House District 8 trio reaching for 'progressive' tab

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 8, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated August 8, 2008 at 12:33 a.m.

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Beth McCann

Cindy Lowery

Matt Bergles

All three Democrats competing for the House District 8 seat in east Denver champion universal health care, education and sustainable energy.

The winner of the August primary is assured of the seat being vacated by Rosemary Marshall because no Republicans are running in the solidly Democratic district that spreads north, south, east and west from a hub of Martin Luther King Drive and Colorado Boulevard.

The district includes venerable landmarks such as the Denver Zoo, City Park, Manual High School, East High School and Park Hill.

The candidates are Matt Bergles, 51, Cindy Lowery, 30, and Beth McCann, 59.

Bergles won a coveted endorsement from Marshall, who was one of the House's most respected members for the past eight years.

"I can work across the aisle - that is my strength," Bergles said.

Like his opponents, he backs the proposed Savings Account For Education initiative.

It would lift constitutional limits on state spending and direct additional revenue into an education fund.

"I still favor requiring a vote of the people for any tax increases," he said. But unless government can keep more of the tax money it collects, none of the new drives to improve education, health care or anything else will get traction, he said.

Lowery, a health care attorney, says she is the most progressive candidate in the race.

"I hear folks tell me they're supportive of a single-payer system," she said, referring to the universal health care approach. "That should be one of our top priorities."

The first steps should be guaranteeing that all children are covered by expanding Colorado's Children's Health Plan, Lowery said.

Next would come better coverage for preventive care and mental health care for all, and ultimately universal coverage.

Like Bergles, she said it's essential to back the proposal to let the state keep more of its tax dollars so it can jump-start dollar-wise initiatives.

McCann, 59, also advocates a single-payer universal health plan, and would push for full-day kindergarten and for higher teacher pay and lower class size in the public schools.

She is deputy attorney general in charge of civil litigation and employment law at the Colorado Attorney General's office.

A former Denver prosecutor, McCann was Denver's first Manager of Safety in the early 1990s under Mayor Wellington Webb.

McCann said her work heading up city agencies and representing state agencies would give her a head start in the state House.

"I know who to call, what questions to ask," she said. "It's a lot easier to get things done if you already have a relationship with people."

• August 8, 2008

  8:24 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  BrianSchwartz writes:

  "All three Democrats competing for the House District 8 seat in east Denver champion universal health care..."

  When I hear this I imagine a the governor signing a bill and saying "Yes, now health care is 'universal'! By the stroke of my pen, anyone who needs medical care will get it, and soon. Why? Because it's a law now!" But reality isn't that simple. The truth is that in countries where politicians try to make health care "universal," people die waiting for care. For several examples, what what to do instead, see here:
  http://www.patientpowernow.org/2008/0...

  I'd say that access to affordable and quality food is pretty "universal" in Colorado and in the U.S. But we have a relatively free-market it the production and sale of food.

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