2020 Voter Guide
THE PEOPLE AND ISSUES THAT IMPACT OUR INDUSTRY
Making Sense of State Races
By Drew Hamrick , Colorado Apartment Association
By far the most impactful politicians to our industry are Colorado House and Senate members . The vast majority of laws that impact owner / resident relationships , property rights and development come from the State . Because the core of our industry is the ownership of real estate , we are particularly vulnerable to change . Real estate can ’ t be moved away from harmful laws and investment decisions are made on a very long-term horizon . Consequently , any change in the status quo can have an enormous negative impact on our primary asset and our businesses .
This economic and political reality makes us a “ no ” vote on most change . It has been over 20 years since our association drafted and tried to have legislation passed . Instead , we are called upon again and again to try to block and defeat harmful legislation . The almost hyperactive level of proposed legislative change regarding rental housing keeps us very busy and slowly takes its toll on our industry . Defeating a bill usually takes place in a committee hearing of either the Colorado House or the Colorado Senate . The makeup of these committees is based on which party has the majority of that legislative body .
The larger the majority one party has - the more one sided its makeup is in any one of these committees .
Colorado has and is likely to keep all three legislative branches of its government controlled by the Democratic Party . The current advantage to the Democrats is such that they have one more vote than Republicans in each Senate committee and two more votes than Republicans in each House committee .
As a practical matter that means that we are constantly searching for a moderate Democrat ( and sometimes two ) to vote against a bill that ’ s harmful to our industry . This can be a very tall order and sometimes unattainable .
While there are lots of political issues out there that or individual members may feel passionate about and that may be of great personal interest , none rise to the importance of these industry related votes and their impact on our paychecks and the cost of our products . We are cognizant of the fact that our members have widely divergent political outlooks . While many perceive a somewhat politically homogeneous membership , 35 % of our members are Democrats and more than 20 % identified themselves as having socialist economic philosophies .
Regardless of what your political philosophy and persuasion might be , what is good for our industry is a divided government wherein we can more easily kill harmful legislation .
With this in mind we suggest to our membership that it ignore all other interesting , emotional and partisan issues and help us achieve more balanced representation in the state house , which can only be achieved through voting for Republican state representatives . Simply put , an inferior Republican candidate makes it easier to defeat harmful legislation than a superior Democratic candidate .
With that said , the Association still financially supports a large number of moderate Democrats . Often the fracture line on legislative votes is the division between moderate Democrats and more radical members of the party , rather than the fracture line between Democrats and Republicans . Because of this and because we know some of you simply cannot bring yourselves to vote for a Republican , we offer the following list which includes those Democrats that we have contributed to and have shown some support for our industry and our legislative goals .
18 | TRENDS OCTOBER 2020 www . aamdhq . org