Today's Opinions

Chris Romer joined a fairly exclusive club last week. Along with Dale Tooley, Norm Early and Ari Zavaras, he’s now one of the can’t-miss front-runners for Denver mayor who fell to lesser-known opponents each of the last four times the office was truly up for grabs.

I recently overheard a conversation that went something like this: “Where does the right to free speech come from?” “The right to free speech,” came the reply, “was given to us by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Is that accurate? Would our founders have agreed with that formulation? Take a closer look at the language of the First amendment itself: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

When I first started working, some of the best advice I ever got was, “Don’t let the urgent get in the way of the important.” Over the years, that idiom has helped me to step back and think about long-term priorities, immediate needs and how they should be balanced and prioritized.