Mount Virtus

A lot has happened in the month since I last posted here about the open negotiations controversy in Jeffco Public Schools. I was glad to see Mike Rosen bring attention to the issue on his show and in his May 12 Denver Post column, in which he concluded:

A number of other states have laws mandating that negotiations between government-employee unions and government agencies be open to the public. In Colorado, that decision is currently left to local government. Colorado law is generally friendly to public openness and disclosure regarding government meetings and documents. Since a majority of funding for public-school districts in Colorado comes not from local property taxes but from the state’s coffers, the state legislature clearly has standing to join other states in passing a uniform law opening these kinds of negotiations to the light of public scrutiny.

As I reported in my 2010 Independence Institute issue backgrounder “Colorado Education and Open Negotiations,” six states currently have laws on the books guaranteeing this brand of taxpayer-friendly government transparency. In Colorado you have to go back to 2005 for Senate Bill 175 and to 2004 for House Bill 1242, the legislature’s last serious (and in the case of 1242, nearly successful) attempts to shine light on negotiations between governments and unions. With momentum growing locally around this issue, might Colorado lawmakers try this approach again? (more…)

Slipping under the radar late in Colorado’s legislative session (sine die is tomorrow, hallelujah!) is House Bill 1320 — sponsored by two conservative Republicans, Rep. Janak Joshi and Sen. Bill Cadman — a rare two-page piece of legislation that would essentially outlaw collective bargaining in state and local governments. It’s not going to pass, and concerned citizens and political observers rightfully are paying attention to Colorado’s redistricting debate instead, so it’s not worth expending too many pixels.

However, I found the apparent reason for HB 1320 being held up on the House floor a bit disheartening — albeit not surprising, given the unimpressive record of the new Republican majority:

Rep. Keith Swerdfeger, R-Pueblo West, who owns a heavy construction company, said he can’t vote for the bill.

“I have been a union contractor the entire length of our contracting for 40 years,” Swerdfeger said. “We always came to the table and were able to reach an agreement.

“I would not support the bill. Our relations with the unions have been pretty good over the years.”

(more…)

Update IV, 5:15 PM: For the record and for the sake of full disclosure — yes, the information related to open negotiations that I have requested from Jeffco Public Schools has been done in my professional capacity as a senior policy analyst for the Independence Institute. My personal and professional opinions happen to be in very close harmony on this issue. And both versions of the recording — the low-quality one I deleted and the higher-quality one linked just below — came from a concerned citizen who attended and recorded the public meeting. Thankfully, because the district’s recording of the relevant part of the meeting was not posted due to the aforementioned “system error.”

Update III, 3:40 PM: I have obtained a better 5-minute recording of the Jeffco Board’s discussion and vote. The previous recording has been deleted.

Update II, 3:20 PM: Welcome, Complete Colorado readers:

Update, 2 PM: I received an official response from Jeffco’s communications office about the significance of Thursday’s 2-2 vote: “In answer to your question about the board vote last week on opening/closing negotiations, the 2-2 vote taken by the board has left the bargaining team uncertain as to the wishes of the board majority. Therefore, until the bargaining team receives direction from a majority of the board, scheduled negotiations sessions have been cancelled.” Also, someone has shared a recording of the relevant 5 minutes of last Thursday’s Board meeting. You may find it difficult to hear, but it’s the best I have in lieu of an official recording.

The controversies over government collective bargaining transparency in Colorado are starting to pile up. Last week I brought your attention to the unsuccessful effort of Aurora citizens to open up the city’s police and fire union negotiations. The big story has been from Colorado Springs, as transparency won a partial victory after a citizen lawsuit forced one bargaining session to be open for public observation.

Now the issue has come to life in my own backyard. By all appearances, Jeffco Public Schools officials are doing their best to keep negotiations with the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) teachers union out of the light of day. Article 5-3-5 of the existing bargaining agreement says:

Negotiations shall be conducted in open sessions, unless both parties agree to the contrary.

On April 11 at a meeting of the Jefferson County Republican Men’s Club — after praising the district for its exemplary efforts at financial transparency — I asked featured speakers Jeffco superintendent Cindy Stevenson and JCEA president Kerrie Dallman whether any of their negotiations would be open to public observation. Stevenson deferred to Dallman, who declared that the parties had decided all negotiations would be closed. But who exactly made the decision, and how? Following up with district officials, the closest thing to a clear answer I received was that the Board of Education “meets in executive session to confidentially give direction to and receive reports from its negotiating team.”

So the school board — and certainly not all members of the school board — meet in private to instruct one group of paid district employees to close their negotiations with another group of paid district employees? It may be legal, but it doesn’t seem like the best policy to me. (more…)

In a time when a large fiscally conservative grassroots movement like the Tea Parties have developed a strong voice, we shouldn’t be surprised to see calls for greater transparency in government operations. Not only when it comes to the fiscal ledger (“if you can’t defend it, don’t spend it”), but also when it comes to those union negotiations that drive so much of government spending. Should any government contract negotiations be done behind closed doors? Why should unions be treated any differently?

In Colorado Springs a citizen lawsuit has pressured one of the state’s largest school districts to concede to opening up one teachers union bargaining session to public observation. (Decisions on future sessions pending… most likely on the effectiveness of outside public pressure.) To its credit, the Gazette has brought attention to the story to contribute to the public conversation. Even better, inquiring minds want to know: Did one of its reporters attend Friday’s session? Was there anything to report?

Meanwhile, another local grassroots effort to bring about open government union negotiations has occurred more or less under the radar. On March 3 Citizens for Responsible Aurora Government (CRAG) formally requested that the municipal government for Colorado’s third largest city provide taxpaying citizens access to observe bargaining sessions with local police and fire unions. Transparency seems like the backbone for good public policy, right? Well, in a March 23 YourHub article, CRAG spokesman Jim Frye acknowledged that the Aurora city attorney’s denial “was disappointing though not entirely surprising.” (more…)

This little tidbit I uncovered either shatters the grand Colorado Democracy Alliance (CoDA) conspiracy theory or proves it to be even more convoluted and diabolical than previously imagined. But court documents show two of the Alliance’s core groups — sue-happy Colorado Ethics Watch (CEW) and the Colorado Education Association (CEA), the state’s largest teachers union — on opposite ends of a state supreme court case regarding elections law.

Back in 2008 CEW filed suit against a couple of Republican 527 groups (Senate Majority Fund LLC and Colorado Leadership Fund LLC) claiming that they had overstepped the bounds of campaign finance law by participating in “express advocacy” of state legislative candidates. The administrative law judge ruled against the plaintiffs, and CEW lost on appeal as well. Now the case is headed to the state’s highest court.

CEW’s argument is so absurd based on legal precedent that, well, even CEA has filed an amicus brief defending the Republican groups (so has the Colorado Bar Association, but it’s not as intriguing as the teachers union chiming in). CEA attorney Mark Grueskin summarizes the argument before the Colorado Supreme Court as follows: (more…)

You can help Big Govt Gary do some serious slimming down. We’re talking about a very serious weight problem. Social Security pounds? Medicare bloat? Pentagon paunch? Check out this clever new video to get started:

Efforts to organize constituent groups to contact and lobby their elected officials have grown more sophisticated in recent years. Many of us like the ease of the online petition that automatically directs messages to our representatives based on our input location data — though I frequently prefer to tailor the pre-fab messages with my own words.

I can’t be the only one who has subjected myself to an onslaught of email messages urging me to call my Congressman or state senator over the latest hideously outrageous or earth-saving piece of legislation. A result of the sheer volume of these messages, combined with limited resources and competing priorities, my eyes long since have glazed over most of them. Have I become too cynical? Perhaps.

But in an amusing development, one state teachers union has contracted with a service to help overcome member apathy:

Why was [Maryland Sen. David Brinkley] getting so many calls? The Maryland State Education Association hired a company to call teachers from throughout the state, and then connect them with their senators.

Unfortunately, there was just one small problem with the approach:

Brinkley, who said he planned to vote against all three tax proposals, said teachers seemed caught off guard and ill-prepared to speak to their senators.

As Mike Antonucci wrote in response, “If you hire a company to call teachers and then connect them to their representative’s office, you might want to make sure the teachers realize what you’re doing.”

Can you imagine any other advocacy group trying so desperately to hold its constituents’ hands like helping a toddler cross the street (do I know a thing or to about that)? Especially a group on the Right? Well, if someone were to follow the MSEA’s strategy, they at least might want to find a better way to prepare members or supporters for that all-important call with their elected representative.

March is a bad month for Colorado Senate Majority Leader John Morse. Last year about this time he went a little ballistic at Amazon.com on a YouTube video he created — trying to blame the company for deciding to terminate its Colorado Affiliates program rather than pay the Democrats’ new tax.

Last year’s episode looks like a warm-up act for this year’s arrogant display, with John Morse threatening the private homes of citizens who filed an ethics complaint against him. You see, March so far has been filled with Colorado Peak Politics (if you’re not reading this blog regularly, you should be! … and no, I don’t know who is behind it) reporting on a brewing scandal: Democrat legislative leader Morse claiming $40,000 in public reimbursements for things like golf outings, political fundraisers, and out-of-state travel. (more…)

Mothers Against Debt (MAD) has launched a powerful video update about the crushing load of national debt we already face and the danger behind plans to raise the debt ceiling:

Don’t crush the baby! As a dad of two (and soon to be three) young girls, the message hits home with me. Fiscal responsibility and spending discipline, already fixtures in our own household budget, are the watchwords of the day for the federal government Leviathan.

Delaying today’s decisions only magnifies tomorrow’s pain. Let’s start imposing the bitter medicine. Our children will thank us later.

It looks very much like Colorado is only one year behind in achieving a labor movement milestone measured at the national level. A little over a year ago I reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) finding that government employees represented a numerical majority of the unionized workforce in the United States. (You can listen to a 2010 iVoices podcast on this finding that I recorded with the Alliance for Worker Freedom.)

This milestone is the culmination of a decades-long trend in which private sector unions have diminished while Big Labor has targeted government agencies as fruitful sources of revenue. As of 2010, we have the first strong indications that the same observation can be made of Colorado — namely, that more of the state’s union members work for government than for a private employer.

In light of the legislative action taking place in Ohio and Wisconsin, I have written on some of the critical differences related to union collective bargaining between the private sector and the public sector. An even better explanation of the inherent defects in government collective bargaining appears in a recent op-ed by David Denholm published in the Washington Examiner. (more…)

It’s easy to overlook, especially if you’re not a student of U.S. history. But once upon a time, before the ratification of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, presidents were inaugurated on March 4. Which makes today the sesquicentennial (that’s the 150th anniversary, for Buckeye fans) of Abraham Lincoln swearing the oath of presidential office in a moment of profound national crisis and delivering his First Inaugural Address:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Union, eh? No, not that kind of union. Someone must have Labor on the brain. Ripped out of context, though, the powerful conclusion to Lincoln’s inaugural could almost speak to the current heightened domestic political strife with its bulls-eye on Madison, Wisconsin. Not that we have nearly approached the level of crisis in 1861. Nor do we wish for such an outcome.

But maybe the appeal to “the better angels of our nature” might lend itself to a more cost-effective cleanup of the Wisconsin State Capitol after the budget-repair bill passes and the Lefty protesters go home.

It’s Friday. Go enjoy the weekend.

Update II, 4:05 PM: Writing on the Townhall blog, Guy Benson offers up some exclusive video footage of the Wisconsin Democrat senators running away. John Hayward at Human Events offers some fascinating insights and concludes with a bit of powerful advice: “Governor Walker should take a page from the handbook of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and face the unions down. Every teacher who participated in the illegal strike, or brought students to political rallies, should be fired immediately. The taxpayers of Wisconsin don’t have Hollywood celebrities and millionaire union bosses to brew up angry mobs to press their demands. They don’t have the luxury of slipping away from jobs they’re already nervous about to march around the state capitol. The only thing they’ve got is a determined governor, who should join with his colleagues in other states to level the playing field between tax payers and tax consumers, by breaking the public unions once and for all.”

Update, 2:50 PM: Scott Walker sends out a clear message to runaway Democrat legislators: “Their actions by leaving the state and hiding from voting are disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of public employees who showed up to work today and the millions of taxpayers they represent.”

We can debate whether new Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans have chosen a wise course tactically, but there’s no doubt they have demonstrated some serious political fortitude in taking on a major problem. Senate Bill 11 was supposed to come to the floor today. A key part of the solution to a major budget challenge similar to those faced in other states, SB 11 would restrict government union collective bargaining (except for public safety workers) and requiring public employees to pay greater shares of their health and pension benefits.

Yesterday it was union protesters littering signs all over State Capitol property (a press release from U.S. Senator Ron Johnson’s office also suggests union members surrounding the governor’s private residence), and today it’s this: All 14 state senate Democrats are on the run from the police to prevent a vote from taking place. Wow. Brilliant strategy.

Of more than historical footnote, Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to grant collective bargaining rights to government workers–just over 50 years ago, in 1959. More than two decades earlier none other than President and Democratic Party icon Franklin D. Roosevelt observed what a bad policy idea that would be: (more…)

Update, 9:00 PM: Common Cause issued a formal “apology” for the vile behavior of its rally attendees, a statement thoroughly deconstructed by James Taranto, who concludes with the zinger: “For the sake of truth in advertising, Common Cause should change its name to Hypocrisy Hub.” Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark.

Independent new media journalist Christian Hartsock has a compelling piece up at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government blog. Hartsock went to cover an event sponsored by the Progressive group Common Cause. The goal seemingly was to organize a grassroots protest of the pro-free market billionaire Koch Brothers and conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas for some imaginary collusion on the Citizens United decision, and who knows what else.

Hartsock’s four-minute video (which the Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto labels “devastating”) poignantly captures a rich example of unintentional irony and psychological projection exhibited by the Left: (more…)

Kudos to my friend and colleague Todd Shepherd (of Complete Colorado fame) for catching a surprise exclusive live interview with Colorado’s new governor. In the middle of hosting the Sunday afternoon show on 850 KOA, Todd’s jaw hit the floor when none other than John Hickenlooper heard his name being discussed and called in to the show while en route from Pueblo to an event in Colorado Springs.

Click here for the full hour’s audio: the Hickenlooper call starts about halfway through (not to be completely overshadowed is Todd’s discussion with Colorado RNC committeeman and former state treasurer Mark Hillman at the top of the hour).

Todd took a few minutes to get the softballs out of the way. But then he went to work with a series of polite but pointed questions made with the urgency of someone who believed he may never get a second chance. Among other things, Todd got Hickenlooper to publicly declare an official policy of transparency regarding his use of cell phones (see the controversy with Colorado’s previous Democratic administration), to clear up conflicting stories about his knowledge of Denver’s infamous 2009 LoDo beatings, and to announce he would be willing to make a return visit to the Caplis and Silverman Show after previously ducking the LoDo issue (MP3). (more…)

A preeminent challenge lying ahead for our elected Congress to tackle is the mounting debt and out-of-control spending that grew under Republican leadership and accelerated in the past few years with Democrats in charge. No one is better prepared to help equip you to do your citizen’s part in taking on this challenge than my friends at Mothers Against Debt. Their new video on the idiocy of unemployment benefits as economic stimulus is a real hoot. Enjoy: