More than two months ago I noted that the union card-check bill had put newly selected U.S. Senator Michael Bennet in a bind. Three weeks ago I observed that Bennet might be finding relief in the fading prospects of the legislation.

But Big Labor proponents haven’t backed down, and business leaders are in the fight for the duration. So where does that leave Michael Bennet? As indecisive as ever, reports the Denver Post:

“The issue is an important issue. We have lots of important issues,” he said.

“I’m in a much better position to be helpful to a constructive conversation by not having taken a position on the existing language in the legislation than I would be if I had.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect when Governor Bill Ritter appointed Michael Bennet to fill Ken Salazar’s vacant seat. Frankly, I have to say the young Senator’s level of vacuousness and vacillation has disappointed even me.

Big fundraising or no — Bennet is leaving the door open for an ambitious, talented candidate like Ryan Frazier to step up to the challenge.

This morning, good news comes from the Colorado State Capitol: the state house approved House Bill 1288 (PDF), the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, by the overwhelming margin of 61-4. This legislation will create a detailed online searchable database of state government revenues and expenditures.

The bad news? Among the four (all Democrats) voting against open government are my own representative Sara Gagliardi and Gwyn Green, also from Jefferson County. Rest assured, I will do my part to make it known their No votes will not be forgotten. And I will be watching how the senate votes, as well.

In other bad news, Senate Bill 180 (PDF) squeaked past the finish line in the state senate, 18-17. This union-backed bill is bad for a host of reasons. It also is proof that elections have consequences: 81 votes in Senate District 26 were the difference between this costly, intrusive measure passing or failing in the senate.

The good news? If there is any, it’s that three Democrats in the state senate – Joyce Foster, Jim Isgar, and (my own senator) Moe Keller – had the good sense to vote against it. The other good news is that the bill still has to go through the house before it reaches Governor Bill Ritter’s desk for signature. In other words, there’s still time to kill SB 180.

I prefer to end on a positive note.

Update VI, 4/16: Here are some pictures taken by Jimmie H. Butler at yesterday’s rally in Colorado Springs. Re-posted with permission:

Update V, 4/16: My brother-in-law has a great set of photos from yesterday’s Denver event. Slapstick Politics has begun to post video from the well-attended festivities at the West Steps of the Capitol. Rossputin has some “Post-Tea Party Thoughts” that includes photos, video, and an interactive poll question.

Here is a great site that is tallying attendance reports from Tea Party events all across the country. I’ve already notified the site operator with a few reports from Colorado locations he hadn’t yet received.

Update IV, 10:00 PM: Over at Free Colorado, Ari has a good initial analysis and a slew of pictures from Denver’s event. Face The State’s coverage and slide show can be found here. Zombyboy has a nice spread of photos and some interesting thoughts as well.

Lovers of liberty need only scoff at these half-hearted Saul Alinsky disciples.

Update III, 3:45 PM: My source from Colorado Springs says about 4,000 people showed up at the Tax Day Tea Party rally there earlier today.

Update II, 3:10 PM: Other Colorado Tax Day Tea Party estimates … Fort Collins = 1,000, though one attendee reports on Facebook that it was closer to 2,500 … Grand Junction = 2,000, where speaker Ryan Frazier announced he is moving forward as a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate … Debbie Buckley reports 60 to 70 attendees, mostly first-timers, up in the mountains at Frisco … Awaiting word from other locations – please drop me a line if you have an update …

Update, 2:30 PM: Returned a little while ago from the Denver Tax Day Tea Party. It was HUGE. The Denver Post says “more than 5,000 people” were there, and I’d be hard-pressed to disagree with that estimate. People were flocking in and out. An upbeat crowd – enthusiastic, energetic, waving signs, cheering. No problems with Lefty disturbances that I could see.

Stay tuned to this site and to the People’s Press Collective and Rocky Mountain Right for more coverage and photos of the event.

It’s Tax Day, and that means it’s time for Colorado taxpayers to (Tea) party:

• El Presidente has all the details you’ll ever need to find a rally near you, as well as other key links
• Randomridge has printable advice on how to deal with potential Lefty disturbances at the rallies
• Rossputin gives us some compelling (and visually-enhanced) reasons why Tax Day is “a time to mourn and protest”
• Just getting involved as a pro-liberty activist, and wondering where to go from here? Check out this great resource “Getting Connected in Colorado”, compiled by fellow Rocky Mountain Alliance blogger Night Twister
• After The Tea Party is another great resource to find out how to stay active

Sadly, if the legislative calendar is to be trusted, it looks like the majority Democrats in the state house have opted to avoid debate on the budget (SB259) and Pinnacol theft (SB281 and SB273) today. Maybe that will give more lawmakers time to come out and visit with the concerned constituents coming to their doorstep today.

We’ll see … Expect a follow-up report later.

God bless Texas:

Gov. Rick Perry joined state Rep. Brandon Creighton and sponsors of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 50 in support of states’ rights under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

Forget the Alamo (for now) – Remember the 10th Amendment! I’m starting to see what President Obama meant by bringing hope. Because Texas is not the only state showing signs of remembering our national roots of liberty.

And just in time for the Tea Party!

Via the Right to Work blog comes news that the new Republican Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer has repealed her predecessor’s executive order granting union powers to state workers. This scenario (and others like it before – witness Missouri and Indiana as examples) is precisely why the Colorado WINS labor coalition will not rest satisfied with Bill Ritter’s November 2007 executive order that introduced collective bargaining to our state government.

Odds are strong that the political winds will favor Big Labor pushing a broad piece of government employee collective bargaining legislation in 2010. The question is whether the Democrats in charge at the State Capitol by then will have backed off the cliff’s edge, and from governing away their majority.

Let it never be said that Governor Bill Ritter is not a man of big ideas:

In a recent letter to state employees in the state publication Stateline, Ritter talks about the hard economic times and thanks employees for their hard work.

He then applauds a stress-reducing move by the Department for Health Care Policy and Financing to extend “‘dress down Fridays’ to every day of the week.”

Senator Ted Harvey wondered whether it might be an April Fools Day joke. I’m wondering if it was an idea hatched as the result of his executive order authorizing collective bargaining — er, employee partnerships.

Whatever it is, somehow methinks this wasn’t the dressing down being cited by our governor. Five days a week of that would make most anyone want to quit.

But anyway, moving on…

Over at RedState, Erick Erickson makes a great point about rebuilding the conservative movement that can be applied to Colorado:

In the past few years, SEIU, AFL-CIO, NEA, DCCC, and a host of other left-wing organizations have been buying ads on left of center blogs keeping those blogs going — allowing the bloggers on the left some financial incentive to keep blogging for the left….

In addition to all of that, you’ve got the Soros gang and SEIU engaging in a host of left-wing activities online that recruit and fund online writers — bloggers, journalists, etc….

Every day in Washington, there is some right-wing group somewhere bemoaning the efforts of the right online. Sadly, for them and the rest of the right, their first thought is “let’s do it ourselves”, instead of “let’s invest in the existing talent.” Until the second becomes the first, the right will keep meeting in private to bemoan its (in)effectiveness online.

Conservative business owners and operators in Colorado, take heed. Sure, I’m always glad to take on advertisers (at a modest rate), but if you aren’t necessarily keen on my site there are other members of the Rocky Mountain Alliance and People’s Press Collective.

Just a thought … Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

It’s encouraging news that the Colorado state senate keeps putting off a vote on Senate Bill 180. The Democrats would seem not to have confidence in the votes to override local control, impose collective bargaining, raise the cost of government services, and threaten the rights of our state’s police officers and firefighters.

If you need more reason to understand why SB 180 is a bad idea, and why you should keep the pressure on and tell your state senator to vote against it, you should listen to this new iVoices podcast I recorded with Stan Greer from the National Institute of Labor Relations Research:

What might seem on the surface like a nice thing to do for our public safety employees is really bad public policy when you take a closer look. Special labor interests running amok at the State Capitol. Your tax dollars in play.

Forty-one days until the legislative session ends. It can’t come soon enough.

Big Labor is really bummed out today with the news that U.S. Senator Arlen Specter won’t be backing their Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) (you can watch his floor speech here) — at least for this year. No Republican votes (and many shaky Democrats) means union officials won’t be able to invoke the 60 votes needed for cloture to take away workers’ rights to the secret ballot and impose costly binding arbitration.

This has got to spell a little relief for Colorado’s newly selected U.S. Senator Michael Bennet. EFCA has put Bennet in a bind, but if the political signals are clear that the legislation won’t pass he might have the cover he needs. At this point, my guess is Bennet will take the path of least resistance within his own party and vote for the Big Labor boondoggle while trying to reassure moderate business leaders that his vote cannot do any actual damage.

The likely result? Michael Bennet should be able to preclude a costly primary in 2010, but he will speedily enhance his status as a high-profile target for a slate of top-notch Republican challengers to take on. Whether it’s Bob Beauprez or Ryan Frazier or someone else, next year’s U.S. Senate race figures to be THE Colorado political campaign to watch.

Today brings a chance to review another member of the bad legislation parade down at the Colorado State Capitol. Senate Bill 180 (PDF) would override the local will of voters and impose collective bargaining on all local police and fire departments. After making it through the Democrat-controlled State, Military, and Veteran Affairs Committee, the bill is on the slate to be heard by the full senate any day now.

From the Denver Daily News:

Concerns are being raised that collective bargaining leads to overtaxing government budgets through increased payroll costs, which ends up hitting taxpayers hard.

The last time the issue raised so many conservative eyebrows was in 2007 when Gov. Bill Ritter issued an executive order authorizing state employees to join unions and bargain collectively.

[Bill sponsor state senator Lois] Tochtrop [D-Thornton], however, said her legislation would be about negotiating for safety equipment and tools – not for higher salaries. [link & emphasis added]

“Not for higher salaries”. Oh, really? (more…)

Update (3/10): Mike Reitz weighs in with an observation some of my readers may have a hard time believing: “Public policy wonks are real people, too.”

Here’s a U.S. Supreme Court decision that may have flown past your radar – Ysursa v Pocatello Education Association. The ruling ensures states (like Idaho and Utah already have done) can regulate the use of government payroll systems to prevent the collection of political contributions.

As Mike Reitz from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation explained to me in a new iVoices podcast, it’s a victory for clean government, taxpayers and orderly state labor relations:

A lot of the money funneled through government payroll systems goes to support the removal of the secret ballot and job growth stifling that come with the poorly-named Employee Free Choice Act.

Which Congress incidentally starts debating tomorrow.

Amendment 49 lost last year, but might the Ethical Standards idea be worth resurrecting?

(One final note: Star Wars fans will have to tell me what they think of the analogy I invoke near the middle of the 7-minute podcast.)

You hear a lot of talk about waste in government, especially in the bureaucracies at the federal level. But then you see an investigation by my Independence Institute colleague Todd Shepherd (also the founder of Complete Colorado), and that waste sort of comes to life. It becomes a little less abstract.

If the headline doesn’t draw you to take a peek, I’m not sure what will: “Excuse me, Homeland Security Department, how do you lose two forklifts?” (H/T Amy Oliver)

During one calendar year, the Customs and Border Patrol Agency by itself lost $7.1 million of material, including 171 desktop computers, 28 motion picture cameras, and – yes – 2 forklifts. Check it out for yourself, then do what the Independence Institute did: write members of Congress and ask them for an official investigation.

A new study released gives you one more reason to write your Congressman and Senators to tell them to vote No on the poorly-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

Economist Anne Layne-Farrar’s quantitative analysis finds that “for every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through card checks and mandatory arbitration, the following year’s unemployment rate is predicted to increase by 1 percentage point and job creation is predicted to fall by around 1.5 million jobs.”

Let’s simplify: EFCA (or union card-check legislation, if you prefer) will keep many, many Americans from a productive job and a paycheck – an especially devastating effect in the midst of our current economic turmoil. (more…)

“And people wonder why union card-check legislation is such a problem for workers” Exhibit # 2863. From the Chicago Sun-Times (via The Union Label):

[United Food and Commercial Workers staff employee Agnes Sobczyk] said she passed a letter to a co-worker detailing her concerns about State Rep. John Fritchey, the candidate the union has endorsed to replace [Rahm] Emanuel.

She passed the letter to her co-worker on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning, she said Union President Ron Powell called her into his office.

“He shoved this in my face and said, ‘Explain this!’” she said. Sobczyk said she told Powell she was concerned about some stories she read about Fritchey and that she thought [Victor] Forys was a better candidate.

“Then I just stopped talking and said, ‘I’m fired, right?’” she said. “He said, ‘Yes you’re fired.’ I couldn’t believe it. I got nothing but good reviews there.”

The candidate Sobczyk was supporting is another Democrat. One can only imagine her fate had she come out in favor of a Republican. This is Rahm Emanuel’s neck of the woods after all.

Though he hasn’t been affected to the same degree, Dave Ohmart of Colorado LOSES probably has some sympathy for the now-ex-union employee.

Update: Face The State has more, including Colorado WINS’ rude treatment of state representative Amy Stephens.

As teased last night to our handful of Blog Talk Radio listeners…

If I try to come up with something witty, you can leave it to Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency to come up with something even wittier.

A few days ago I brought your attention to the most recent exploits of Dave Ohmart and his Colorado Loses, a vocal minority of state employees opposed to Governor Bill Ritter’s gold-plated invitation to unionize their workplaces. Apparently, Dave wasn’t greeted so kindly by union organizer Ryan when he decided to tag along for last week’s Colorado WINS union event at the State Capitol featuring Ritter as keynote speaker.

Antonucci really hit it on the head with this concise “compare and contrast” quip:

The union in theory: “We prefer to approach challenges from a team standpoint and focus on what we have in common – an approach that leads to more constructive problem solving with an ‘everybody wins’ outcome.”

The union in practice: “You’re not going to say anything, are you Dave? I’ll have to toss you out of here if you do.”

A yawning gulf between theory and practice: That about sums it up. As Antonucci explains, “Colorado is giving a little glimpse of what life will be like when card check passes.” It ain’t pretty, but your Democrats in Congress don’t care.