High Country Politics - Government and Elections News from the American West - January 4, 2023

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Welcome to High Country - politics in the American West. My name is Sean Diller; regular listeners might know me from Heartland Pod’s Talking Politics, every Monday.

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Alright! Let’s get into it: 

NEVADA CURRENT:

Get insurance while the gettin’ is good

Open enrollment for health insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act in Nevada, and nationwide for that matter, ends on Jan 15. It’s anticipated to be the largest enrollment in the state’s history.

Across the U.S. nearly three in four people enrolled through the marketplace receive health care coverage that’s subsidized — the highest rate since the ACA was implemented.

A Biden administration spokesperson said “Nevada Health Link had a record-setting enrollment last year and with the expanded help of the Inflation Reduction Act, and we look forward to even more Nevadans finding quality, affordable health care for 2023,”  

In 2022, enrollment hit record highs nationally and in Nevada, when 101,411 people signed up for coverage during open enrollment in the state, aided by subsidy enhancements in the American Rescue Plan Act. 

Those savings amount to an average of $4,494 for a middle-class family of four in Nevada.

“The more enrolled we see, the healthier Nevada is,” said Katie Charleson, the communications officer at Silver State Health Insurance Exchange.

But while more people are getting access to health care than ever before, systemic barriers are still making it harder for some populations to get coverage. 

Americans who have a high school education or less, are Hispanic, live in rural areas, or lack internet access at home are disproportionately underrepresented in the subsidized marketplace plans despite being eligible, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

For individuals who get enrolled in January, your coverage will begin February 1st, go to healthcare.gov to get insured.

 

SOURCE NM:

Congress green-lights NM plan to further tap the land grant fund for public education

A few lines in the 4,000-page budget bill recently signed by President Biden will mean hundreds of millions more in funding for New Mexico’s public school students each year. 

Last year, voters in N.M. overwhelmingly approved pulling an additional 1.25% from the state’s multi-billion dollar Land Grant Permanent Fund, for education, each year. But because the fund was initially set up by Congress back when New Mexico first became a state, the shift in funds required Congress to sign off.

In the next fiscal year in New Mexico, over $200 million will be disbursed out of a pool of money that’s fed by revenue from oil, gas and mineral extraction on state-owned lands. 

Over half of the funds are destined for the state’s early childhood education system, as it hires more staff and works to reach all corners of the state, providing free or low-cost child care and pre-kindergarten schooling. 

 U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich said “When we improve our education and child care system, we also make our state a better place to raise a family, to start or expand a business, to find a good-paying job, and to hire the best and brightest employees,”

The rest of the fresh funding will go to K-12 public education, beefing up instruction for students who are at-risk, making the school year longer and paying teachers better.

Advocates say infusing public education with much-needed resources will go a long way toward putting New Mexico into compliance with a court order to provide equitable education to all of the state’s students, 

including those who are Indigenous, come from families with low incomes, have disabilities, or who are learning English. 

 according to the judge’s ruling in the Yazzie-Martinez case, Those students have historically not received the quality of education they have a right to under the New Mexico Constitution

The effort to further tap the oil and gas funds for public schools in New Mexico has spanned years. With President Biden’s approval, it will finally cross the finish line.

COLORADO NEWSLINE:

Trump attorney Jenna Ellis of Colorado under investigation for alleged misconduct.

Jenna Ellis, the Colorado attorney who represented former President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election, is under investigation by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel.

Ellis has been the target of formal complaints regarding what critics characterized as her professional misconduct connected to Trump’s effort to reverse the results of a free and fair election. In May a complaint from the States United Democracy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, asked Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel Jessica Yates to investigate Ellis for multiple alleged violations of professional rules and impose possible “substantial professional discipline.”

In the final report of the U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, Ellis is described as the deputy to Trump campaign lawyer Rudy Giuliani, 

The complaint says “Ellis made numerous public misrepresentations alleging fraud in the election — even as federal and state election officials repeatedly found that no fraud had occurred that could have altered the outcome and even as Mr. Trump and his allies brought and lost over 60 lawsuits claiming election fraud or illegality.”

Among the many alleged instances of misconduct the complaint cites, it notes that Ellis urged lawmakers in various swing states to intervene on Trump’s behalf and even certify false electors for Trump, and it says she drafted dishonest memos purporting to give legal rationale for then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional electoral count on Jan. 6, 2021. 

In a deposition Ellis gave to the Jan. 6 committee in March, a transcript of which the committee released this week, she indicates that Colorado is the only state where she has bar membership. During the deposition a questioner referred to a $22,500 invoice Ellis submitted to Trump for work she performed in December 2020 and January 2021. Ellis invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer whether she received payment.

CHALKBEAT COLORADO:

How to fund Colorado schools in ways that reflect student needs. How to open college opportunities to more students. How to narrow pandemic learning gaps, especially in math.

When Colorado lawmakers convene Jan. 9, they’ll have pressing education issues to address, competing needs to balance, and a tricky budget to navigate.

Expect bills that seek to address youth mental health, school safety, and teacher shortages. Lawmakers could find bipartisan agreement on efforts to improve math instruction and better connect higher education and job opportunities. But debates over rewriting the school finance formula and overhauling the school accountability system could divide Democrats.

For a fifth session, Democrats will control both chambers and the governor’s office. They grew their majorities in November’s election. The Colorado General Assembly will be full of new members, many from the progressive wing of the party, potentially introducing new political dynamics.

At the same time, lawmakers with a long history of engagement on education issues have moved into leadership positions. Members of a special committee on school finance, for example, now lead the House Democrats, the Senate Republicans, and the powerful Joint Budget Committee. The House Education Committee has at least four former teachers, a former school board member, and members with experience in mental health and higher education administration.

Colorado economists expect the state to have more money in its 2023-24 budget, but inflation will play an outsize role controlling spending. And the risk of a recession could diminish revenue. Questions of short-term uncertainty and long-term sustainability will affect K-12 and higher education.

Here are seven issues we’ll be watching in the 2023 legislative session:

Is this the year? The interim committee on school finance has been trying for five years to rewrite a decades-old school finance formula that nearly everyone agrees is unfair.

The current formula sometimes sends more money to well-off districts than to ones serving more students in poverty, and no school district wants to get less than they get now. Bret Miles, head of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said his members would object to a formula rewrite that “takes from one school district to give it to another.”

State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, chair of the Joint Budget Committee, said one of her priorities will be developing a “hold-harmless” provision for the new formula. Fewer students and higher local property tax revenues take some pressure off state education funding obligations. Lawmakers could use that cushion, she said, then phase in a new formula to ensure no district gets less than it does now.

Brenda Dickhoner, president and CEO of the conservative education advocacy group Ready Colorado, expects Republicans to push their own priorities for school finance, which means more focus on money following students and less concern for the impact on district budgets.

Dickhoner said she hopes all sides are “at the table thinking about how we can more equitably fund our students and really get to a student-focused formula.”

State and national test data show that students’ math skills took a bigger hit from pandemic learning disruptions than did reading. Right now, Colorado doesn’t have the tools to address it.

House Education Chair Barbara McLachlan said she’s working with Gov. Jared Polis’ office on legislation that would better train teachers on best practices in math instruction and make training available to parents so they can better support their children.

In his November budget letter, Polis called on lawmakers to ensure that every school district adopts high-quality instructional materials and training and gets all students back on track in math.

How to improve math skills also remains a priority for conservatives. Dickhoner said her organization is looking to higher-performing states for ideas.

The push comes after years of intense focus on improving reading scores. Expect the debate over the math bills to mirror ones about reading instruction, including how much the state should be involved in setting curriculum.

Last year Colorado flirted with fully funding its K-12 system after years of holding back money for other budget priorities. But a last-minute deal to reduce property tax increases would have reduced state revenues, and Democrat lawmakers held back.

Getting more funding for schools is always a top priority for the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, but wiping out the withholding known as the budget stabilization factor and fully funding Colorado schools are unlikely to happen this year.

Colorado will have less money overall after voters approved two ballot measures — one lowering the income tax rate and the other setting aside money for affordable housing. That shouldn’t cut into budgetary spending, but will reduce the buffer the state has in case of an emergency.

Zenzinger said it’s important to increase K-12 spending and that lawmakers hope to do better than the $9.1 billion proposed by Polis in his budget recommendation.

But budget writers also have their eye on long-term sustainability and any future recession.

The picture is different for higher education, which has to fight for scraps. Polis wants to increase university budgets and financial aid by 6.8%. Schools are expected to make a case for more funding, especially to keep tuition low and because inflation exceeds that.

Metropolitan State University of Denver President Janine Davidson said the school will seek more investment from lawmakers. Programs to help students from low-income backgrounds or who are the first to go to college in their family are costly, she said. And the state funds schools with a lower share than it did 30 years ago.

Lawmakers also may address how to ensure students can get to and stay in college.

Elaine Berman, Colorado Trustees Network chair, said college board members want more support for students who need skills or credentials for in-demand jobs. School trustees want more funds to build partnerships with businesses and communities to better connect college degrees to jobs, she said.

Lawmakers also may explore how to make it easier for students to get college and workforce skills earlier, including extending opportunities in college and vocational schools.

The Colorado Community College System also wants more college options for incarcerated people. The federal government will begin to allow those students access to federal grants, and the system wants the state to prepare for the changes. It’s also a priority for Representative-elect Matthew Martinez, D-Monte Vista, who led Adams State University’s prison education program.

“I think it’s time that we really boost up education for this population,” Martinez said.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Department of Higher Education has a small agenda starting with removing military draft questions from college enrollment applications, which colleges report stops some students from enrolling.

Advocacy groups plan to ask lawmakers to make filling out the FAFSA a requirement to graduate. That’s the federal application for financial aid, and each year Colorado students who don’t finish the form leave behind almost $30 million in federal grants. Plus students who fill out the FAFSA are more likely to go to college, according to research.

“We want to make sure that we get it right,” said Kyra DeGruy Kennedy, Rocky Mountain region director for the advocacy group Young Invincibles. “And so if that means we have to wait another year, we’ll totally wait another year, but we are hopeful that this is a year that we’ll be able to make some progress on it.”

The top priority of CASE, the school executives group, is convening a task force to consider changes to the school accountability system. They will press this even though a recent audit found that the system is largely “reasonable and appropriate” and that most schools receiving state intervention improve.

Miles said the system still hurts school districts that receive low ratings called turnaround and priority improvement, even if the intentions are good.

“It’s terrific that they make a difference,” he said of the state teams that work with schools with low test scores. “It doesn’t change the fact that it’s harder to hire in a turnaround school than a performance school” — the schools that meet state academic goals.

Jen Walmer, state director of Democrats for Education Reform, said she expects any reform to be contentious, with debate about the makeup of the task force and the scope of its work — as well as whether Colorado needs a change at all.

ARIZONA MIRROR:

Katie Hobbs officially became Arizona’s governor on Monday, ushering in a new set of priorities and vision for the state and setting the stage for contentious battles with the GOP-controlled legislature.

She was administered the oath of office by Roopali Desai, a friend and former attorney who became a federal judge in 2022. Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel administered the oaths of office for Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes

The ascension of Hobbs to governor and the victories of Fontes and Mayes marks the first time since 1975 that Democrats have controlled the top three statewide posts. With it comes a new approach to governing that was immediately on display.

Just hours after taking the oath of office, Hobbs issued an executive order prohibiting employment discrimination in state agencies and requiring them to adopt anti-discrimination policies. By contrast, when Ducey assumed office in 2015, his first action was an executive order aimed at making it more difficult for state agencies to create regulations.

Hobbs campaigned on protecting abortion rights, funding public schools and making permanent programs like a child tax credit that would disproportionately benefit low- and middle-income families. 

“Today marks a new era in Arizona, where my Administration will work to build an Arizona for everyone,” Hobbs said in a written statement after being sworn in. “It’s time for bold action and I feel ready as ever to get the job done. Let’s get to work.”

A public inauguration ceremony will be held at the state Capitol on Jan. 5.

CONCERT PICK OF THE WEEK:

Colter Wall, playing the Mission Ballroom in Denver, two nights, Thursday and Friday January 19th and 20th. 

Colter Wall and his music are from the prairies of southern Saskatchewan, where he lives and raises cattle. He sings traditionals known to most, historic reverie, and poignant originals, sure to be raising both goosebumps and beers throughout the evening.

His tour kicks off a month-long tour with 3 dates in Ft Worth and New Braunfels Texas next week, then  Denver, Tulsa, OKC, St Louis, Memphis, Fayetteville AR, back to Dallas and finishing in Houston on Friday February 18. Colterwall.com

Welp, that’s it for me! From Denver I’m Sean Diller. Original reporting for the stories in today’s show comes from the Nevada Current, Colorado Newsline, Source NM, Chalkbeat Colorado, Arizona Mirror and Denver’s Westword.

Thank you for listening! See you next time.

Host: Adam Sommer 

Find Adam on tik-tok and bluesky as "midmapdadenergy" - follow The Process on instagram. 

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