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FOX: Labor-issues impasse at the precipice

Any deal involving cash to labor interests goes too far

By Jack Fox, Special to the Rocky

Published September 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Stop! That is the message to Gov. Bill Ritter, Sen. Ken Salazar and business and labor leaders who are working on a compromise to remove the four anti-business initiatives from this year's ballot.

An attempt to have these measures pulled is critical. However, the idea that businesses would contribute millions of dollars to an effort to defeat three other anti-labor measures is so flawed and problematic that everyone involved needs to stop for a minute and take a gut check.

With this compromise we are truly standing on the shores of a Rubicon in Colorado politics. The very notion that an opposing party, regardless of the issue, could essentially pay millions of dollars to the other side to drop something from the ballot flies in the face of everything we stand for in this country.

Politics is often a contested sport and sometimes even a war, but what sets us apart as Americans is that we play by the rules. Under those rules, you can accuse, cajole, berate, intimidate and even threaten, but the one thing you can't do is buy off the other side.

Can you imagine the uproar if the oil and gas companies went to the governor and paid him - via a multimillion-dollar contribution to some other cause he cared about - to remove the severance tax issue from the ballot? People would go to jail and there would be the proverbial hell to pay.

I understand that sometimes you have to compromise for the greater good. However, in this case, there is an ethical line and - out of desperation - good people are poised to cross it. The unions went too far and pulled the pin on an economic grenade that will truly have catastrophic consequences on the Colorado economy (and, in case they missed it, their members as well). The right to work proponents won't back down either, setting up an impasse. Those involved in the issue are scrambling to find a way to prevent the ticking bomb from going off. In their desperation they have lost sight of the bigger picture.

The sad reality is that there are two clear messages from this attempt to stave off a disaster. The first is the presumption that with enough money one can actually buy an election. After all, why would the unions support pulling their measures in return for a big check to fight the measures that they oppose unless they thought they could beat them with money?

While skeptics have long said that elections can be bought, I don't think that has always been the case in Colorado. In our recent history there are a number of instances where extremely well-funded candidates haven't won their contests. However, starting with issues races in the late '90s (and more recently with Statehouse seats and perhaps even the 2nd Congressional District race this year), there is starting to be a disturbing pattern of the ability to purchase political success.

The second message from this folly is that there is way too much garbage on the ballot. We continue to frivolously amend what is supposed to be our sacred document with the trivial and arcane. The idea that our state constitution can be changed at whim and that dueling measures can be easily wielded as a weapon against an opposing party is absurd (again, they can be bought - it only takes about $200,000 to gather the requisite signatures to put anything on the ballot).

Let us hope that cooler heads prevail and an attainable and ethical solution is found. If there is anything good that comes from all of this, may it be that the citizens of Colorado get fed up with these abuses and recognize that we need to reform our ballot process.

Jack Fox is a Denver businessman who has been involved in a number of campaigns to defeat ballot initiatives in the state.

Comments

  • September 26, 2008

    9:19 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    roger44 writes:

    should circulate one more petition, recall Ritter.

  • September 27, 2008

    11:21 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    kyjohnso writes:

    This is the supernova of labor's dying star. The once useful and necessary labor unions are seeing a decline in the private sector, so they are grasping for power and trying the state government market with blackmail as a tactic. They have a champion in Governor Ritter and if we let them, they will destroy Colorado's economy.

  • September 29, 2008

    4:24 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    labor unions - denver chamber - forced dues - ritter -politics - salazar - corruption - all unethical