From The Rocky Mountain News, "A proposal this week to enact an initiative that would make adult possession of less than an ounce of pot the 'lowest law enforcement priority' left some people wondering: What are Denver's elected officials smoking? But it was actually a proposed strategy to let the city's legal team immediately start to prove that the initiative is legally flawed, as city attorneys say it is, so a court will toss it out. The council will consider the strategy and other legal options in a closed-door meeting Monday."
Here's an opinion piece from The Denver Post's David Harsanyi. He writes:
This week, many on the City Council conspired to deny Denverites a chance to vote on a ballot initiative brought forward by Citizens for a Safer Denver. The whole needless brouhaha revolves around a not-very-important marijuana initiative that would make possession of pot the "lowest law-enforcement priority" in Denver. "Not very important" for two reasons: 1. Denver typically ignores city laws and adheres to state law, when it suits it. 2. Pot arrests are not an especially high priority for police anyway. Whatever your view of such an initiative - or even the initiative process as a whole - might be, Mason Tvert, Colorado's provocateur of ganja, has followed the city charter and collected the requisite number of signatures needed to bring this issue to the people. What's the problem? The City Council believes you will make the wrong decision on this thing. So they chewed over a number of alternatives. My favorite idea entails council members voting "yes" on the initiative, though they oppose it in principle, and then waiting for a court to shoot it down. "It will allow the city attorneys to immediately go about proving how invalid, legally, this ordinance is," the Highly Honorable Council President Michael Hancock explained. "I believe what is written here - because of the legal flaws - is purely symbolic."[...]
What's the problem? The City Council believes you will make the wrong decision on this thing. So they chewed over a number of alternatives. My favorite idea entails council members voting "yes" on the initiative, though they oppose it in principle, and then waiting for a court to shoot it down. "It will allow the city attorneys to immediately go about proving how invalid, legally, this ordinance is," the Highly Honorable Council President Michael Hancock explained. "I believe what is written here - because of the legal flaws - is purely symbolic." Hancock should know. Denverites voted in 2005 to legalize small amounts of marijuana, and the city treats the decision as "purely symbolic."
During the council vote on the 2005 pot initiative, Hancock ignored the city charter - the law - and abstained from voting. City Council members have only two options: they can enact the initiative or refer it to voters. So, for some of our public servants, the city charter is also "purely symbolic." Evidently, another city official takes an even more curious approach to the law. Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey's guidance to the council was to just "refuse to put it on the ballot and have (Citizens for a Safer Denver) take it to court ..." It's somewhat, I don't know ... counterintuitive to hear a district attorney advise the council to ignore the law. As a proponent of legalization, I would strongly urge the distinguished council members to follow Hancock's advice. We can then look forward to my incessant praise of council members for their support of marijuana legalization...
After all, a number of major cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, have similar "low priority" pot laws on the books. In July, a California Superior Court judge upheld a similar voter-enacted initiative in Santa Barbara. It has been the only challenge. Perhaps we can concede that the initiative process in Denver might be in need of some reforming. Perhaps it's too easy to get on the ballot. That's an issue for another day. For now, the process is clear. Still, Councilman Rick Garcia decided to complain during the hearing about the ease in which Citizens for a Safer Denver had mucked things up. Well, guess what? The initiative had 5,900 verified signatures, 150 percent of what is necessary to get on the ballot. Garcia, in turn, received about 5,200 votes in his uncontested election to the City Council. So it's difficult to understand why Garcia, who represents such a small sliver of the Denver community, or any council member believes he or she has the right to deny voters their day at the ballot box.
Category: Denver November 2007 Election
8:40:20 AM 
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