In a February 24 “special presentation” broadcast as part of KNUS 710 AM's weekly Backbone Radio program, host John Andrews joined Colorado Republican Senate Minority Leader Andrew McElhany (Colorado Springs) and Republican state Rep. Cory Gardner (Yuma) in making false and misleading statements about the work of Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter and the Democratic-led state legislature. Andrews uncritically allowed McElhany to state that "[a]fter four years of Democrat (sic) control of the legislature, there is no legislative agenda from their side." In fact, as he has done in previous years, Democratic Speaker Andrew Romanoff (Denver) presented the detailed Democratic legislative agenda in his speech on January 9, the opening day of the current legislative session. Similarly, Ritter outlined specific legislative proposals in his January 10 State of the State address, identifying legislative sponsors of his proposals in an accompanying press release.

Additionally, Andrews failed to challenge McElhany's false claim that Ritter was “stepping away from any of the recommendations on the blue ribbon study group on health care”; in fact, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, Ritter recently stated that his health care reform plan “would incorporate some of the less expensive but important recommendations by the Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform," according to the Rocky Mountain News.

Toward the end of the broadcast, Gardner claimed in reference to Ritter's November 2007 executive order authorizing state employee partnerships that Democrats “refused to put strong laws in place that prevent public employees from striking” and that a Republican-sponsored bill defeated by House Democrats in committee would have “reverse[d] the governor's executive order.” However, neither Andrews nor Gardner mentioned that in fact, Ritter's executive order already bars employee organizations from engaging in any “disruptive measure” against the state or its agencies, as Colorado Media Matters has noted.

The segment aired on February 24, in which Andrews also addressed Republican state house Minority Leader Mike May, was similar to the Backbone Radio broadcast of April 15, 2007. As Colorado Media Matters pointed out, that earlier program also featured Republican legislative leaders making false and misleading statements in interviews previously recorded at the Capitol.

From the February 24 broadcast of KNUS 710 AM's Backbone Radio:

ANDREWS: Senator McElhany, what would be the top four or five issues that Republicans are prioritizing, and just give us, briefly, a feel for what Republicans would hope to accomplish on each of those, given that you've got to pull over some Democrat votes to do it.

MCELHANY: The Republican agenda has about 30 bills on it, all of them with Senate and House sponsors. It's an agenda that's ready to go; it covers the things that you would expect Colorado state government to be involved in -- education, transportation, health care, immigration -- the issues that are important to Coloradans. But the important story is that the Republican agenda is the only agenda in the building. After four years of Democrat control of the legislature, there is no legislative agenda from their side. The governor, in his second year as governor, does not have an agenda, and which I will tell you that he is defensive about that, and says he does have it. But he is confusing laudable goals with an agenda of how to achieve those goals, which he doesn't have. And as representative May said, he is in full-scale retreat. Last year we heard about a lot of goals, about appointing blue ribbon commissions to study things.

Contrary to McElhany's assertion that “in his second year as governor” Ritter has goals but not “an agenda of how to achieve those goals,” the News in a January 10 article previewing Ritter's State of the State speech reported that the governor had succeeded in accomplishing many of the short-term goals he had presented in his 2007 address and named some of the goals he would set for 2008:

His agenda for the coming year includes education reform, economic development, public safety, conservation easements, transportation, health care reform, higher education and reforming the state constitution.

It's a long shopping list, designed to get lawmakers and the state as a whole thinking about how to build a better Colorado. It's also one that has just about everyone wondering whether Ritter will back placing a tax hike on the November ballot to help pay for improvements.

Ritter has said he would support no more than one tax question this year.

Deciding which tax, if any, to put forth “is a Rubik's Cube of a conversation,” he said during an interview with the Rocky Mountain News editorial board. “Any slight twist can change the face of it.”

Ritter's Republican critics will be listening with a sharp ear toward any sign of a tax increase.

The governor has accomplished many of the short-term goals he set in last year's State of the State, particularly in the area of renewable energy initiatives. And he has received tempered praise from Republicans for his economic policies.

A press release accompanying the text for Ritter's 2008 State of the State speech summarized legislative proposals related to the issues of education, transportation, and health care, and indicated their sometimes bipartisan sponsorship. The release highlighted the main points on Ritter's agenda:

Setting his priorities for the second regular session of the 66th General Assembly, Colorado's 41st governor outlined an agenda that focuses on:

Education Reform -- Gov. Ritter announced the “Colorado Achievement Plan for Kids,” a revolutionary proposal to align content standards for pre-school through high school with college admission standards. This will take unprecedented collaboration from the Departments of Education and Higher Education to establish new policies that measure actual student learning and proficiency and prepare all Colorado kids for college or a career in the 21st century.

The bi-partisan plan will be co-sponsored by Senators Chris Romer (D-Denver) and Josh Penry (R-Fruita) and Representatives Rob Witwer (R-Genessee) and Christine Scanlan (D-Silverthorne).

[...]

Economic Development -- Gov. Ritter declared that strengthening the state's robust economic climate will be another priority during the legislative session. Bills will be co-sponsored by Representatives Cheri Jahn, Jim Riesberg, Joe Rice, Mary Hodge and Bernie Buescher, and Senators Bob Bacon, Bob Shaffer, Steve Ward and Suzanne Williams. Proposals include:

• Increasing the Business Personal Property Tax exemption threshold from $2,500 to $7,000, easing the tax burden for more than 30,000 Colorado small businesses.

• Establishing a single-sales factor for corporations to calculate their Colorado taxes.

• Creating a $3.5 million annual Life and Bio-Sciences Business Development Fund and dedicating $3.5 million from the Clean Energy Fund to economic-development activity.

Gov. Ritter also called for bi-partisan collaboration to make meaningful progress on complex funding issues for higher education and transportation-- two pillars of Colorado's economy.

[...]

Health Care Reform -- Controlling costs, eliminating waste, improving quality and expanding access to public health programs for low-income children and other vulnerable populations will dominate reform efforts in 2008. Gov. Ritter said he is directing his health-care team to spearhead a collaborative effort that will address cost and quality and involve multiple stakeholders, including insurance companies, hospitals and physicians.

In 2007, the Administration enrolled an additional 10,000 eligible children into Child Health Plan Plus and 2,500 more eligible low-income adults into Medicaid. Plans call for enrolling an additional 17,000 children this year, simplifying and streamlining the application process for eligible Medicaid families, fully funding the Childhood Immunization Information System, expanding the prevention-first “Medical Home” model for Medicaid children, implementing five disease-management programs, and requesting $10.6 million to improve services and facilities for people with developmental disabilities. [emphases in original]

Similar to Ritter, in his January 9 opening-of-session speech, Romanoff named health insurance, school construction, a “rainy day fund” for the state budget, and the alleviation of taxes on small business as among the Democrats' main priorities for the legislative session, as The Denver Post reported:

The hallmarks of the 120-day legislative session are likely to be a long-term plan to insure about 200,000 children and 600,000 adults without health coverage in Colorado, and a nearly $1 billion plan to replace dilapidated schools across the state.

“Uninsured children are more likely to get sick. They are more likely to stay sick, and they are more likely to die,” said House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, a Denver Democrat in his last year in the House.

Romanoff also called on lawmakers to pass “the most significant investment in school construction since statehood,” a “rainy-day” fund for tough economic times and a break from the business personal property tax for 45,000 small-business owners.

Continuing the KNUS conversation aired February 24, Andrews stated that Ritter had a “climb down ... on health care,” which McElhany supported with the false assertion that Ritter had “stepp[ed] away from any of the recommendations on the blue ribbon study group on health care”:

ANDREWS: He had study groups on everything, didn't he?

MCELHANY: On everything. And we would ask him about his agenda, he said, “I can't, I'm not going to plunge in and do things recklessly. I want these blue ribbon commissions to study things.” This year the blue ribbon commissions have reported. He doesn't like any of the reports, so we're going to have conversations on these issues. I guess last year was a year of study, this is the year of talk.

ANDREWS: Well, you know, the average working family in Colorado, when they look in a purse or billfold, they're going to find currency denominated in tens, twenties; if they're feeling prosperous, maybe some fifties and some hundreds. But the denomination of these Ritter study groups, Senator McElhany, Representative May, seems to be in billion-dollar increments.

MCELHANY: Huge.

ANDREWS: I remember a billion or more on the low end for health care. A billion or more for --

MCELHANY: That was the cheap one.

ANDREWS: -- for transportation. Another billion or more for higher education. Probably his biggest single climb down so far has been on health care, right?

MCELHANY: Yeah, no question about it -- stepping away from any of the recommendations on the blue ribbon study group on health care. And as we've mentioned, the cheapest recommendation was a billion dollars; the most expensive one was $26 billion. Maybe we should be grateful.

Andrews and McElhany both failed to mention Ritter's widely reported reason behind the gradual implementation of his health care proposal -- that due to Colorado's tight budget, full funding of any of the reform plans would require voter approval of a tax increase because of restrictions under Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR). As the News reported on February 12, Ritter said he thought that “Colorado's fiscally conservative voters aren't yet ready to pass” a new tax. The News further reported on February 14:

With lights on and cameras rolling Wednesday, Gov. Bill Ritter laid out a health care plan that was largely the same as one he announced in November.

The governor reiterated his vows from his Nov. 1 budget announcement as well as his State of the State address last month in saying that he would devote $25 million to covering about 17,000 more of the state's 180,000 uninsured children.

He said he also would incorporate some of the less expensive but important recommendations by the Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform.

The “building blocks for health care reform” package took the first significant steps toward the vision he still holds of someday bringing universal health care to Colorado, Ritter said. [emphasis added]

Similarly, reporting on the same news conference, the Post noted on February 14 that “Ritter said he would not ask voters for a tax increase this year for health care. His administration must prove it has cut needless spending, such as duplicate medical tests and paperwork, before hitting voters up for more cash, he said.”

Later in the broadcast, Gardner misrepresented Ritter's executive order, “Authorizing Partnership Agreements with State Employees,” to suggest that it authorized state workers to strike, saying that Democrats “defeated legislation to reverse the governor's executive order”:

ANDREWS: Finally, where do we stand on efforts to make sure that state employees don't feel they have a right to strike coming off the governor's shocking executive order offering union collective bargaining to every state employee? Just the last 20 seconds here, Cory.

GARDNER: The Democratic payback continues. They've refused to put strong laws in place that prevent public employees from striking. They've defeated legislation to reverse the governor's executive order. The Democrats continue to stand for big labor and their labor bosses.

In fact, as Colorado Media Matters has noted repeatedly, Ritter's executive order already bars employee organizations from engaging in any “disruptive measure” against the state or its agencies:

F. No Strike or Work Stoppage

Partnership Agreements negotiated pursuant to this Executive Order shall contain an agreement not to strike. Moreover, it shall be a violation of this Executive Order for any Certified Employee Organization to engage in or threaten a strike, work stoppage, work slowdown, sickout, or other similar disruptive measure against the State of Colorado or any of its agencies. In the event of a violation of this provision by a Certified Employee Organization, that organization may be decertified by the Director of the Division of Labor and shall not be entitled to payroll deductions of any membership dues.

On January 17 Gardner introduced House Bill 1187, which, as the News reported, would have banned strikes not only by workers employed by the state but also by all public employees in Colorado. HB 1187 was postponed indefinitely on January 24. As Colorado Media Matters pointed out, the News also noted that Ritter has supported a competing no-strike bill introduced by Democratic Rep. Jim Riesberg (Greeley), House Bill 1189, which targets only state workers, further reporting:

Republicans have seized on Ritter's concession, drafting a bill that would ban strikes not just by state workers but all public employees, including RTD bus drivers and teachers.

The bill also establishes stiff fines for striking -- including $10,000 per day per involved union and automatic termination of striking employees.

“The purpose of my bill is to prevent the public from being held hostage by employee labor unions,” said Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs.

Rep. Jim Riesberg, D-Greeley, has a competing bill banning state employees from striking and making it a misdemeanor for an employee to violate that prohibition. Of the bills addressing Ritter's executive order, it is viewed as having the only chance of passing.

HB 1189 passed the House on January 30.