State Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, has this crazy idea that people shouldn't be able to buy elected officials. For some strange reason, he wants to close a donation loophole that currently allows people to give as much money as they want to the politician of their choice, provided they call it a "gift" or set it aside to cover "office expenses." He figures that Amendment 27, passed by voters, signals a desire on the part of Coloradans to get money out of state politics and that tens of thousands of dollars changing hands at the Capitol can't be a good thing.

"Why would you ever give a legislator money if you didn't hope to get something from it?" asks Tupa. "It doesn't pass the smell test."

Hey, Tupa. This is a America! Everything is for sale!

Under Tupa's bill, Senate Bill 40, politicians would only be able to collect in donations the amount they didn't raise in campaign donations. Under Amendment 27, the max is $90,000. A lawmaker who collected $50,000 in campaign donations would be allowed to accept $40,000 in gifts, while those who've already reached the max would be barred from accepting more.

Tupa's colleagues, both Dems and Repubs, are opposing the bill. Some say they need the money in order to finance their operations at the Capitol. Others say that the only real way to keep politics clean is to get government out of people's lives—whatever that means. Opponents of the bill agree that this "gift" money is important, particularly at a time when the state government is broke and can't pay for their photocopies, interns and two-martini lunches. And even if someone gives them 10 grand, no way will they allow that to influence which way they vote on a particular bill.

Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, thinks that setting modest limits on the amount of money a legislator is allowed to accept and requiring lawmakers to report their "gifts" ought to be enough to keep them on the straight and narrow. Those who swap votes for cash would be "criticized," he says.

Criticized? Wow! That's harsh. Hardly anyone criticizes politicians these days. How will they possibly survive such rough treatment?

Get real! Money does nothing in politics but corrupt. Tupa's bill makes good sense. Let the state pay for the people's business. If the state is too broke to take on that responsibility, then politicians can do what the rest of us do during tight times—tighten their belts, suck it up and work harder.

It reads like a bad World War II novel. Johnnie Chennault, devout Baptist and father of 11, is about to leave for war. His submissive wife, Ronda, gathers her multitudinous offspring around her and tells the papers that her job in life is to support him. His employer extols his character and generously offers to make up the difference between his full-time civilian salary and the pittance he'll receive while risking his life on active duty. The media coo and gurgle at this heartwarming tale of traditional family and sacrifice.

Unfortunately, it's not a novel. Chennault, a Navy Reservist, is about to be deployed to Iraq, leaving his wife, his church, his parents and the entire community to help raise his brood. If he dies, he will leave 12 people without a form of support. His reasons are ostensibly noble: He wants to serve his country, and he doesn't believe that the fact he has 11 children should absolve him of this responsibility.

We're not so sure. It seems irresponsible for a man with so many dependents to head into war, particularly an unnecessary war. Then again, it's probably irresponsible for a man to have so many dependents in the first place.

But perhaps Chennault has a secret motivation for heading to Iraq: He has 11 children, for godsake! That's enough to make anyone—man or woman—want to get on a plane and head for the desert.

Ronda doesn't object to his leaving her in Tennessee with a house full of offspring. Her kids range in age from 8 months to 17 years.

"My mother told me when I got married, 'Your life is about him,'" she told the Associated Press, setting women back a century.

Still, if there's a silver lining to the situation it's that Robin will get a break from reproduction—and a chance to do something besides her husband.

George W's stance on the environment is simple: Exploit it. His lackey in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, David Tenny, has ordered Colorado's national forest management to eliminate rules from its 15-year management plan that were designed to protect newly transplanted lynx and keep minimum water levels in streams so that fish could have something in which to swim.

Why? Because White House policy directives call for oil and gas development, as well as logging, on our public lands, fish and fuzzy cats be damned.

This directive, pronounced from on high this past week, is likely to face opposition from environmentalists, who had hoped to see the lynx re-established in the state, and from recreationists, who need water in order to raft, swim and fish.

Perhaps Colorado's forest managers will tell Tenny and his boss to go screw themselves. One can only hope. In the meantime, it's become abundantly clear that George W is the worst thing to happen to the environment since DDT.

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