Columns

After months of conjecture, the shoe finally dropped last week and all but the most notorious of the cheaters from the biogenesis scandal accepted suspensions from Major League Baseball and agreed to sit out the rest of the 2013 regular season. And yet, this resolution leaves me feeling like the integrity of our national pastime is still suspect from at least a couple perspectives.

During the 1983 session of the Colorado General Assembly, state Rep. Arie Taylor of Denver introduced legislation to prohibit a person from holding more than one elected office at the same time. She was unhappy that Bob Crider was simultaneously serving on both the Denver City Council and the Denver Board of Education. The bill easily passed its first committee vote and appeared headed for passage in the House of Representatives when a freshman legislator from northwest Colorado, Dave Wattenberg, got up to speak.

What a difference a congressional election cycle can make! Two years ago, before the congressional district boundaries had even been finalized, Democratic candidates were off and running in the 2012 elections for three of the four congressional seats Republicans held in Colorado. Only Doug Lamborn, from the reliably Republican 5th Congressional District that is dominated by Colorado Springs, didn’t have an announced challenger.

Oh, to be transported back to a more innocent time, just a few weeks ago, when the greatest problem with the exercise of federal power seemed (merely) to be the Internal Revenue Service’s selective targeting of a handful of political organizations. Compared to what we’ve learned since, the IRS scandal seems a passing trifle.