Never Again! Reforms to prevent future pandemic overreach
Right now—while pandemic mistakes are fresh in our minds—is the time to adopt legal reforms to ensure those mistakes don’t happen again.
Addressing the Skills Gap: A Market-Based Approach for Colorado
Colorado has experienced a skilled labor shortage for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the underlying problems in the workforce. The state has a high percentage of workers who are particularly vulnerable to forced closures compared with other states, yet those workers tend to lack the skills necessary to fill more secure, in-demand jobs […]
The Colorado Skills Gap: Underlying Causes
This report identifies and explores possible grounds for, and consequences of, skills gaps in Colorado’s labor market. Imbalances between job openings and job applicants are neither new nor largely unique to Colorado. Every state examined in this report suffers longstanding labor supply/demand imbalances, including gaps between the skill requirements of high-paying jobs and the skills […]
How COVID lockdowns destroy small businesses and aggravate inequality
The “progressive’s” lockdowns . . . increased the gap between rich and poor, and benefited their friends while punishing their opponents.
Interview with Paul Prentice: Economic Impact COVID-19 Policies in Colorado
Paul Prentice, economist and Independence Institute senior fellow, sits down with Jon Caldara to discuss his study Unequal Opportunities, Unequal Outcomes: The COVID-19 Recession in Colorado. The study explores Colorado’s policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic and social consequences of those policies for various populations across the state. I don’t know […]
Unequal Opportunities, Unequal Outcomes: The COVID-19 Recession in Colorado
INTRODUCTION By mid-March 2020, it was apparent that a major pandemic was in process. Estimates were that millions upon millions of Americans would die from COVID-19 and that there would be insufficient hospital resources to treat all the expected chronic cases. As a result, almost all states instituted shelter-in-place emergency orders. Given the available information, […]
Video: Rob Natelson: “The courts have gone AWOL during the pandemic”
Rob Natelson, Senior Fellow of Constitutional Jurisprudence at The Independence Institute, talks with Jon Caldara about the courts’ failure to enforce their own constitutional rights precedents against government overreaching during the pandemic: View on YouTube
Latest COVID orders layer chaos over confusion, add to risk
In issuing his latest directive, the governor missed opportunities to quit being an autocrat and start being a statesman.
COVID-19 and the Constitution
The Constitution’s flexibility in emergency is why the late Justice Robert H. Jackson once said, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” But emergencies do not cause the Constitution to vanish.
COVID-19 Coverage on Complete Colorado Page 2
Read the latest COVID-19 information on Complete Colorado Page 2.
Independence Institute Staff Picks for Quarantine Reading
During this time of pandemic, many of us “non-essential” workers find ourselves confined to home. Suddenly, I have time to tackle all of the items on my home “to do” list; my house has never been this clean and organized. Don’t judge me, but I have even alphabetized my spice rack. For those of you […]
New court ruling exposes unconstitutionality of Colorado lockdown orders
Colorado’s orders are classic examples of infringements of fundamental rights that are both overbroad and underinclusive—and therefore unconstitutional.
