Search online for the phrase “new energy economy” and you get hits for Colorado and Gov. Bill Ritter.
Ritter, who is heading into the second half of his four-year term, has distinguished himself even internationally as the New Energy Governor, a tireless supporter of solar- and wind-energy industries who has made Colorado a leader in renewable power.
But critics as well as some friends of Ritter — who plans to seek re-election — say he hasn’t accomplished much else in two years.
Little has been done to address the state’s crumbling roads and bridges, the state has made only modest efforts to expand health care to the uninsured, and colleges and universities say they’re being starved.
On top of that, Ritter now faces a budget crisis that is potentially worse than the one Republican Gov. Bill Owens dealt with earlier this decade.
“I would say that we’ve been very successful in doing certain things that were important for us to do in Colorado,” Ritter said in a recent interview with The Denver Post. “We have marketed Colorado as a national and international leader in this new energy economy.”
The governor continues to be popular with most Coloradans. A September survey by Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli showed Ritter with a 57 percent favorable rating and a 28 percent negative rating.
“On the average voter level, Ritter is not in all that bad a shape,” Ciruli said. “I think his problem is with the ‘attentive public,’ and that includes his own party.
“If you’re talking to anyone out there in the political world, there’s this sense that he’s made some serious political mistakes and also not been able to deliver on some substantial promises.”
Tough to dislike Ritter
Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, said it’s tough to dislike Ritter, a personable man with an easy smile. But Ritter’s record is a different matter, Wadhams said.
“The only real, tangible accomplishment that is consistent with his campaign has been the renewable-energy agenda that he laid out,” he said, “although I think he’s oversold it as a panacea for Colorado’s economic woes.”
Ritter, though, also points to his signing laws that eliminated business personal property taxes for more than 30,000 small businesses, eliminated a sales tax on airplanes made in Colorado and simplified taxes for multistate corporations.
Also, he notes his efforts to expand preschool and full-day kindergarten, although those goals are now threatened by projected budget shortfalls.
He also cites his efforts on expanding health care for the uninsured by signing a law that, along with previous efforts, officials hope could result in as many as 50,000 more children being enrolled in state health-care programs by 2011.
Ritter acknowledges he probably will not meet his goal of providing all Coloradans “some basic form of health care by 2010.” About 788,000 Coloradans lack health insurance.
“I think we’re in an economic downturn that no one could have predicted when I was running,” Ritter said. “I think we have a lot of different possibilities with the incoming president to do it (health-care reform) on a national level. It obviates the need to do it state by state.”
A whack awaits higher ed?
He also knows he may have to set his sights lower on higher education.
Ritter said while campaigning that he would “gradually restore” cuts to hi-gher education made in the last recession. Under Ritter, the Democratic-controlled legislature has increased funding for higher education by $120 million in the past two years, but now legislators — and even Ritter — are saying higher ed could get whacked again.
The lack of action on road funding has generated some of Ritter’s harshest criticism.
A commission last year made recommendations, but nothing came of them.
“Those (first commission) recommendations came to us at the end of January (2008),” Ritter said. “A fourth of the session was over. It was an election year. The politics of this were kind of dicey because there were a lot of Republicans who just locked down against doing anything that might be a new revenue stream . . .”
Ritter then reappointed the commission to study the issue more. He plans to unveil a transportation funding package this session, although he hasn’t revealed details.
Criticism of Ritter stretches beyond his record. The governor is slammed at times for his management style, either as indecisive or unilateral.
Republicans mock him as “Blue-Ribbon Bill,” the governor who appoints commissions to solve problems and then ignores their recommendations.
Ritter scoffed at that characterization.
“I don’t create commissions for the sake of doing it, but in fact believe it’s important to have that kind of input,” he said. “This is leadership. You don’t get that group standing behind you without a lot of input.”
Some Democrats, though, privately say Ritter too often seeks consensus where executive action is required.
When required to appoint a successor to Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican who was elected to Congress, Ritter asked candidates to submit job applications to a special panel. The move bewildered a number of Democrats, who said it made Ritter look indecisive while treating experienced politicians like reality-show contestants.
Ritter on Saturday appointed Denver Public Schools superintendent Michael Bennet to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Ken Salazar, a Democrat who will serve as interior secretary for President-elect Barack Obama. Bennet has never held elective office, did not have the support of party faithful and isn’t well known outside Denver.
Many Democrats were baffled by the decision, one of Ritter’s most important so far.
His unionization veto
Ritter says his biggest mistake came in his first year with his well-publicized veto of a Democratic bill that would have made it easier for workers to unionize in Colorado. But he didn’t endear himself to business groups, either, after issuing an executive order that granted some collective-bargaining rights to state employees.
“I think I’ve had a really rough go with respect to labor and sort of how I’ve dealt with labor and some of the problems that’s caused me in the business community,” Ritter said.
Last year, a group of business leaders cited Ritter’s executive order when they backed a ballot measure to make it illegal to require paying union fees as a condition of employment. Other business leaders who didn’t back the measure blamed Ritter for the resultant shootout with unions.
The governor said the backers of the ballot measure were determined to put it before voters regardless of his actions.
Praise and criticism
Ritter gets some of his highest praise and harshest criticism for signing in 2007 a law that froze local mill levies that otherwise would have fallen.
The law allows school districts to collect more in property taxes — money the state in turn does not have to spend on schools and can use for other purposes.
“I think the mill-levy freeze was a gutsy move whose time had come,” said Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs. “That, for me, is a real accomplishment.”
Opponents of the law, including the Mesa County Board of Commissioners, sued Ritter and the state, alleging the law violated a state constitutional requirement that all tax increases go before voters. The Colorado Supreme Court has allowed school districts to move forward with setting new mill-levy rates, but has not yet ruled on whether the law is unconstitutional.
Ritter said the law “had to happen in order to save the state budget,” but many Republicans have said the state’s high court could throw out the law and order massive taxpayer refunds.
What will Ritter do if that happens?
“It’s a hypothetical that I’m not going to answer,” he said, “but it’s not that I haven’t thought about it or don’t have a plan for it.”
Ritter also gets alternatively high and low marks for backing a ballot measure to end a property-tax credit for oil and gas producers to pay for college scholarships and environmental programs.
Ritter became the face of a campaign that received only tepid support from higher-education leaders.
The measure failed, with nearly 58 percent of voters opposing it, while Ritter enraged many segments of the energy industry already angry at him over tougher environmental regulations on oil and gas drilling.
Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, said Ritter has “spent his political capital on fights that he had no business starting and has been indecisive on issues where there’s real leadership required.”
Penry, though, credits Ritter for working with Republicans on using severance-tax revenues and federal mineral-lease money to fund projects on college campuses and at rural schools.
Penry says he’d like to work with Ritter on a roads package as well, but says there has to be a realization that the state budget is going to face serious cuts.
A recent forecast from legislative staff estimated the state faced a $604 million shortfall in the current budget year ending in June. Ritter’s office, meanwhile, initially estimated the shortfall at $70.2 million and then said it had underestimated the budget hole, which it now puts at $230 million.
One Democratic lawmaker said even Ritter’s revised forecast appeared to be “off by a country mile.”
“That just really undermined confidence in the governor’s office,” the lawmaker said.
“Not going to be scared”
Ritter has been raising money for his re-election bid and says he isn’t worried about talk that some business groups and the oil and gas industry are gunning for him.
“I’m not going to be scared away from governing by people bandying about numbers that they’re going to put up in a re-election opposition,” he said.
Ritter may have few reasons to be afraid. Coloradans historically are inclined to give their governors second terms, and no obvious Republican contenders have emerged.
Ritter sees himself as a pragmatist who focuses on getting done what is possible.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “Coloradans respond far more to how people govern than they respond to well-funded negative political ads.
“I want you to write that.”
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
Gov. Bill Ritter’s record on several issues
Energy
Ritter has distinguished himself as a supporter of the “new energy economy” and is often credited with coining the phrase. He has made Colorado a leader in wind and solar power.
Transportation
One of the harshest criticisms of Ritter is that he hasn’t addressed the state of Colorado’s roads and bridges. A commission last year made recommendations, but no action was taken.
Higher education
While campaigning, Ritter promised to restore the higher-education cuts made during the last recession. The Democratic-controlled legislature has increased funding but has hinted that cuts could be made again.
Health care
Ritter signed a law that officials hope could result in as many as 50,000 more children being enrolled in state health- care programs by 2011. He acknowledges that, with the economic downturn, he probably will not meet a campaign goal of providing all Coloradans with some form of basic health care by 2010.
