The Independence Institute (where I work) published a study this week titled "State Budget Scrutiny Reveals Ref C Shuffle," detailing how the promises made in Colorado's 2005 tax increase campaign have gone unmet. Lawmakers have increased spending far more in budget areas not connected with the promises of the Referendum C campaign than in the key areas used to sell the tax increase to Colorado voters (i.e., public schools, state universities, and health care). The report is well documented with actual data. Yesterday, the tax increase apologists at the Bell Policy Center issued a quick response that did not dispute the substance of the findings but asserts that the Institute report uses a "simplistic analysis" and criticizes it for … [Read more...]

The fact that Gov. Bill Ritter and his Democrat cohort wants to impose mandatory collective bargaining on Colorado state employees has been the Capitol's worst-kept secret for 2006. Today, the Rocky Mountain News quotes a leading Democrat legislator as confirming the rumors: Senate President Joan Fitz- Gerald, D-Coal Creek Canyon, confirmed she has heard Ritter's office may be working on a state government reform package that could include collective bargaining for state employees. And she spoke positively of the possibility. "Under the Owens years, the state employees did not fare well and they lost a lot of their benefits," she said. Ritter declined to talk specifics on a possible initiative. "We're working on how to best … [Read more...]

With stories yesterday and today, Face The State brings out the 1-2 punch, exposing the bonus Democrats get from groups that exploit Colorado's campaign law, and then highlighting an effort by some local governments to clean up the act. From yesterday: During the last election, the nation's largest unions utilized a loophole in Colorado's campaign finance laws that allowed them to give millions of dollars in anonymous political contributions to Democrat candidates—all while never revealing the name of a single individual donor. For the Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest union with more than 1.6 million members, this setup allowed its leadership to transfer portions of membership dues to small donor committees … [Read more...]

Via the Denver Post today, another example of Colorado's liberal/Lefty activist blogger community with not enough to occupy their time and interest this slow news August: "Schaffer's 'if' stirs a ruckus." The only people who have stirred a ruckus are the usual suspects. Here is a voice of reason quoted in the Post story, basically saying "What's the big deal here?": ...Bob Loevy, professor of political science at Colorado College, said excessively long campaigns lead to extreme scrutiny of candidates' words. The Senate election is more than a year away. "My feeling is that he misspoke, the campaign manager corrected it and that's the end of it," Loevy said. My only quibble with the story is its failure to identify the undisputed … [Read more...]

Face the State highlights the fraud and deceit behind Michael Huttner's attacks against Republican State Board of Education vice chair Bob Schaffer. Key passages: Earlier this year, Schaffer was in the majority of the board when he voted to remand back to the Denver School Board a decision to deny Life Skills Center its charter. While Denver previously denied the mostly-minority school’s charter, it ultimately agreed with the state board and approved the school’s proposal to continue in existence. After the vote, Schaffer received a campaign contribution to aid his current U.S. Senate bid from David Brennan, an individual who runs a charter school management company that has contracts with Life Skills. Huttner is trying to say that … [Read more...]

The Rocky Mountain News reports today about a new policy giving labor union leaders privileged access to Colorado state government property. Too bad the administration of Governor Bill Ritter (D) is so fixated on rewarding some of his biggest campaign supporters. Colorado's voice of center-right reason on the Western Slope cataloged where these new perks fit into the larger scheme of union payback by Democrats: Republicans said the policy amounts to Ritter's second concession to unions after angering them last legislative session when he vetoed a pro-labor bill to make it easier for unions to organize in the private sector. The first payback, they said, was an executive order that allowed union dues to be automatically withdrawn … [Read more...]