Guest Columns

When thinking about the goods or services that Colorado exports to other countries, agricultural products may not be the first thing that crosses your mind. Think again.

If I’ve learned anything after forty years in politics, it’s the fact that charisma, like beauty, exists far more in the eye of the beholder than within the character of a candidate. Any politician who embraces this madness from the crowd — popular adulation without limits — does so at considerable risk of wrenching disillusionment and disappointment once elected. Four years ago Barack Obama attempted to warn his supporters that he would not prove a perfect president — that he could only attempt to do his very best.

There’s no reason for Colorado’s government to be stuck in the past. And yet it is.

The rules and procedures that govern state hiring and personnel management in Colorado have not been updated or revised in over 40 years. In the context of a system that employs over 30,000 hardworking people, our obsolete management procedures mean large-scale inefficiency and waste.

What do Hector and Yeira Beltrán, Enrique and Bethsaida Cisneros, and Iván and Claudia Vasquez have in common?

They are victims of our drug war. They live on the Mexican side of the U.S. border in the pathway of the billions of dollars in drugs that come northward to meet the demand in this country. In all the debates about legalization — marijuana and Amendment 64 in Colorado — their story is the one you never hear, the story of those who have to survive in countries that we have destabilized by our desire for drugs.