GOP turns up union heat
Business groups and Republican leaders are turning up the heat on Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter for supporting unions in the first business-labor fight on his watch.
On Monday, all 41 Republican senators and representatives sent Ritter a letter urging him to veto House Bill 1072, which would change the 63-year-old Labor Peace Act by eliminating one of two votes currently required to set up union shops.
“In your campaign, you defined yourself as a moderate, business- friendly candidate,” the letter said. “HB 1072 is an extreme anti-business bill.”
Today, hundreds of members of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce are expected to descend on the Capitol for a Senate committee hearing on the measure.
Fetus-murder bill dies
A Senate committee defeated a bill Monday that would have allowed prosecutors to charge someone who kills a pregnant woman with two counts of first-degree murder.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee said language in the bill from Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, could have been interpreted as anti-abortion. The bill died on a 4-3 partisan vote after gut-wrenching testimony from families whose pregnant daughters were killed.
Erin Hanson wore a T-shirt with a photograph of her murdered daughter, Amanda, who was strangled in 2002. Hanson’s unborn grandson also was killed in the attack, she said.
The killer got life in prison without parole for killing Amanda, but was not charged with killing her fetus.
“The baby was not an asterisk,” said Sen. Shawn Mitchell, a Broomfield Republican, who backed the bill.
Appointments on hold
Senate leaders have told Ritter that they won’t confirm 125 people appointed by former Gov. Bill Owens to state boards and commissions, which would give the Democrats more say on who is running the panels for years to come.
The list includes a few well-known Republicans, including Bruce Benson, a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party who was reappointed by Owens to the Metropolitan State College Board of Trustees.
The issue arose after Democrats and environmentalists discovered that Owens had reappointed three people to the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission. Their terms weren’t set to expire until Wednesday, three weeks after he left office.
Evan Dreyer, spokesman for the governor, said it’s up to Ritter to decide if he wants to keep those appointments or make new ones.
In other action:
The State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee approved Senate Bill 25, to bar discrimination by employers based on sexual orientation. Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, has sponsored similar bills for the last six years. Her proposals passed in 2005 and 2006 after Democrats took control of the legislature, only to be vetoed by Owens.
– Denver Post staff and wire reports
