Bill Comer fought NEA's battles throughout the Western U.S.
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published March 5, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Comer led a successful campaign against TABOR.
Bill Comer was the National Education Association's top political troubleshooter. He battled voucher proposals and other ballot measures opposed by the NEA throughout the West, including Colorado.
"He was my ace," said John Chase, NEA's retired Western political director and Mr. Comer's former boss.
"I was always comfortable asking him to get on a plane and go someplace, and he never said no."
Mr. Comer, a former middle school social studies teacher and state senator from Colorado Springs, died Feb. 9 at home in Denver of gastric cancer. He was 72.
Friends said he had two passions - politics and public education - and they came together in his work for the teachers union. Though little known outside education circles, he was an enormously effective political leader, colleagues said.
"He was very bright, very thoughtful," said Bruce Dickinson, the director of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, an NEA affiliate. "You knew when he gave you a piece of advice he had really thought it through."
In Colorado, he led the campaign that defeated a school voucher proposal in 1992. He also led a successful campaign against the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights in 1990. The measure, backed by Douglas Bruce of Colorado Springs, now a state representative, passed two years later, when Mr. Comer was busy with the voucher issue.
"He was the last guy to beat Doug Bruce," said Deborah Fallin, Mr. Comer's longtime companion.
William Joseph Comer was born May 20, 1935, in Cumberland, Md.
He was a graduate of LaSalle College in Philadelphia.
He came to Colorado during a hitch in the Army.
Mr. Comer taught in Colorado Springs for 20 years, mostly at North Middle School.
He was among the founders of the Colorado Education Association chapter in Colorado Springs and later was president of the group.
He served in the state Senate from 1975 to 1979.
Mr. Comer was the CEA's lobbyist and political director during the 1980s, before going to the NEA in 1992. The NEA is the CEA's parent group.
Friends described the pipe-smoking Mr. Comer as a cerebral political operative with a gift for seeing patterns in polling data that might escape others.
Said Fallin, the CEA spokeswoman: "He would take A, B, C . . . F would be his next leap, and then maybe to M, and people would always go, 'How did you do that?' He used to be frustrated because people wouldn't follow. And I'd say, 'Because you think about things differently than other people. They don't get it.' "
Mr. Comer was preceded in death by his wife, Daphne.
In addition to Fallin, survivors include five children, Cheri-Babette Corso, Bangkok, Thailand; Theresa "Coco" Comer, Hermosa, Calif.; Denise Danielle Williams, Bastrop, Texas; Sean Casey Comer, Mendon, Mass.; and Shannon Hemming, Colorado Springs.
A celebration of his life will be held May 20. Details are pending.
morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303 954-5209
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3rdGenerationNative writes:
May he rest in peace.
Actually, he was the FIRST guy to defeat Bruce in Colorado. Comer will definitely not be the last in a 32-year string of ballot defeats in Calif. & Colorado. Should Lame Doug survive recall or misuse of political office charges, Mark Waller will beat him to the in the November ticket.