Colorad Labor Blog

Governor Bill Ritter’s decision not to run for re-election in 2010 is a wonderful, belated Christmas gift to Colorado Democrats in general and organized labor in particular.

With Ritter at the head of their ticket, the Democrats would have gone down to an ignominious defeat in Colorado, possibly losing their majorities in both the house and the senate.  Without out him, they have at least a 50-50 chance of maintaining control of both the legislative and executive branches of state government.

Ritter had a lot of problems, the biggest of which was that he could generate no enthusiasm from labor’s rank-and-file for the top of the Democratic ticket.  The state’s unions provide most of the volunteer manpower that does the heavy lifting—the precinct work– during campaigns.   When there is no enthusiasm among the rank-and-file for the candidates in key statewide races (governor, U.S. senator, etc.), that attitude trickles down to the legislative candidates, generally leading to disaster at the polls.

When Ritter was elected in 2006, labor leaders were ecstatic.  Most of them considered him a close friend.  His father had been a union member, and he had always been empathetic toward union families.  Most of the state’s labor leaders had met with him both individually and as a group before his election and he promised them he would be there for them when the time came.

But that was not to be.

Ritter made four major mistakes with the unions.  First, right out of the box, soon after he was inaugurated in 2007, he vetoed House Bill 1072, which would have repealed the Colorado Labor Peace Act.  The peace act is an onerous and unfair state law making it difficult to organize workers who have already voted for union representation.

H.B. 1072 was passed by legislative Democrats despite tremendous opposition from minority Republicans and the business community.  In the senate, President Joan Fitzgerald held her slim majority together for a full day, beating down a raft of silly amendments proposed by Republicans before the bill was finally passed.  Fitzgerald was livid when Ritter vetoed the bill, after he promised the unions he would support its passage.

Then in 2008, he vetoed a bill that would have required that all electrician apprentices be federally registered to ensure that they were adequately trained.

To pacify the unions after the veto, Ritter appointed a committee to study the issue, and legislation was passed in 2009.  Unfortunately, labor was not represented on the committee and the unions say the legislation was only beneficial to the electrical contractors.

Ritter’s third affront to labor also occurred last year when he vetoed House Bill 1170, which would have  allowed workers who  were locked out, through no fault of their own, from their jobs by their employers to receive unemployment benefits.

Finally, Ritter’s fourth blow to labor in 2009 was his veto of a bill that would have allowed collective bargaining between firefighters and local governments.

For more than 50 years, labor has done more for the Democrats than any other group in Colorado.  The unions have worked diligently for the party, even during times when there was virtually no possibility their efforts would pay off.  They provided precinct foot soldiers that often faced hostility in the neighborhoods where they volunteered to work.  They participated in Democratic Party county, state and national conventions.  And they sometimes were forced to relinquish traditional labor goals in favor of the greater good of the Democratic Party.

Colorado unions  have no reason to shed any tears over Bill Ritter.

Governor Bill Ritter received an early Christmas gift in November when Josh Penry bowed out of the Republican gubernatorial primary campaign in favor of Scott McInnis, a fraying but familiar politician who aspires to be a heavyweight, but has never been more than a bantamweight.

In choosing to stick with the familiar, Colorado Republicans have once again dumped on their rank-and-file members, many of whom believe that Penry would have mopped the floor with McInnis in a primary.

But the big boys of the GOP wanted a guy who can raise serious cash from corporate contributors.   McInnis can.  Democrats have already accused him of coordinating his campaign with a huge 527 political fund, which is illegal.

And, in 2004, when McInnis was a member of Congress, the Federal Election Commission investigated his campaign committee for possible violations.  The committee, which had a huge bankroll of campaign funds, continued to pay McInnis’ wife for work after he announced he would was not a candidate for office. The complaint was eventually dismissed, but questions of ethics remain.

Tom Strickland, who is now chief of staff for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in Washington, ran twice for the United States Senate against Republican Wayne Allard.  Strickland lost both times in bitter campaigns. Before the 2002 campaign Strickland was a top attorney for Hogan and Hartston, a prominent international law firm based in Washington, D.C.

The Republicans’ most effective campaign strategy in 2002 was to refer to Strickland—in every news release, public statement or simple utterance—as a lawyer/lobbyist or a millionaire/lawyer/lobbyist.  The scheme was devised by Dick Wadhams, the current Republican state chairman, who was Allard’s campaign manager at the time.

Ironically, when McInnis retired from Congress in 2005, he also went to work for Hogan and Hartson, certainly as a lawyer/lobbyist but more likely as a millionaire/lawyer lobbyist.

And McGinnis carries a bit more baggage. He was a strong supporter of term limits when he was first elected to Congress in 1992.  He promised to serve only eight years, in compliance with volunteer term limitations being espoused at the time by some screwball rightwing group.  But at the end of eight years, McInnis wasn’t ready to quit; he reneged on his promise.

He said he hadn’t realized the value seniority adds to the pursuit of good government.  It’s amazing that McInnis served 10 years in the Colorado Legislature before becoming a congressman and never recognized the value of seniority.

Despite his shortcomings, McGinnis was endorsed by the Republican hierarchy, which includes former Gov. Bill Owens, among other GOP heavyweights.  They apparently didn’t learn a lesson when they decided at the 11^th hour in 2004 to shift their support from former Congressman Bob Schaffer to beer heir Pete Coors in the  Republican primary election. Coors was soundly defeated by Democrat Ken Salazar in the general election.

This year they’re leaving nothing to chance.  They’ve shoved Penry, minority leader of the state Senate, out of the race months before the GOP primary election. Ritter, who also packs considerable baggage, can only hope that millionaire lawyer/lobbyist McInnis will meet the same fate as Schaffer.

The question today, sports fans, is, “What would Bill Ritter have to do to regain the trust and support of organized labor in Colorado?”

I’ve put that question to several people over the past weeks and mostly the response has been:  “He can’t do anything because we don’t  believe him anymore.”

What do you think?  Can Ritter do something that would appease the unions enough to generate their support before the next election?

If you have an idea on how the governor could earn a re-endorsement from labor in the 2010 election, e-mail it to me at Jayhans@aol.com.  Keep in mind, though, if your idea requires legislative action, it would have to be in the 2010 legislative session, which ends only about five months before the 2010 general election.

Unless he can convince many Colorado labor leaders otherwise, Governor Bill Ritter will lose support of many powerful unions that were instrumental in his 2008 victory.

And the possibility that Ritter can convince them otherwise is very slim, indeed.

Even Mike Cerbo, president of the Colorado AFL-CIO, who hopes the unions’ rift with Ritter can be mended, is not optimistic.

“I don’t know if he (Ritter) can turn it around,” Cerbo said.  “He must start to show some understanding of our values that just hasn’t been there so far.  He should take a more active role in passing family friendly legislation.”

Several Colorado labor leaders say that wouldn’t matter.  Regardless of what the governor promises, they aren’t even willing to listen to his overtures.  Among those are the Firefighters, the United Food and Commercial Workers the Teamsters and the Electricians, all of which represent nearly 50,000 workers in Colorado.

In addition to the Teamsters and the Electricians, many other building trades unions are estranged from the governor, who enjoyed unanimous support from Colorado labor in 2008.  Thus far, unions representing more than half of Colorado’s trade union membership have said they will not support Ritter in 2010.

The officers of the unions opposing the governor all zero in on one area of criticism–Ritter’s honesty:

• “We took him at his word, and then we busted our humps to get him elected, and he lied to us.”–Randy Atkinson, Colorado Firefighters.
• “Why should we expect him to keep any new promises when he has reneged on all the old ones?”–Steve Vairma, Colorado Council of Teamsters
• “The only thing he (Ritter} has with which to make amends is his word, and his word is no good.” –Ernest Duran, Jr., United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7.
• “He lied to us, plain and simple.”–Neil Hall, Colorado Building and Construction Trades Council.
• “Ritter has lost our trust and I don’t think he can get it back.”–Mark Johnson, Electricians Local 113.