With all the initiatives on the ballot this year, it might be hard to keep them all sorted out. So, being the helpful folks that we are, we here at PPC have put together a sample ballot for the amendments and referenda in the 2008 Colorado elections.

On our sample ballot, you’ll find a quick summary of what each ballot measure is about, our recommended vote, and our reasons behind that recommendation. We’ve even provided a handy printable version [PDF] that you can print out and use for reference while filling out your ballot.

GODZILLA!!!!

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Right.  These guys are so full of crap that it’s actually getting old.  I know they raised like $30 million dollars and they think that we Coloradans are stupid enough to fall for their out-of-state Union Scam. Now I don’t want to necessarily silence their free speech, but wasn’t decimating the economy of one state enough for these Unions?  Anyone here want to turn out like Michigan? 

Say it with me kids…

Amendment 49 brings ethical standards to government and makes PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS collect the dues from their members directly by prohibiting the PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS from using our tax dollar paid government employees from being their bagman. Vote YES on Amendment 49!

Amendment 54 stops the culture of corrupt bribery between scumbag contractors and corrupt politicians, and it also sets up a statewide database of no-bid government contracts allowing we the people to see who our politicians are handing our tax dollars to.  Vote YES on Amendment 54!

I’m going to start a weekend campaign right here, right now.  Apparently facts don’t matter to the Union Thug opponents to 49 and 54, so why should we worry about them now?  So, remember when you vote this year: IF YOU LOVE BABBIES AND PUPPIES, THEN PROTECT THEM BY VOTING YES ON 49 and 54!

Wow, this is pretty easy.  Maybe Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future is hiring?

No, I don’t mean the implicit violence in depicting a boy and a woman symbolically torn in half.  I mean the Spanish. Where is the rest of the Spanish?

If you are a Colorado voter who can only read Spanish, all this flier from Mi Familia VOTA tells you is that Amendment 46, Amendment 47, Amendment 49, and Amendment 54 are “attacking our students” and “attacking our teachers”, as if paragraphs of dense legislative verbiage had suddenly metamorphosed into living beings and launched themselves on mindless gibbering rampages of verbal assault through the lunchrooms and faculty lounges of our local schools. Beyond the alarming (and dishonest) scare lines, there’s no explanation of how or why these ballot measures purportedly “attack” students and teachers.

Why, it’s almost as if Mi Familia VOTA didn’t see a need to give Spanish speakers the whole story. As if they just assumed the Spanish speakers would be easily alarmed and easily led to vote against these amendments. As if they felt the Spanish speakers didn’t require (or deserve?) any effort to persuade them - just marching orders.

Interesting.

It’s just as well, I suppose, since the arguments made (in English only) are so blatantly dishonest and deceptive that translating them would only have insulted the Spanish speakers’ intelligence, too.

On the page with the violently torn-in-half boy, Mi Familia VOTA alleges that Amendment 46 would prevent thousands of Hispanic students from attending Colorado’s best colleges. How, exactly? If the admissions standards and scholarships are racially and ethnically blind, and are applied in like fashion, the students getting into Colorado’s best colleges will be…Colorado’s best students. The right way to ensure representative demographics in Colorado’s colleges is not to perpetuate racial and ethnic quotas and preferences, but to make sure the admissions process is colorblind, and that an equally colorblind K-12 education system has prepared students who desire to go to college to earn, fairly, a place in a college suited to their interests and abilities, and to compete for merit-based scholarships to pay for it.

Mi Familia VOTA also claims to speak for all teachers here, by claiming that “the teachers of Colorado” are against it. Really? All of them? Surely there must be some teachers who recognize that Amendment 46 is a good idea – I guess their opinions don’t count. I think if I were still teaching kids, I would resent that.

On the page with the violently torn-in-half woman, Mi Familia VOTA trots out the standard leftist/union anti-capitalist boogeyman to scare (English speaking) voters into believing that corporations are going to take away the rights of teachers and hoard them up like magic beans to empower themselves to who knows what nefarious ends. (Big corporations – is there anything they can’t do?!?) But Amendments 47, 49, and 54 will not take away the rights of teachers or anyone else to fight for better schools – these measures protect the rights of teachers and others by preventing unions from forcing them to join a union as a condition of employment, save taxpayers money by eliminating the expense of collecting and processing the unions’ dues for them gratis, and protect all Coloradans from the effects of dirty campaign donations and quid-pro-quos by removing a corrupting influence from state government. What Mi Famila VOTA isn’t telling voters (neither the English speaking nor the Spanish speaking ones) is that opposition to Amendments 47, 49, and 54, the organization is tacit approval of workplace coercion, the state subsidizing of union finances, and continued corruption of public officials by special interests…that’s something they’d rather not discuss in ANY language, I bet.

And let’s be clear what is meant here by “fighting for better schools”: they mean government schools dominated by unions, with dues collected (at taxpayer expense) from teachers who often have little choice in the matter. Mi Familia VOTA is not fighting for the rights of individual teachers or even all teachers as a group, but to protect the power base of teachers’ unions, which all to often work against the interests of teachers and students alike.

(Hmm…how interesting. I inadvertently typed in the URL www.mifamiliavota.org, and it took me to an abandoned domain containing a page titled “People for the American Way“. Gee, you think maybe there’s a connection between Mi Familia VOTA and PFtAW? The About page on the .net site doesn’t say…)

Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future (as they’re known here at PPC) has been sending out flyers chock full of misleading and plainly dishonest allegations about these amendments, with images of police and firefighters carefully crafted to appear as if these folks are in uniform. The intent behind these images seems to be to give the casual reader the impression that the positions presented in the flyers represent an official position of police or fire departments, but with the “plausible deniability” that someone looking closely at the uniforms would recognize that they weren’t the real thing.

Clearly, though, the flyers’ authors rely on the fact that most people who find one of these things in their mailbox will look only at the hang-dog faces on the people who nobly protect our communities, read the misleading text to find out what has them looking so upset, and take away the impression that “The Police Department” and “The Fire Department” officially oppose Amendments 54, 49, 47.  But if anything, when the pictures are studied carefully, it’s actually a union position that’s being represented.

As a refresher, Protecting Colorado’s Culture of Corruption’s Future’s first flyer slamming Amendments 54, 49, and 47  stated:

For officers like Jeff Shaw – our safety is his top priority.

But at 2:00am when he responds to a call – Officer Shaw shouldn’t worry whether or not his vest can take that bullet.

But that’s EXACTLY what Amendments 47, 49, and 54 will do.

These amendment swill stop Officer Shaw from joining with other officers to advocate for better body armor and modern equipment – giving him the tools he needs to protect and save lives. 

If you look closely at the pictures in that flyer, you’ll notice that Officer Jeff Shaw isn’t quite wearing a uniform, but a black police-uniform-style shirt with what appears to be a name bar and police badge on it – a badge which bears the letters “F.O.P.”, the acronym of the Fraternal Order of Police.  While the central body of the F.O.P. doesn’t explicitly describe itself as a union, it performs many of the functions of one. I’ve got no problem at all with citizens organizing into professional associations or unions – especially if those groups put the interests of their members before the interests of the group’s leaders.  

But…when you read their words, Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future’s argument is that only by stopping Amendments 47, 49, and 54 will our state’s police and firefighters be able to participate in organizations like F.O.P. They imply organizations like F.O.P. – unions, in short – are the only route for securing the workplace safety of our policemen and firefighters. For getting them the body armor and modern equipment they need.  For obtaining the tools they need to protect and save lives. 

One might construe from that that the F.O.P. is concerned about safety, right? Well…Take a peek at the current F.O.P. Sherriff Lodge 27′s collective bargaining agreement.  Here are a few sample pages (full document can be found at FOP Sheriff Lodge 27′s website):

Full, legible document here [pdf].  

Since we’re all about looking at things closely, we took a close look at this document. 

In this collective bargaining union agreement, the words “pay”,  ”payroll”, “paydate”, or “salary” appear no fewer than 92 times, the words “vacation”, “leave”, or “sick leave” appear no fewer than 108 times, and the word “overtime” appears no fewer than 8 times. 

Since this is an employment agreement we’re talking about, it’s obviously going to include text about pay and benefits. That’s part of what an employment agreement is for, right? But in contrast, throughout the entire agreement, the word “safety” does not appear once; nor do the words “bulletproof” or ”vest”. 

Not. Once.

It’s a completely bogus argument to claim that Amendments 47, 49, and 54 will prevent anyone from joining any union or professional organization they choose – in fact, securing that element of choice is exactly what Amendment 47 in particular is about – or that workers will be unable to organize to negotiate better conditions or the right equipment for the job. It’s also questionable to imply that those unions are the sole route to workplace safety, when the union leaders don’t bother to mention safety alongside hundreds of pay and benefit provisions in their collective bargaining agreement.

You’d think if collective bargaining were the sole means available for securing the safety of their members, the union leadership crafting that collective bargaining agreement would have seen fit to mention it, even just once .

In a confidential internal memorandum obtained by Face The State (PDF), the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of “operatives” who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state’s liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to “educate the idiots,” assigned to the state’s AFL-CIO union. Among the operation’s intended targets: “minorities, GED’s, drop-outs.”

Individuals named in the document, marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” “for internal use only,” and “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE,” are high-level elected Democrats including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, as well as Gov. Bill Ritter’s press aide and former campaign chief Evan Dreyer. All are specially marked as “off-the-record or covert.”

 

Let’s read between the lines of this fair campaign:

* Is it really for the welfare of the worker, as the union elite claim with every campaign, or “increasing CO union power”?
* How powerful is your campaign message if you feel the smart people just won’t vote for you?
* And — this is as obvious as pie — you’re calling minorities “idiots”?????????? Who, they apparently believe, can be hoodwinked to serve any cause just by appealing to said alleged idiocy????


YIKES!

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Honesty just isn’t one of Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future’s strengths.  Taking their Page 4 LIES one by one (click the links to read the actual Amendment text on the Colorado Secretary of State’s webpage):

Amendment 47: How does giving firefighters the right to choose whether they want to join a union take their equipment and tools away?  Amendment 47 will only take away power from Union Thug Bosses from strong-arming firefighters to join a union.  The amendment actually protects an individual firefighter’s right to choose what’s in his best interest.

Amendment 49: Doesn’t dictate how hardworking firefighters spend their paychecks.  It prohibits Union Thug Bosses from stealing money out of firefighter paychecks.  It requires Union Thug Bosses to ask before taking money from our hardworking Colorado firefighters.

Amendment 54: Closes campaign finance loopholes for corrupt, scumbag corporations who presently can spend millions of dollars in campaigns to get crooked politicians elected and then can be rewarded by those politicians with multi-million dollar NO-BID government contracts.  Small businesses actually benefit from an Amendment 54 even playing field allowing them to compete for those same government contracts.  Working families benefit because our tax dollars don’t go to crooked politicians paying off corrupt, scumbag contractors with multi-million dollar political favors.  In addition, Amendment 54 sets up a statewide searchable database that allows us, the hardworking Colorado families, to see which politicians are handing out NO-BID government contracts and which contractors receive them.  We should be able to see exactly how our tax dollars are being spent. 

Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future is shameful and dishonest.  They send out mailers full of LIES on Amendments 47, 49, and 54.  They LIE to Colorado voters’ faces about Amendments 47, 49, and 54.  They refuse to publicly debate Amendments 47, 49, and 54 to defend their LIES.  Unfortunately for Protect Colorado’s Culture of Corruption Future , we Colorado voters actually use our heads and see through the LIES.

An alliance known as Colorado Concern has emerged as a key player in the latest talks, which involve the terms over which labor groups would pull their four measures if business leaders help them fight three other measures including a controversial “right to work” amendment.

Talks began Sunday but sources said they were suspended Tuesday night at the governor’s mansion before a deal could be reached about how much money it would take to mount a concerted campaign to defeat three measures viewed as anti-union.

Talks began Sunday but sources said they were suspended Tuesday night at the governor’s mansion before a deal could be reached about how much money it would take to mount a concerted campaign to defeat three measures viewed as anti-union…

An e-mail, obtained by the Rocky and addressed to Colorado Concern board members, details some of the terms of the negotiations, including finding ways to get business leaders involved in advocating against the “right-to-work” amendment and the two others.

“We are asking ALL members of the Executive Committee to reach out to your respective networks to secure other individuals from the business community – whether affiliated with Colorado Concern or not – to help with this effort,” wrote Colorado Concern Executive Director Janice Sinden in the e-mail.

The aim seems to be to reach a compromise agreement by October 2, in which Big Labor would withdraw their ballot measures (Amendments 53, 55, 56, and 57) in exchange for Big (Statist) Business coming out in opposition to Amendments 47, 49, and 54.

Looking at Colorado Concern’s “Public Policy and Advocacy” page, I’m struck not by what is there (lots of talk of hobnobbing with government officials and politicians to promote “business interests”), but by what is missing: any mention of free markets, fighting against anti-business regulation, or promoting capitalism.  I guess when an organization leads the fight for massive tax increases and watering down property rights and ingratiates itself to a governor who is beholden to Big Labor by helping pay off his campaign debts, nobody should really be surprised when it looks to hold hands with Big Labor to oppose commonsense reforms.

As you may have guessed, we support Amendment 49 – just as we previously supported various versions of this policy at the local level. It would block state and local government agencies from deducting dues or fees from employee paychecks for unions or other membership groups.

In Hank Brown’s words, government should not be the bagman for special interests. Let them solicit and collect their own money. That burden should NOT fall on Colorado taxpayers. So chalk a victory up for the Independence Institute‘s Jon Caldara, who wrote on his blog this morning,

We can proudly add the Rocky Mountain News to the growing list of endorsements for Amendment 49, Ethical Standards. The Rocky decided that 49 is just plain good, ethical government. In other words, government that does not use taxpayer money to funnel member dues to special interests.

Jon went on to link to the PPC’s coverage of Protect Colorado’s Future and their misleading, fear mongering ads.

Makes me wonder…. what are they so scared of? 49 limits government, not individuals. Seems the opponents have taken a page out of the Ritter playbook, but instead of using children as props, they are using policemen, firefighters, and nurses to employ their scare tactics.

I can hazard a guess. Maybe they are scared that if they have to actually go to their members to collect money, maybe those members will decide that they don’t need union representation. I bet it would be scary to lose the convenience of government being your collection agency and accountant, all on the taxpayer’s dime.

These Heroes Don’t Need Capes, so why has Protect Colorado’s Future put these true heroes in costumes?

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From Protect Colorado’s Future’s original No on Amendment 47, 49, and 54 scanned mailer, a commentor noted that the officer in the picture wasn’t wearing an “official” police badge.  Protect Colorado’s Future dressed him up in an officer-looking costume.  What is it that Protect Colorado’s Future is trying to hide?  Why is Protect Colorado’s Future trying to trick voters?   I have at least as much, and likely more, respect for Colorado’s public employees who keep us safe, but something about Protect Colorado’s Future’s mailers don’t add up to me.

The only thing about this ad that’s true is that Colorado’s officers, firefighters, and EMTs are true heroes.  It’s too bad that Protect Colorado’s Future thinks they can dress these real heroes up in costumes.

First Protect Colorado’s Future dresses real public employees up in costumes, then they outright lie to Colorado voters about Colorado amendments on the ballot, and now they’re back to putting Colorado’s heroes in costumes?  Why won’t Protect Colorado’s Future just be honest with voters?  Why are they using such sketchy tactics?