University of Northern Colorado
Battleground: Colorado
The Controversial and Dialectic Nature of the Union’s Greatest State
Alexander Ayres
Professor Olivo
Colorado Politics
1 March 2018
Topic One: Is Colorado a Purple State?
Colorado traces it controversial political roots back to its early days as an admitted member of the Union in the late 1800’s. Ideological clashes amongst the people were not uncommon, and the same continues to be true in 2018. Colorado has proven through the decades that it is not beholden to one political group or the other; it’s status as a frontier state helped pioneer the diversified political ideologies that define this state today. While there are heavy political affiliations in concentrated areas, Colorado remains uniquely independent with its innumerable political contradictions that help define the state. Colorado has many factors that have contributed to its mix of diversified ideas of the Republican “red” and the Democratic “blue” to attain its “purple” status that includes the history, political backgrounds, and geography of Colorado
Colorado entered statehood in 1876, and it wasn’t long after that they won the attention of the country with its myriad of political controversies. The events in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s kickstarted Colorado down its enigmatic path. To start, Colorado was the first state in the Union to grant women the right to vote via popular election. The Ku Klux Klan enjoyed a brief reign of large political influence in the 1920s-30s. In the 1940’s, the Colorado governor, Ralph Carr, spoke out against the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in the internment camps held in his state. Colorado was the first state to loosen abortion laws in the United States, six years before the Supreme Court decided to follow suit. Colorado has voted in Republicans for presidential elections from 1920 to 2004, where it finally gave its electoral votes to the Democratic candidate. Over the past century, Colorado has elected 17 Democrats and 12 Republicans to assume the position of Governor. Now it has an Independent governor at the helm, which helps juxtapose the political relationship between all ideological spectrums.
In order to develop a better understanding of how diverse Colorado voters are, it is useful to examine voter affiliation and their subsequent distribution throughout the counties. In Colorado, there are strong political power bases that are largely dependent on the city. As of Dec 01 2016, the Denver area contains ~200,000 registered Democrats, ~60,000 registered Republicans, ~130,000 Independents and ~5,000 registered Libertarians, making it a large Democratic voting bloc. In contrast, just a mere 70 miles south of Denver is one of the most conservative and religious political centres in the United States: El Paso County. El Paso Country encompasses Colorado Springs. There, the 160,000 Republicans dominate the ~80,000 Democrats in Colorado Springs with ~160,000 registered Independents. It is important to note how many registered Independents are found within varying counties across Colorado. One county may have a dominant red or blue party, but the Independent affiliation more often than not have come in a strong second or even a close first number of voters. In the Newsweek article “God, Guns, and Ganja” the author notes that many voters have beliefs that align with both Republican and Democratic ideals, resulting in the voter registering as an Independent due to the disatisfaction with one party or the other. “… despite the state’s heated culture wars, Colorado is a model of compromise, because the vast majority of its citizens are independents with a libertarian streak” (Burleigh 35). In order to understand why Coloradans have such a diversified range of political backgrounds, it is important to look at the geographical makeup of this state.
Colorado has a very prominent urban-rural divide which is primarily focused along the Front Range Corridor, running north to south along Interstate 25. In recent decades, swathes of out-of-state citizens have found new homes along the front range, heavily populating up-and-coming cities along the I-25 Corridor. As the urbanization of cities increases and expands, so does the Democratic voter base in relation to the I-25 Corridor. Major examples of such cities include Denver, Fort Collins, Boulder, and Pueblo. This is exaggerated by a high population density within these urban areas, therefore meaning lots of voters to shore up your political base. One major exception to this trend is Colorado Springs, where its many military bases and many religious organizations roots have rooted itself into a strong Republican political base. Meanwhile, the rest of Colorado consists of smaller cities in agriculturally heavy areas. Historically, most of these have voted Republican in past elections, with rural areas like the Eastern Plains constituting a significant conservative population. While there are less people constituting the population in these fringe counties and cities, they nearly always tend to vote Republican in elections. This affords a purple-toned balance between the blue population-dense I-25 Corridor cities and rural red-leaning counties in Colorado.
Colorado can reaffirm its status as “the swingiest of swing states” (Burleigh 28) with its most recent voting record in the 2016 Presidential elections and its current Senators. Governor John Hickenlooper has even stated, “We are as purple as purple can be” (Alyson Sylte) The Presidential candidates of 2016 enjoyed fighting it out in the nation’s most notorious battleground state, it ultimately went to Hillary Clinton, but not before Donald Trump and even Libertarian candidate gary Johnson made the Democrats fight for it. Colorado will remain an interesting state to watch for political elections in the future. Colorado's political behavior will undoubtedly remain unpredictable and controversial as analysts struggle to figure out what makes the Centennial State tick.
Federalism and Colorado
The power of the United States Federal Government may extend across all fifty states, but it is not always without a bit of resistance. Federalism is the relationship between a particular state and the federal government. More aptly the definition stakes a question between the line of federal overreach and States’ rights. Colorado is no stranger to the unique dynamics of federalism. There have been plenty of instances where Colorado has pushed the boundaries of its right as a state to enact whichever legislation lawmakers felt was appropriate, even in direct contradiction of U.S. Federal Law. Colorado’s Amendment 64, which made the recreational use, sale, and taxation of marijuana legal within the state, was the most notable cases of direct violation of Federal Law. It was largely ignored by the Democratic Obama Administration which it passed under. However with a new hardline Republican Administration that has just been recently elected, Colorado faces the possibility of the Federal Government exercising its Constitutional right under the Supremacy Clause to undo the years of work that went into Amendment 64.
In order to fully develop an understanding of federalism and federal government powers, it is useful to see where such powers came from. The Articles of Confederation inadvertently laid the ground works between the working dynamic of the states and the federal government. The Articles of the Confederation virtually gave no power to an overarching federal government, thereby rendering the idea of a ‘United’ States a contradiction. Soon after, the states drafted a new Constitution, which included the 10th Amendment. The 10th Amendement guaranteed the presiding states a large degree of autonomy under the new Federal government. “Because of the 10th Amendment, in theory at least, that states are not administrative arms but rather constituent parts that retain their autonomy from the central government” (Federalism 32). States were able to retain much of their autonomy up until the Civil War. The Civil War saw
allowed Before the Civil War, States enjoyed large amounts of autonomy. It wasn’t until the Civil War where the Federal Government had to act and exercise its Constitutional powers to help contain the Union as a whole. After the dust settled from the Civil War, a lot of the federal powers that had been put in place
By 1976, an energy crisis caused gasoline prices in the United States to surge to $0.59 per gallon, or roughly $2.53 per gallon as of January 2018.
Since the energy crisis of the 1970s, which was triggered by disruptions in Middle East gas exports as a result of the Yom Kippur War and the later Iranian Revolution, the United States has increasingly pursued domestic alternatives to foreign energy imports. Many government officials have advocated for offshore drilling, but since 1976, government policy has increasingly pursued the hydraulic fracturing of shale for natural gas extraction.
Hydraulic fracturing of shale rock has existed since at least 1947, when the extraction process was pioneered by Floyd Farris, an engineer for Stanolind Oil & Gas Corp. Since the late 1940s, technologies behind the hydraulic fracturing process have advanced significantly, with “fracking” operations as of 2013 adding $75 billion to state and federal revenues, and $283 billion to GDP.
Superficially, domestic fracking has been highly successful. As of 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration, hydraulic fracturing fuels roughly 50% of the United States’ total energy output, with 300,000 fracking wells producing 4.3 million barrels of oil per day, as of March 2016.