You're a cannabis grower? Well, no water for you! (Pueblo: sales, lease)

[DurangoJoe]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

^Do you even know Scott Tipton? I doubt it. I do--he's a straight shooter, uncommon for most of today's politicians. I don't always agree with him, but I voted for him when I lived in Colorado and I would again if I still lived in Colorado.

Good for you Jazz. We all have our choices. You make yours, I'll make mine.

And yes, I make it a point to "know" the legislators who represent me.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by DurangoJoe

And yes, I make it a point to "know" the legislators who represent me.

By "know," I mean personally know the person, not just read about their record or just shake their hand at some meeting.

[McGowdog]

What exactly are we talking about here, Jazz? Are you stalking them? Following them into the bathroom and stuff? That may be how y'all do it in Wyoming.

A simple observation from afar usually works for me. The less I know about a politician the better. Too much advertisement worries me. If you're actually acquainted with a politician and you know them to be a good person, that's rare.

[CosmicWizard]

The way politics plays out today, I think it makes little difference how much integrity the person has in their private life. When it comes to politics, politicians of any stripe are first and foremost beholden to their corporate sponsors.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by McGowdog

If you're actually acquainted with a politician and you know them to be a good person, that's rare.

Rare it may be for some, but I've personally known a number of them in Colorado and Wyoming, including several Governors, several US Senators, a number of State Legislators, and couple of US Cabinet members. Some were great people, some were snakes, but I knew 'em. One of the really amazing things was that several who were viciously pilloried in the press were actually some of the most honest and un-beholden to the special interests of the bunch. Conversely, one of the most publicly popular had absolutely zero ethics and was one of the most repugnant people that I've ever known. He was so bad that his own brother actively supported his opponents in every election.

[McGowdog]

Well that's impressive and believable, but most of us I would venture, are not so situated to gather such background with these folks.

I know our county sheriff as I went to high school with him, knew his brothers and a sister, and had his mom for one of my English classes. I knew him somewhat since I was in 6th grade.

I vote for him and have to cross my own party line in order to do so. I also have to listen to my own party talk garbage about him mainly, as I gather, because he has the wrong "letter" next to his name.

He, btw, despises the Amendment 64 and its possible ramifications... oh, and he's a Democrat! So much for that stereotype!

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

You are absolutely WRONG if you think the Federal government does not have the right to regulate the sale and distribution of drugs and other substances under laws duly enacted by Congress and signed by the President. That has been upheld time and time again as being Constitutional in the Courts. Get over it.

The Federal government also has the authority to enforce regulations in regards to interstate commerce, especially those involving the use of Federal taxpayer dollars, and the Bureau of Reclamation certainly falls under that tent.

Take a lesson here in civics. Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to make laws. Once such laws are signed by the President and become Federal law, it is the Executive Branch's sworn duty to enforce and administer those laws, not pick and choose which ones they enforce or obey. The Bureau of Reclamation is a sub-agency of the Department of the Interior--an EXECUTIVE BRANCH AGENCY. By obeying a duly enacted federal law, the BOR is doing EXACTLY what it is mandated to do under the powers granted to the Executive Branch by the US Constitution. There is nothing unconstitutional about that. Until the MJ law (or any other law) is declared unconstitutional by the Courts, it is the agency's duty to uphold it to the best of their ability. Why is that so damned hard to people to understand?

Well, I have my difficulties these days getting my neurons to work and making sure my synapses fire only if the "make my day" law is in effect, but even back in the good old days, it could be damned hard for me to understand Constitutional law, and somehow I don't think I'm alone. Throw in Western Water Law and probably only one old retired judge, now a recluse living somewhere on the Colorado Plateau has any understanding of the Gordian knot of laws, rules and regulations at play here, and he ain't available for comment.

Thus set adrift, I started out by Googling the history of the BOR's authority to involve itself in the construction of Western water projects such as the creation of Lake Mead and the rape of Glen Canyon to produce Lake Powell. After wading thru the standard diatribes by the standard gangs of crazies, I hit gold - a 35 page analysis of US Western Water Law put out by the World Bank. And I quote:

It was not until the Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Arizona v. California,
373 U.S. 546, that [another] avenue for the resolution of interstate water disputes was
discovered, namely Congressional exercise of its broad authority under the
Commerce Clause of the Constitution to allocate the waters of interstate rivers.

Article I, section 10, clause 3 of the United States Constitution provides that”
“No State shall, without the Consent of Congress . . . enter into any Agreement or
Compact with another State or with a foreign Power.” Although the compact clause
seems to mandate prior Congressional consent for all interstate agreements, the
Supreme Court has held that consent is required only where the compact threatens
to significantly impinge on national interests and may be evidenced either before or
after agreement is reached. The typical practice is for Congress to enact specific
consent legislation after the states have reached agreement, which consent may
contain conditions adding to or modifying the compact and usually expressly
reserving authority for Congress to revoke or amend its consent. Moreover,
Congressional consent does not preclude a later Congress from enacting legislation
inconsistent with the approved compact, even if the consent legislation does not
preserve that right.

Although the Court has emphasized that compacts are essentially contracts, it
has also held that the Congressional consent legislation also makes a compact a
federal statute, which under accepted principles of statutory interpretation
presumably may supercede inconsistent state and federal laws except as otherwise
provided in the compact or consent legislation. This dual status presents a number of
significant conceptual and legal issues which the Court has not yet sorted out.

(no kidding)

The analysis continues:

A study of interstate water compacts prepared for the National Water Commission in 1972 evaluated the effectiveness of existing water compacts and compared the compact mechanism to other institutional approaches to interstate river basin management. It concluded that the chief advantage of the compact approach is its adaptability to the special, often unique physical, social or political needs of a particular basin.

If that didn't nail the answer to the wall hard enough, the World Bank would like for everybody to understand that:

Since a compact must be the product of agreement among the states, it can be shaped as the states desire in accordance with their particular regional philosophy of appropriate intergovernmental relations, rather than being imposed by Congress or the Supreme Court. It can be targeted on a single problem, such as water allocation, or may seek more comprehensive, multipurpose goals that permit flexible, adaptive management of the compact allocations. Similarly, it may create a permanent administrative entity and endow it with such powers as the states consider appropriate to accomplish their regional objectives.

So, with the agreement of the other impacted Western states, Colorado can shape its water use in accordance with its "particular regional philosophy" that growing cannabis is a perfectly acceptable activity and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court can impose a different set of water allocations on the state of Colorado. Or so it seems to Colorado Rambler, member of the great unwashed masses of society.

Originally Posted by lurtsman

Jazz, you know I have a ton of respect for you, but even I stopped reading after the first sentence. There is no federal law because the law is unconstitutional. That's it, it's over. The Bureau is attempting to circumvent the democracy. They have no business doing that, because they are servants of the people, they are not masters of the people. It sounds like they need to be put in their place.

Originally Posted by lurtsman

Jazz, calm down.

I know civics quite well. I am not dense, and I did my own research. Congress creates laws, yes that is true. However, congress does not have the authority to create laws that are contrary to the constitution.

The federal government has the authority to regulate interstate commerce, but unless the federal government is recognizing the sale of recreational MJ as commerce, which I did not think they did, then it is not interstate commerce. That is the crux of the issue. The feds would like to use the interstate commerce clause to allow them to literally regulate absolutely anything because if we stretch the meaning far enough, everything is covered. If we allow "one step removed" reasoning, we can state that because a man grows a plants a tomato seed in his backyard, he will not buy as many tomatoes at the store. Because the local farmer does not get to sell this man a tomato, he might try to sell it to a chain that would transport it to another store. Once we accept that reasoning, then we are allowing the Feds to regulate a man or child from planting a seed in their backyard, or from harvesting a piece of fruit growing from a tree that naturally grew on their property.

In my opinion, that is beyond the reach the federal government should have. As you know, the tenth amendment states:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Given that the federal government does not have any authority that it is not explicitly given unto it within the constitution, I can see no way for them to gain authority in this regard other than to over-reach on the commerce clause.

It is true that the courts have upheld the use of the commerce clause, but for decades they upheld segregation. They are far from infallible, and the current buffoons are doing more to harm our country than most of our worst enemies. Need I point out, prior to supporting segregation, they failed to strike down laws regarding slavery? Within the last year they have ruled in favor of Mon-satan in a case that any entry level lawyer could have seen through. However, they were so grounded in their own elitism that they tried to see beyond it all and drilled another nail into the coffin of the American economy.

So we have a judicial branch, that has regularly failed the people, being tasked with reviewing only the laws that are brought to their attention. The laws are created by congress, which struggles to maintain a double digit approval rating. Yet even the incompetent supreme court has not yet ruled specifically on the legitimacy of this issue. Yet there are claims that clearly the Federal government can do this, not because of a belief in the federal government, but rather because of a belief that the ends justify the means. That the government should be allowed to do this, because it would be better for society if the substance were banned. Yet that conclusions regularly leaps from an enormous investment in a "public education" campaign by the industries that had the most to lose during an era in which marketers have been allowed to make almost any claim that could be empirically disproved.

I stand behind my position that the the interstate commerce clause shall not be interpreted so broadly as to completely circumvent the tenth amendment.

To provide another example: Prostitution is not legal. Yet if the Federal government decides to consider it a form of commerce, than the federal government's authority under the commerce clause (if it is interpreted so broadly), shall include the right to determine what sexual activities, and with what frequency, a man and his spouse may engage in. Because in the aggregate, according to Rehnquist's Court, these activities may substantially affect interstate commerce. Would any of us support such a law? I doubt it, though a few might if they believed the law could be used to target specific groups. The issue is not whether such a law exists, but rather whether congress should have such an authority. This is not a slippery slope, it is precisely the question of jurisdiction that we are debating.

The government has a right to create laws relating to our commerce in selling these crops to other states, but not in restricting our growth within the state.

I strongly disagree with the courts interpretation, because I understand that these powers were not specifically granted to the federal government. It isn't hard for me to understand, what I have is an informed understanding of the laws that is contradictory to yours. I do not believe either of us is suffering from a lack of knowledge. I simply do not believe the ends can justify an attempt to circumvent the constitution, and I do believe that the current interpretation of the interstate commerce clause is precisely that--a circumvention of the tenth amendment.

Therefore, I stand by my view that the behavior of the federal government, and thus of the BOR, is beyond the scope of their authority.

And I am in complete agreement. After all, if you can't trust all those pronouncements from the World Bank that I quoted above, might as well go back to doing business with beads and shiny objects.

Originally Posted by jazzlover

^Do you even know Scott Tipton? I doubt it. I do--he's a straight shooter, uncommon for most of today's politicians. I don't always agree with him, but I voted for him when I lived in Colorado and I would again if I still lived in Colorado.

Even friends disagree sometimes, and I must disagree with Jazz's evaluation of Scott Tipton. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us do not have Jazz's connections - especially when it comes to the Federal level. I make a point of being politically aware and have been known to send e-mails and phone calls to every single member of the Colorado State Legislature if I feel strongly enough about something. At the state level I often get personal replies and some of them are even thoughtful and concerned about the issue(s) I bring up. When I lived in Manitou Springs, I was often in contact with the member of the state legislature who represented our district on the Dem side of the aisle. He served out several terms and would have won re-election for the 3rd or 4th time, but he opted out of the political arena. He once actually told me that it took him a solid month alone off in the mountains to wash the taste of Denver's political scene from his mouth when the legislative session finally adjourned each year. Out here I had quite the on-going conversation with the local district rep, as well. He was a Republican, but I told him he had not just my vote but my active support behind any campaign he cared to enter - be it for governor or any other office on up, including those in DC. Alas, he also became disgusted with politics in general and retired from the field - a great loss not just for our area, but for the entire state. So my experience on the state level is that the politicians who have integrity and care about the voters and the well-being of the state of Colorado end up fleeing from the cesspool of politics - a great shame.

And don't think that Scott Tipton has snuck past my radar. He and the other members of the Colorado delegation to Congress also are the nonplussed recipients of my e-mails and phone campaigns, etc. Tipton gets special notice from me since I'm stuck with him as my official representative. I've been to hear him talk in person and was not overwhelmed by the experience. He may be nice to people who have better political ins than I do, and I'm sure he's quite charming to those who can afford to write him nice campaign checks.

However, I imagine that few will be surprised to read that I do not fall into either of the categories above. Now, I don't expect my Congressperson to send me hand written, 20 page replies when I express my concerns, but it would be nice if some intern on the staff would at least run a quick computer match to see which of several dozen form letters is the one called for by way of reply. Tipton's staff always sends me a form letter about the national debt and cutting government spending in reply to my e-mails concerning homelessness, the treatment accorded our veterans, and once a diatribe on the fate of the pika and Colorado's forests due to global climate change. I can forgive Tipton and his outfit for being indifferent to the pika, but a form letter implying that the Nation's well being can be best served by cutting the pensions of our veterans who put their lives on the line for us and just throwing them out on the street makes me very, very angry to put it mildly. And you have my permission to tell Mr. Tipton this the next time you two get together for an informal rap session. Oh, and ask him where he stands on the issue of the Upper Colorado River Basin and the enforced discharge of Colorado's precious river waters so that the people of Phoenix can have lawns and swimming pools. I'd e-mail Mr. Tipton myself, but I've already memorized his form letter on fiscal responsibility.

Originally Posted by CosmicWizard

The way politics plays out today, I think it makes little difference how much integrity the person has in their private life. When it comes to politics, politicians of any stripe are first and foremost beholden to their corporate sponsors.

Short, sweet, and to the point. I could have dispensed with my entire post by simply quoting the above wisdom from Cosmic.

[StealthRabbit]

need to 'grow-your-own' and have PLENTY of water (for FREE!) ?

Just shuffle another 1200 miles NW.

100+ inches of annual drizzle in my WA location.
Lots of cartels have illegal growing operations in the HUGE National Forests.

Need to be careful when poking around the back country.

No income tax too! if you plan on reaping HIGH profits!
Business tax is a bear.

[GregW]

Maybe it is time for the congress to rewrite all of the Western Water law into a cohesive and rational plan for the equitable distribution of a scarce substance. Distributing water as a quantity instead of a ratio is an absurdity as illustrated by the IIRC Six States Compact.

As far as the current topic is concerned I think what the recipient does with the water he is allocated is his business not any governments.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by GregW

Maybe it is time for the congress to rewrite....

I used to have the same dream, that congress would actually do something worthwhile to help the country. Congress only cares about the ultra-wealthy and mega-donor people/firms, the rest of us can go pound sand as far as they're concerned. So I gave up that dream years ago, realizing we the people are alone and must fend for ourselves; Darwinism by neglect.

Truth is, IMO, the western states have no hope of congress "fixing" anything, be it re-wickering the old water compacts or anything else, it'll just be one big bribe-fest. Western states have a far-better chance of succeeding if they work it out among themselves and keep the bordello in DC out of it.