Bette Rose Ryan

While I believe that people must take responsibility for their actions, including having sex, I do believe there are circumstances where an abortion should be an option. Rape, incest, the health of the mother, the health of the unborn all come to mind. I personally believe that abortion as a means of birth control is wrong, however, I would not support outlawing the "morning after' pill, nor outlawing birth control services and devices. At this point, I believe this is a choice best left to the woman and her doctor until the unborn can live outside the womb without assistance.

Agree

People who are against abortion should never have to pay either directly or indirectly for abortions to be preformed. However, should a clinic or other providers be able to prove the funds they receive shall not be used for elective abortions, government funds could be provided if there are such funds available. A hospital should not have to wait until a mother is truly on the verge of dying to perform surgery for, say an ectopic pregnancy, for fear of losing their funding.

Agree

I do believe that I own my own body, therefore I have the right to end my life. Anything that I have a right to do, I have a right to hire done. However, all circumstances must be taken into an account and it is one of the reasons we have advance directives. No one but the person choosing to die has the right to make that decision. Consider dementia patients. Sad as it may be, no one has the right to decide for them, even if they no longer have the capability to decide.

I would like to reduce taxes in all areas. I would like to see more direct use taxes and fewer general fund taxes. I would push to end the practice of using fees to avoid TABOR. An example of direct tax would be if gasoline tax was put directly into the funding of roads. Another example would be a tax on children's clothing and toys as a way to fund schools instead of using property tax.

Did not answer

Disagree

Things are less valued if they are free. There are good, well paying jobs that don't need a college education, yet we push college. Often college degrees aren't used. Many people paid their own way; offering college for free is a slap in the face to them, just as student loan forgiveness is to those who paid their debts. We need to encourage trade work, entrepreneurship, inventiveness, and other pathways to a successful life for everyone's sake. Free college doesn't help and often hinders that.

Disagree

Just because a business offers its goods to the public, doesn't mean the public has a right to that business, just as offering your home for sale doesn't give people access and control of your home. Courts have upheld the right of association and that should mean who I do work for and what work I do. But we shouldn't make laws restricting who I may preform my work for either.

None except when the actual building is unsafe because of flood, fire, or other physical damage.

None of these, although B/C come closest and C is the closest. Basic and emergency medical care should be available to all but we need to find better ways to fund it. Medicare was promised to those who paid through their working years and should not be denied. Medicare should be better controlled so only those who truly need it receive it. Instead of assistance, the government should work toward lowering medical cost. The first part of that is to get out of the way of innovative treatments and procedures. There was a huge step forward with introduction of Pas and NPs, which meat people could see someone other than the doctor for some problems. In a perfect world, basic and emergency medical would be cheap enough even our poor could afford it. The world is not perfect but we can work toward that goal.

The government should never be allowed to require vaccines. It is a fundamental invasion of privacy. People own their own body. What goes on between an employers and their employees should not be our business. Employers should be allowed to require vaccines as a condition of employment just as the employee has the right to quit if that is a requirement. Private schools are private and can set their own rules, just as employers can. Public schools are public and must recognize they are part of the government. This means they cannot require vaccinations but they can make arrangements for those who are unvaccinated to receive their 'free' education apart from those who have been vaccinated.

End our foreign wars and occupation. Stop picking whose side we are going to be on this year. Come back to being a neutral country. Stop making their faith a target. Stop supporting tyrants financially and supporting them with weapons. End our policing of the world policies and only aid those who have been invaded.

Strongly Agree

But we, as individuals should be doing as much as we can to add to this pressure. Don't buy goods made in Israel. Write letters. Encourage our government to stop treating Israel as a favored/special nation. Learn the history of the area. Who started the six day war? Who fired the first shot? No elected official can control all of their people. We have to remember just because some people are loud (death to Israel, for instance) does not mean that the majority believe or support those ideas.

Disagree

We need to have a way for peaceful people to cross the borders without undue stress or tension. We also have to prevent those would commit crime in this nation and flee to Mexico from coming into our country. The best way is to have open immigration with background checks. Governments should not interfere with the travel of peaceful people. They should not be allowed to interfere with the employee/employer contract provided that people are not being enslaved or unpaid.

Everyone who has not committed a crime and who is not contagious. And we should never have people from South America sitting at our borders for months, proving they are not ill, while Ukrainian refugees waited only hours. This is wrong on many levels. We also must end special treatment for some immigrants in the form of grants and support. People should be allowed to come but should not be given handouts.

Strongly Agree

If the government continues to pay for education, that money should follow the child to whatever institution the parents feel is right for their child.

Neutral

Neutral

I support no class as a protected class. However, should we continue to do so, I would support gender identity as one.

Strongly Disagree

The government should not be involved in marriage at all, as it is a religious thing. But the government can and should recognize partnerships with laws that protect those partners in the event of a breakup of that partnership. I am proud to be a citizen of a state that had NEVER required a license for marriage but was sadden to see it did not extend to unions other than a man and a woman (and of the same race at one time).

Disagree

I don't know a great deal about CRT but the fact is, many of our institutions have been and may still be racist. Marriage between races was illegal into at least the 1960's, though people ignored the law, for instances. But in Colorado, I have seen little of that though I am often mistaken for a hispanic person. My experience is not what others have experienced and I think we should listen to their experiences.

I believe that everyone should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That while the good we put out into the world may not be returned directly from the receiver of that good, it makes for a better world for all. My private worship is private but my belief is all men and women are created equal and should be treated equally in all ways.

Neutral

There should be ways to prove the right to vote and that the right to vote has only been used once in each election. Currently, many states require some sort of ID but I remember a time when that was not the case. What has changed?

I would change early voting if possible. I would rather have some votes arrive late to the polls than to have voting begin weeks prior to the election. A county treasurer was brought up on charges after early voting had started. Many people told me they wished they had not already cast their ballot. I would also like to see a way to always have paper ballots to verify a person's vote. If a lottery ticket can spit out our numbers for us while keeping tract of those numbers yet keeping us anonymous, why can't we have the same safeguards for our elections?

The exaggeration of racism is definitely a threat. The fact that so many times we bend to the squeaky wheel is a threat to our security. But racism is here, too, and we must deal with it. A person has the right to be racist but the government has no right to be racist not does it have the right to promote laws and actions that are racist. A government that doesn't support that concept is a threat to our security.

Strongly Disagree

First, how do we decide who is entitled and who isn't. Second, why should people not a part of the problem (moved here after the fact?) be forced to pay for something neither they nor their ancestors did? Some of my people were Irish and came to this county when the Irish were unwanted and discriminated against. Should I be entitled to reparations? If so, where does it stop? I do believe we should honor treaties and promises made no matter how hard that might be. Let's start there.

We need another way. A is true but B has truth to it as well.

Agree

To protect people from others who would do them harm or take or damage their property and to allow people to pursue their lives as they see fit so long as they do no harm to others.

Moderate

I'm a libertarian meaning I believe people should take responsibilities for their own actions, what our neighbors do is none of our affair unless they are causing hurt to another individual, and that we are only ENTITLED to that which we earn. I believe in a strong charitable system as a way to handle many of our ills. A government limited to the protection of the individual is the strongest and best. A government strong enough to give us all we need is also strong enough to take it all away.

Did not answer

NO.

My highest priority to see that any laws passed are strictly looked over for unintended consequences. Too often we do what we think is right only to find out later what a mess we have made. Some of the things I would focus on are: Lowering the budget; work out a way for people to stay in their homes without losing the home to taxes; increasing quality education; creating a better transportation system; finding ways to lower health care costs without government interference; limiting the use of the safety clause;

Agree

An employee can only do what his employer tells him to do. However, one must put some blame on an officer that should know better but hides behind department policy. Since I am married to a retired police officer, this question and answer are more subtle than this implies. We have a hard enough time finding qualified police officers without telling them that they can be sued with every interaction they have. On the other hand, policy should not be an excuse for gross misconduct.

Neutral

I am not sure what we intend to do with this. I support mental health training for officers. I support removing military policing and equipment to fund a better way. My husband took 45 minutes to talk a kid with a loaded gun in his hand to give up. He was in the same room as they boy and not but a few steps away. He talked a mentally unstable man out of a knife and his wife hugged my husband for not killing her husband. We need to train our officers to me more like him; to talk and understand.

It is possible to keep the guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people, perhaps. But my right to own a firearm should not be hindered because someone else killed someone. So we must tread lightly when trying to walk that line.

Strongly Disagree

I can't sue Subaru because the guy who totaled my car was driving one. We must put responsibility as close to the actor as possible. Allowing law suits to be filed against firearm dealers and manufactures; against knife sellers and manufactures; against anyone who makes or sells a product uses in violence or a crime does nothing to solve the problem and only creates new ones.