Andy Kerr Replaces Hudak As Senate Ed Chair

Sen. Andy Kerr (D-Lakewood).

As reported by FOX 31's Eli Stokols Sunday evening:

Senate Democrats are set to announce Monday that Sen. Andy Kerr will replace former Sen. Evie Hudak, who resigned her seat last month to avoid a recall election and preserve her party’s one-seat majority in the chamber, as the chairman of the Senate Education Committee…

Kerr was chosen over Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, a former teacher and principal who also sits on the committee.

Johnston will continue to serve as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, a post he’d have had to give up to head the education committee.

A higher profile for Kerr will be good for Democrats generally, and for Kerr's own competitive re-election bid next year.

Stokols briefly discusses the background of Sen. Mike Johnston's education reform efforts, like Johnston's role in passing the controversial 2010 Senate Bill 191 "teacher accountability" legislation, as well as this year's defeated Amendment 66. Stokols traffics a bit more than we would in unsourced rumors from a conservative blog to raise the possibility that Sen. Andy Kerr was a contentious pick over Sen. Johnston (we haven't ourselves heard that). That said, we tend to agree that for the purposes of unifying Democrats after a tough 2013, Kerr is probably the better choice to lead the Education Committee.

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GOP Chair put “a little cold water on our parade” during Pueblo recall campaign, newly elected State Sen Says

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Yesterday, I urged reporters to keep an eye on a sub-plot that's emerged in the wake of the Republican recall victories: The "liberty" wing of the state GOP has apparently been re-energized by the election, and this could lead not only to a civil war among Colorado Republicans but also to serious election losses this year and into the future.

I mean, last time the base of the GOP got uppity in a sustained way, Ken Buck took down Jane Norton and Dan Maes fearlessly squeaked by Scott McInnis. (Maybe the insurgent air will inspire Scooter to write Musings Part II: Jaxine Bubis Style.)

Happy and hot after Tuesdays wins, the "liberty" faction isn't being polite about its dissatisfaction with the state GOP establishment, as evidenced by Tom Tancredo's comment yesterday, slamming State GOP Chair Ryan Call and expressing his amazement that the State GOP gets any "credibility whatsoever."

Though he was kinder toward Call than Tancredo was, newly elected State Sen. George Rivera hit the State Chair in a more home-spun way during an appearance on KNUS' Peter Boyles Show this morning: 

Rivera: To be honest with ya, Chairman Call did come down and kind of threw a little cold water on our parade and so on. But, you know, after the meeting and so on, I sat privately with Chairman Call and I told him, I says, 'Chairman, you don't know Pueblo. You've not been here when we've been doing our campaigning and seen the support we've got from the folks.' And I says, 'I believe you're wrong. And I believe the numbers will come out, and you guys will be very surprised.' Hopefully this will get him to kind of take a different look come 2014.

Boyles: I don't believe it.

George Rivera on KNUS Boyles Show 9-12-2013

You don't need to know much about Tea-Party activists to understand that they'll see this type of rain-on-your-parade behavior by Call as patronizing, to put it mildly.

They'll undoubtedly think similarly of Call's advice to Rivera on Tuesday afternoon, reminding him, like a well-intentioned mother might remind her son, to give a "gracious" concession speech, as opposed, presumably, to the hateful, spit-filled Tea-Party variety. (This was first reported by The Denver Post's Lynn Bartels.)

Obviously, no concession speech was needed because Rivera won the election, and Tea-Party activists were snickering about Call's "gracious" advice Thursday while they lambasted the State GOP for getting the Pueblo recall effort wrong every step of the way.

We'll undoubtedly be hearing a lot more about this in the coming months or years or decades. Civil wars, we all know, don't heal very fast, and, to the my real point, they make really good news stories, with intrigue, passion, and late-night stabbings.

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At Least He’s Not Your Party Chair

As Mother Jones reports, the Oregon Republican Party is out of its freakin' mind:

After months of in-fighting, the beleaguered Oregon Republican Party elected a new chairman last weekend. His name is Art Robinson, and he wants to sprinkle radioactive waste from airplanes to build up our resistance to degenerative illnesses. Robinson, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress against progressive Rep. Peter DeFazio in 2010 and 2012, took over after the previous chair resigned in advance of a recall campaign over her alleged financial mismanagement.

Robinson, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry, has marketed himself for the last three decades as an expert on everything from nuclear fallout, to AIDS, to climate science in the pages of a monthly newsletter, Access to Technology, which he published from his compound in the small town of Cave Junction. A quick glance at his writings, which were publicized during his ill-fated challenges to DeFazio, suggest that whatever the failings of the previous party leadership—Democrats now hold all statewide elected offices and control both houses of the state legislature—Robinson brings with him a new set of challenges entirely.

The story goes on to list a number of Robinson's "ideas," including his belief that Climate Change is actually beneficial.

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