Marijuana: Amendment 64 camp prefers deal to suing over Blue Book language

By Michael Roberts Tue., Sep. 11 2012 at 1:02 PM

Brian Vicente's e-mail to Mike Mauer:

Director Mauer --
I am writing with the hope that we can settle our dispute over the blue book, ending the litigation in which we are currently engaged. We merely seek a fair outcome, and believe what we are proposing below is entirely fair. We hope you will agree.

We believe it is important to examine this situation objectively and with a desire to assess the actual intent of the members of the committee you direct. Amy Zook's e-mail of September 7 focused on the technicalities of the votes related to paragraph 1 in the Arguments For section. Any intellectually honest assessment of the September 5 hearing, however, leads to the clear conclusion that there were *not* 12 members who wanted to delete the last three sentences of that staff-prepared paragraph. This is clearly demonstrated by the second vote, in which six (or eight) members of the committee voted to insert those sentences back in. This means that only seven (or five) members of the committee actually wanted the last three sentences removed.

It seems that as the Director of the Legislative Council, your primary responsibility with respect to the blue book is to ensure that the process and the book are fair and impartial. Hiding behind technicalities, while knowing that there was not true two-thirds support for removing the final three sentences of paragraph 1, is far from fair and impartial.

We are hoping that you will choose what we believe is the most fair means of resolving this situation: simply survey the 13 members who were present on September 13 and have them say, yes or no, whether they believe the final three sentences from paragraph 1 should be deleted. If 12 of these members indicate that they want to remove the three sentences, then they can and should be removed. If not, the staff-prepared three sentences should remain in the blue book.

Our opponents in the No on 64 campaign are complaining that this situation is wasting taxpayer dollars on litigation. If you are not moved by our pleas for fairness, we hope that you will at least respect their opinion and will end this litigation before the hearing tomorrow by simply surveying the 13 members. We are confident you will find that there are not 12 members in support of removing the sentences. You can then, with the power delegated to you as Director, reinsert the three sentences and begin the printing of the blue book.

Please inform me by 10:30 this morning whether you are willing to survey the 13 members present on September 5 in order to resolve this situation and settle the pending legal action. If we have not heard back from you in the affirmative by that time, we will notify the media that we attempted to settle this dispute amicably and fairly, but you rejected our reasonable proposal.

Sincerely,

Brian Vicente, Co-Director
Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol

Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol v. State of Colorado

Tags:

Amendment 64, Blue Book, Legislative Council Committee, Mike Mauer, No on 64, Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, Rob Corry, Roger Sherman, Smart Colorado

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RobertChase topcommenter

No; the printing of the Blue Book was not delayed. CPR inaccurately reported this earlier today. Since the text was to be sent to the printer Monday for proofs to be produced and the State said that Wednesday was when they needed to OK the proofs for printing, the State agreed that it would nolt order the printing pending the hearing Wednesday. Since nothing has been re-scheduled or postponed, it is inaccurate to say that Judge Plank "put off the printing of the Blue Book" -- as I understand it, the parites acted specifically so as to prevent such a characterization from being made.

P.S. According to Corry, "a statute we site [sic] in our brief says that the legislative council staff" -- represented by Mike Mauer, the staff director -- "can put it back." -- cite

malcolmkyle16 topcommenter

We just need to throw a few more trillion dollars at this: Give the police total power and proper weapons—like Death-Rays that work on large crowds. Take away, forever, what's left of everybody's stupid rights and liberties, indulge ourselves in even more wishful thinking or bizarre pseudo-science, then, before even more hippies—or the pathetically ill & dying—get a chance to corrupt and endanger our truly caring society with their evil plants, send all our children to Newt's Moon Colony of re-education to be taught about marital fidelity.

IcePick

Well made point, Rob:

"They should probably have a conversation with the twenty-some DAs in the State of Colorado to encourage them to stop going to court thousands of times on these cases."