Jay Fawcett has dropped in on the Drinking Liberally crowd several times in the past few months. Jay is planning to run for Congress as a Democrat, in a district that is registered as 46% Republican and votes over 60% Republican. I think there is one elected Democratic official in the entire area covered by Colorado’s 5th Congressional District. He was just elected as a state representative of the largely liberal Manitou Springs district, and it was a squeaker (before that there hadn’t been any elected Democrats in the 5th Congressional for ten years or more, I think.)

Joel Hefley, the incumbent, has decided to retire after 20 years, 14 more years than what he promised to serve. So, it is a wide open race for the Republicans. They will most likely put up the most reactionary idiot they can find, and the pool is deep in Colorado Springs, and expect to waltz to Washington. And they will likely succeed since, in the general election, most voters in this district just punch “Republican” on the ballot, independent of species.

I did a slow check on the registered voters in the 5th District (My google fu was not strong today) and found that 46% are Reps, 22% are Dems, and 32% are unaffiliated. (The one voter registered to the Communist Party doesn’t get much attention in the percentages. ) That’s of a total of 402,834 registered voters, as of Feb. 2006. (I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out the approximate numerical totals, if they so desire)

As I googled, I found that there are 9 recognized Political Parties in Colorado: The Dems, The Reps, The Libertarians, The American Constitution Party, The Green Party, The Natural Law Party, The Reform Party, the Pro Life Party, and the Gun Owners’ Right Party. In the listing of the voters, the one Communist Party voter may not be, but the Column header said COP, so that is what I assumed. ACP was another column header, so it isn’t them. Anyway, the Minor Political Parties (they have their own status) registered 0.3% of the district voters that bothered to register.

Back to my original thoughts, I went to Jay’s web page and didn’t see anything to inspire me to actively support his candidacy. Other than “he’s not a Republican dittohead” there isn’t much there to inspire support. Of course, for some in our district that is more than enough.

I was really hoping for some inspiration and I guess that I can’t expect Jay to put anything inflammatory on his web site. His campaign goal has to be to get 90% of that unaffiliated group to vote for him, and that’s a group that went about 50% Bush in the last election.

Looking for inspiration, I have come up with some questions to ask the candidate. (note: on some of these issues I don’t have an opinion but I would be interested in hearing how a candidate thinks about these sort of things. )

Questions for the candidate, take as much time as you need:

How will you address Water Rights between the states?

At what point should Water Right Contracts be re-negotiated?

Should Water Rights be renegotiated on a centennial, sesquicentennial, or other basis.

Should Individual Property Mineral and Water Rights be subject to renegotiation at any time?

How much land in a state should the Federal Government own?

What sort of compensation should the Federal Government collect for use of government property and resources?

What is the role of the Federal Government in K-12 education?

Should the National Guard be deployed overseas without a Declaration of War by Congress?

Should Active Reserves be deployed into Combat Zones without a Declaration of War by Congress?

Should Reservists be activated beyond their normal training schedule without a Declaration of War by Congress?

How much water should Mexico get from the Colorado River in the event of a long-term drought?

Should Western rivers be dammed whenever/wherever possible?

Should the appointment of lifetime judicial positions require a 3/5, or 2/3, vote of the Senate to confirm (as part of advise and consent)?

Is the US at fault in the Canadian Timber dustup?

Is a hemispheric Free-Trade zone desirable? Free-Trade Zones in general?

What is your take on Industrial Farming? e.g. pig factories, chicken factories, agribusiness, etc.

What is your take on an Estate Tax?

What is the role of the Federal Government compared to State and Local Governments?

Should the Federal Government promote non-nuclear, non-fossil fuel energy systems? If so, How?

Should the Federal Government promote nuclear energy systems? If so, How?

Should the Federal Government promote fossil fuel energy systems? If so, How?

Should predators be re-introduced into Federal Lands?

What is your take on the concept of the Corporation as an individual?

What are the benefits of Corporate Capitalism?

What are the dangers of Corporate Capitalism?

What Constitutes “general Welfare”?

Are there any elements of current federal law that rely on “regulating interstate commerce” as justification that you would repeal?

What Constitutes the limited times referred to in: “securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”?

What are unalienable rights?

When are “unalienable rights”, alienable?

Is privacy an unalienable right?

How would you solve the “Tragedy of the commons” problem?