Hal Bidlack
As I sat down to write my first column of the week, I was once again confronted with the challenge of narrowing down the pile of Colorado Politics stories that caught my eye to a manageable level. A terrific story you should stop and read right now concerns the degree to which Colorado’s lowest levels of government are functioning or, all too often, are not functioning. I’ve often written about the simple fact though Americans pay the most attention to the national level of government, it is the lowest levels — city and county — that have the greatest impact on your lives. This CoPo story really drives the point home.
You may recall an earlier column, when I mentioned while I was working for U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, I spent 25 minutes on the phone with a constituent who had a big pothole in front of his house. He had it in his mind Bennet should personally come out and inspect the hole, before directing federal resources (maybe the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers?) to fill it up. I offered the caller the phone number of the county works department, but he wanted Sen. Bennet, dadgummit, because he paid Bennet’s salary.
It is the local levels that really matter most to most folks, even if they don’t believe it. And ace journalist Thelma Grimes does a terrific job explaining the challenges facing many of Colorado’s smaller communities when it comes to governance. But since she did such a great job, I won’t try to comment on it, but you do want to read it.
But I’m not going to talk about that.
Instead, I’d like to note another CoPo story, one that involves one of the top conspirators in the Big Lie and former President Donald Trump’s false assertion of massive voter fraud. It seems John Eastman, a lawyer with surprisingly unlawful thoughts, is in danger of being thrown off the conservative team pursuing a civil law case here in Colorado. The case involves alleged reprimands against a student who wore patches that apparently violated school policy. One was the Gadsden Flag and other patches with guns.
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But in Colorado, to be a lawyer on a case you must be in good standing with the court systems in whatever other states you practice. Eastman’s law license has been suspended in California, and that suspension therefore renders him ineligible to practice law in Colorado. The California judge, after a long trial, ruled Eastman committed misconduct for “dishonesty, failure to support the laws and the Constitution” as well as “moral turpitude.”
Oh, and he also faces actual criminal charges in Georgia and was indicted just last week in Arizona. Eastman has until May 10 to explain to a judge why he should still be eligible to practice in the Centennial State. I wouldn’t hold my breath, were I he.
One fascinating thing I learned from the story was Eastman spent some time on the faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder as a “visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy,” which I think is a terrific thing for the school to do. When I was teaching at the Air Force Academy, I would often drive my students, who tended to be quite conservative overall, a bit nuts by pointing out research has clearly shown that the more education you get, the more liberal you grow. That part is undeniable.
The cause, of course, is where the disagreement lies. Liberals will say that shift in thinking is because the more you learn, the more liberal positions become clearly the proper way of looking at things. As Stephen Colbert said (while in character as his comedic conservative persona at a White House Correspondents Dinner), reality has a well-known liberal bias. Conservatives will say the shift is because universities are dominated by liberal professors who essentially brainwash the students to be more liberal.
And so, given the controversy, I was actually quite pleased to see CU-Boulder brought in Eastman (whose scholarship, before Trump, was thoughtful and powerful) to expressly represent the conservative point of view. He was on campus during the 2020-2021 school year. It didn’t, unfortunately, go all that well, in that so few students signed up for his class it was cancelled, but Eastman was permitted to continue his academic research for the rest of the school year.
Eastman is not the first Trump lawyer to lose his ability to practice law in Colorado due to election lies. L. Lin Wood was also barred from practicing here because he was no longer in good standing in his home state of Georgia. Heck, in addition to false claims of election fraud, Wood even suggested firing squads should execute Mike Pence.
The Trump spider web is large, but ironically it seems to often ensnare those who had been most loyal and enthusiastic of the Big Lie. All this while the former president sits each day in a courtroom, charged with dozens of felonies.
I’m not a lawyer, but from a lay position, it seems right to me if a professional, be it a lawyer, a doctor, a pharmacist, or other licensed professional, loses a license in one state due to criminal-ish actions, you shouldn’t be able to just move to another state and hang out a shingle.
John Eastman is not a stupid man. He’s actually quite bright. And so, this is not the case of a minion whose attention was captured by something shiny. Rather, his story is that of a very bright man who was willing to subvert the fundamental laws of the nation to essentially stage a coup.
I’m perfectly content not having him in Colorado courtrooms.
Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.