launched a policy team that is now racking up a number of legislative wins alongside its losses.
Chief among them was 2021’s sweeping rewrite of Colorado’s landlord-tenant laws, which established new protections for tenants facing eviction or dire living conditions. This year, the group was also a main backer of House Bill 1098, the “for-cause” eviction measure that limits when landlords can refuse to renew a tenant’s lease.
At its Wednesday night event at Town Hall Collaborative in Denver, CEDP provided a sneak preview of what could be coming next in Colorado’s tenant-landlord fights at the state Capitol.
Melissa Mejía, the group’s head of state and local policy, offered three priorities: improving living conditions, cracking down on corporate landlords and preventing evictions of families with children — a demographic that is evicted more than any other.
“We know that eviction has catastrophic consequences for health outcomes for success in school, for job retention, for mental health — and most of that weight is falling on families with children in the home right now,” Mejía said.
Specific policy proposals are still to come, Neumann told The Colorado Sun.
Two potential housing bills to watch are ones that the legislature has rejected in years past: measures prohibiting landlords from using certain rent-setting software, and allowing local governments to pass rent stabilization ordinances.
The latter got a political boost from President Joe Biden, who recently proposed a 5% cap on rent increases by large corporate landlords. Some Democratic primary winners have campaigned on it in their bids for the state legislature, as well.
Where next year’s legislature will position itself in the landlord-tenant fights remains to be seen. Progressive Democrats that tend to side with tenants are poised to pick up seats in the state Senate, but did poorly in most of their primaries against landlord-backed opponents.
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THE POLITICAL TICKER
INITIATIVE 108
Advance Colorado and Colorado Concern, the conservative groups behind Initiative 108, announced this week they had turned in nearly 200,000 signatures to put the tax cut measure on the November ballot. To qualify for the election, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office must verify around 125,000 of them. The measure would cut residential assessment rates to 5.7% and cut commercial property tax assessments to 24% for a projected $3 billion property tax cut, according to Colorado Legislative Council staff estimates.
TV ADS
Term Limits Action, a federal super PAC associated with the group U.S. Term Limits, is purchasing tens of thousands of dollars in TV ad time in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District in the lead-up to the November election. The committee has reserved time in the Grand Junction and Colorado Springs/Pueblo TV markets from Oct. 7 through Nov. 3 to run ads about Republican Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction attorney. It’s likely the ads will support Hurd, but we haven’t seen them yet. U.S. Term Limits says its mission is to “enact and defend term limits on elected offices at all levels of government.” Hurd is running against Democrat Adam Frisch in the 3rd District.
THE 8TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
National Democratic nonprofit House Majority Forward is reserving $1 million in TV ads to air in August, aimed at the 8th Congressional District. National super PACs and nonprofits have reserved a total of about $16 million in TV time in the toss-up district where first-term U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, D-Thornton, faces state Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Fort Lupton.
Evans, meanwhile, formed a joint fundraising committee, the Evans Victory Committee, that will allow donors to make a single donation to be split among his congressional campaign, his leadership PAC and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
DNC DOLLARS
Former Colorado House Speaker Crisanta Duran recently asked her 7,400 followers on X to contribute to a GoFundMe to help her pay her way to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago Aug. 19-22. During a Zoom meeting Monday, Colorado Democratic leaders shared similar requests for younger delegates planning to go to the convention.
COLORADO DEMOCRATS
The Colorado Democratic Party raised $839,000 in June. Of that, $725,000 came via donations to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that allows donors to write a single check with proceeds divided among several committees. Almost all of the money was transferred to the Democratic National Committee, a common practice with joint fundraising donations. Democrats had about $350,000 in cash at the end of June.
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
How third-party presidential candidates have fared in Colorado in the past
A new poll showing independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is polling at 12% in Colorado got us thinking: How have third-party candidates traditionally fared in Colorado?
Only four third-party presidential candidates have received more than 10% of the vote in Colorado since 1904.
Kennedy’s campaign submitted signatures to try to get on the ballot in Colorado as an independent candidate, though the Colorado Libertarian Party is also seeking to make him their candidate in the state.
The deadline for state elections officials to review his signatures is Aug. 1.
AN ODE TO FISH
A legend retires
This is Fish’s last edition of The Unaffiliated as she enters retirement starting Monday following decades as a journalist in Colorado, Florida and beyond.
There’s no one quite like Fish —both in personality and professional prowess. There are talents she has that no one can replicate, though they may try. Her institutional knowledge is unmatched. There is no more considerate colleague. She was recently named Colorado’s journalist of the year.
Since Fish is ever the technologist, we asked ChatGPT to help us with a goodbye sonnet honoring her storied career:
In Colorado’s hills, where the Rockies rise,
Resides a journalist with purple hair,
Decades she’s chased stories with great flair,
From motorcycles to classrooms, she’d go.
Her mastery in campaign finance clear,
She’s shaped our land of Capitol peaks and sky,
A colleague trusted, in every try,
Through her tenacity, change did appear.
At a Pueblo convention, she faced the stormy tide,
Exiled for doing her duty true,
Yet never faltering, her spirit flew,
Catching Pokémon, heart open wide.
Now, as retirement’s gentle bells chime near,
She’ll knit tales of wisdom, memories dear.
From Jesse: A personal thanks to Fish for helping me through so many professional and personal challenges. She’s a great friend and mentor and I’ve learned so much from her. I’ll miss her dearly! I feel bad for all the Pokémon she’ll now have time to catch. No ball of yarn is safe from her knitting needles.
From Fish: Attention embarasses me! But thanks so much to everyone at The Colorado Sun for giving me the opportunity to work with you and geek out for the past six years. You’ve been such wonderful — and fun — colleagues.
Thanks also to the folks who’ve been answering my endless questions for decades now. This work couldn’t be done without you.
And to Colorado Sun readers — and especially our members — thanks for your attention and input. Keep it up!
THE BIGGER PICTURE
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