An April 24 article in the Rocky Mountain News reported Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams' comments regarding Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) education funding proposal without providing a Democratic comment or response -- the most recent example of a Colorado media outlet uncritically providing Wadhams with a platform to make political statements or partisan characterizations of state Democrats. The News quoted Wadhams, who was in the audience at a House Education Committee hearing, as saying, “I'm trying to learn everything about the $1.8 billion property tax increase by the Democrats and Gov. Ritter.”

The article, which appeared under the headline “GOP chairman licking his chops,” also noted that “Republicans will raise the issue even if the plan dies in the legislature, Wadhams said.” It provided no balance to Wadhams' remarks about the GOP's plans to make an election issue out of the so-called “tax increase,” either with comments from figures such as Colorado Democratic Party chair Pat Waak or from elected officials in the legislature's Democratic majority.

From the April 24 Rocky Mountain News article “GOP chairman licking his chops,” by Berny Morson:

The stocky guy sitting quietly in the back row drew attention Monday as the House Education Committee debated Gov. Bill Ritter's school funding plan.

“I'm trying to learn everything about the $1.8 billion property tax increase by the Democrats and Gov. Ritter,” explained Dick Wadhams, the state Republican Party chairman.

Wadhams plans to frame the issue exactly that way in the 2008 election. Republicans will raise the issue even if the plan dies in the legislature, Wadhams said.

[...]

Some Democrats are wary of the plan for that reason.

In the News' print edition, Morson's piece on Wadhams appeared next to an article about Ritter's school funding plan. In that article, also by Morson, the newspaper reported support for Ritter's plan, but also echoed Wadhams' characterization of the plan as a "$1.8 billion property tax increase":

Gov. Bill Ritter's plan to prop up the state education fund won approval Monday in the House Education Committee on a straight party-line vote.

The measure would freeze the tax rate in most school districts, canceling tax cuts that would otherwise occur under a 1994 school finance law. Ritter's plan would allow taxes to decline in 34 districts that pay the highest rates.

The vote on SB 199 was 8-5, with all the Democrats in support and all the Republicans opposed. The bill now goes to the House Appropriations Committee.

Republicans called the plan a tax increase.

Democrats rejected that argument, countering that the plan does not determine anyone's tax bill, only the rate at which property will be taxed.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, pointed out several times that the measure is projected to raise $1.8 billion in taxes over the next 10 years.

The repeated assertion got under the skin of Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, the House sponsor of the bill.

“The sound bite is wrong, and you say it over and over again,” said Pommer, who believes that Gardner is unfairly inflating the figure by calculating it out over a decade.

The April 24 News article about Wadhams continued a pattern among Colorado media of providing Wadhams with a platform for making partisan political statements without offering any Democratic response or comment. Among recent instances, Colorado Media Matters noted that in an April 15 article for KUSA 9News' website about U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) possibly considering another presidential run, political reporter Adam Schrager uncritically reported Wadhams' comment that Kerry -- like several of the announced 2008 Democratic candidates -- “represent[s] a really left-wing viewpoint of the Democratic Party.” Schrager included no Democratic response to that assertion or to the prospect that Kerry might once again seek the Democratic nomination for president. Similarly, Colorado Media Matters noted that in a March 22 article (accessed through the Nexis database) about former Republican Congressman Scott McInnis' decision not to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Wayne Allard after the 2008 election, The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction quoted Wadhams' baseless claim that Colorado's Republican and Democratic parties “are in a state of flux.” The article did not contain any Democratic assessments of the Democratic Party.