State Rep. Mike Cerbo hopes to become the next executive director of the troubled Colorado AFL- CIO. The union is currently under a national trusteeship after experiencing leadership problems.
Cerbo declined to speculate about rumors that he’s a frontrunner but says if he gets the job, he hopes to keep his legislative seat.
Randy Atkinson, president of the Colorado Professional Firefighters, and a former executive board member of the Colorado AFL-CIO, says that people from as far away as Texas and Minnesota have applied for the job. He declined to comment on anyone’s chances.
Colorado’s AFL-CIO problems involved a clash between union leaders which “caused a lot of strife within the organization,” Atkinson said. A new director and new management structure should resolve the problems, he said.
Cerbo, term-limited in 2010, has a strong labor background, having served as business manager for the hotel employees/restaurant employees Local 14 for 24 years.
Party label? What party label?
In the latest Rothenberg Political Report, political editor Nathan Gonzales notes that several candidates for Congress are skipping the party label, including some in Colorado.
Even though three candidates are running for the Democratic nomination to replace Rep. Mark Udall in the 2nd Congressional District, you wouldn’t know two of them were Democrats by an initial look at their websites, he says.
Candidate Jared Polis clearly markets himself as a “Democratic candidate for Congress,” but state Sen. Joan Fitz-Gerald and environmentalist Will Shafroth don’t mention the word Democrat on the main page of their websites.
Shafroth says he’s “proud to be a Democrat.” His campaign mailings identify him as a Democrat and he comes from a long line of Dems, including his granddad, Gov. John Shafroth, elected in 1908.
Fitz-Gerald said it’s “absurd” to imply she’s shunning the party label. “I’ve worn that label as a Democrat proudly. I’ve worked really hard to increase the number of people in elective office who have the label,” she said.
While GOP candidates understandably are shunning the Republican label in 2008, Democrats eager to turn out their base without being tarred one way or the other are playing down the party name, Gonzales says.
One candidate playing it up: 4th Congressional District candidate Eric Eidsness. He recently changed his party affiliation from Reform Party to Democrat, and mentions the Democratic Party four times on the front page of his campaign website.
Frangas running again
Contrary to Capitol buzz, Democratic state Rep. Jerry Frangas of Denver’s District 4 plans to run for one final legislative term in 2008. He is being challenged by Russell Greear.
But State Rep. Dorothy Butcher won’t be running again in ’08. Butcher, a Pueblo Democrat who is not term-limited until 2010, said she will run for an open seat on the Pueblo County Commission instead. In her final year in the legislature, Butcher plans to sponsor a bill designed to prevent insurance companies from using credit scoring to discriminate against consumers.
Two possible contenders for Butcher’s seat are Sal Pace, district director and former campaign manager for Congressman John Salazar, and Pueblo lawyer Nick Gradisar.
Boots in Beantown
State Sen. Jim Isgar is traipsing around Boston this month, in between taking classes at the John F. Kennedy Center for Public Leadership at Harvard.
“You really feel the history here,” he said in a phone conversation. “We did the freedom trail, went to all the historic sites.”
Isgar is an accountant and farmer recognizable around the state Capitol for his big hats and cowboy boots. Is he sporting them around Beantown? “The first thing I did when I got here was went out and bought a pair of shorts,” Isgar said. “People probably don’t think I own a pair of tennis shoes. but I brought a pair with me. … I don’t wear boots with my shorts. I know you were probably picturing me doing that,” he quipped.
Maybe.
Julia C. Martinez (jmartinez@
) is a member of the Denver Post editorial board.
