In a race to the left wing of the Democratic Party, Denver mayoral candidates, Doug Linkhart and James Mejia have come out against Secure Communities, a program that checks the legal status of people arrested by local law enforcement. The reasons each give for opposing the program are enough to sink each of their candidacies with Republicans, an important constituency in Denver that is often forgotten by mayoral candidates.

Linkhart says he opposes Secure Communities because of the potential civil liberty violations that could occur in implementing the program.

Please, Doug, tell us how checking the legal status of someone arrested for a crime violates their civil liberties? The logic simply doesn’t compute for a rational mind. Even better, he would only want the program to focus on convicted violent offenders, which leads us to believe that he thinks there is no reason to check the legal status of someone arrested for peddling crystal meth to middle school children, since that is not classified as a violent crime.

Mejia has an even cheekier reason for opposing the program – the cost of the program. We love the irony of a Democrat using opposition to government spending as a reason to support a left wing position. Mejia seems to forget that ultimately Secure Communities is a cost saver, as it helps remove criminals who are illegally in the country and burdening public services, so his reason for opposition seems to collapse on itself.

In the end, when Republicans in Denver consider their choices for Mayor, we suggest looking beyond the two candidates that oppose a common sense program that even then Gov. Ritter came to embrace. If you didn’t like Ritter, you’re most certainly not going to like Linkhart or Mejia.