The
right of citizens to petition their government is basic to our democratic
way of life. CPOC's goal is to promote
the election of local, state, and federal legislators who will support and
advocate policies and laws that advance the interests of peace officers.
CPOC will be actively
involved in Governor's and Sate Legislature's elections. We will
also assist our member organizations in local political races. We will
actively endorse candidates who are sympathetic to the nature of law
enforcement work, and who recognize the need to improve law enforcement
officer working conditions in Colorado. We will introduce and lobby
for legislation beneficial to the law enforcement profession. When
important legislation is pending at the State and National levels, we will
bring that to your attention. We will support legislators at the
local, state and national levels that have a voting record or philosophy
consistent with the interests of Law Enforcement.
We know
public safety issues are a high
priority with the citizens of Colorado. We will not sit idly by on
the side lines trusting our elected officials will do the right thing. We will track
voting records of legislators with respect to their treatment of
issues important to promoting the best public safety services possible
for the citizens of Colorado. With over 7,500 law enforcement
members, and the combined lobbyists of the DPPA & FOP, we do have political influence.
We fully intend to use
lobbying efforts and our political influence to make our positions known.
We ask you check this page to update yourself on important
legislation pending in Colorado and nationally. This website will be
used to keep you updated.
CPOC Proud To Announce - Bill Ritter Wins The Governor's Race
Ritter romps, vows a "Unified Colorado" Longtime
Denver DA defeats Beauprez in tough year for GOP
Democrat Bill Ritter capped his once-improbable gubernatorial bid with a
landslide victory over Republican challenger Bob Beauprez, an early favorite
whose campaign faltered after a bitter primary. Ritter, 50, a longtime Denver
district attorney whose mostly upbeat campaign focused on bolstering education
and health care and making Colorado a center for alternative energy development,
initially inspired only tepid interest from party activists, then surged ahead
in the polls. "We intend to govern the way we campaigned - every place in this
state matters, every person matters," Ritter told a cheering crowd at the Denver
Hyatt Convention Center. "We intend to govern a unified Colorado." Ritter
repeatedly talked of shedding partisan conflict and working together. "We
don't fulfill the Colorado promise as Democrats, we fulfill it as Coloradans . .
. we have a real opportunity to close the partisan divide."
Beauprez was generous in his concession
speech. "Tonight is Bill Ritter's night," Beauprez told supporters at the
Marriott Tech Center. "As devoted citizens of this great state, we should all
wish Bill Ritter the very best, because the best for Bill Ritter will be the
best for Colorado, and we hope that that comes to pass." Later, Beauprez told a
reporter it was too soon to talk about his political future, but said: "I hope
and pray I've got a lot of future left." "Ritter ran almost a text-book
campaign, very methodical," said John Straayer, a Colorado State University
political science professor.
While Beauprez was locked in a bruising primary fight with conservative Marc
Holtzman that pushed him far to the right, Ritter was free to visit every county
in the state and convince some reluctant Democratic activists that a moderate,
Catholic candidate - who personally opposed abortion - could win. "Bill Ritter
started this race as a centrist and he held to that center political turf -
that's where elections are won," said Denver political analyst Eric Sondermann.
"Where Bob Beauprez started the race a little further out on the (conservative)
Republican wing and he continued to move right."
Ritter's opponent, a two-term congressman and successful dairy farmer, developer
and banker, had once seemed the heir apparent to Republican Gov. Bill Owens.
But Beauprez, 58, angered many Republicans with his opposition to Referendum
C, last year's Owens-backed initiative to ease a state funding crisis. He was
likely also hurt by the national souring over scandals in the Republican-led
Congress, the war in Iraq and President Bush, analysts said.
"Bob Beauprez just picked a very rough year to run as a Republican," said Seth
Masket, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver.
Republican pollster Lori Weigel agreed: "I don't think many people got beyond
'Republican congressman.' " That sentiment was echoed at the polls.
"I'm ready to get the Republicans out," said Pamela Mitchell, 50, an Evergreen
computer programmer and registered Democrat, as she voted for Ritter as part of
a straight Democratic ticket. "I think the Democrats have a better idea all
around. I think the war has been handled atrociously."
Ritter's victory means a Democrat will inhabit the governor's office for the
first time since 1998, when three-term governor Roy Romer was replaced by Owens,
who steps aside in January because of term limits. Ritter was waiting on tight
late returns to see if he'd have a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, an
outcome that would undoubtedly make it easier to move his agenda through the
legislature. If that happens, it will be the first time since 1958 that
Democrats have seized both the governor's mansion and the state legislature.
Ritter withstood a fierce flurry of Beauprez attacks that portrayed him as soft
on illegal immigrants during his tenure as Denver DA. Television ads included
details of plea bargains with immigrants charged with drug trafficking, assault
and other serious crimes. But those attacks - and others from Republican
groups backing Beauprez that suggested Ritter was too lenient in certain cases -
failed to budge voters, according to polling over several recent weeks.
To compound matters, information for at least one of the Beauprez attacks
appears to have come from a federal criminal database, off-limits to any uses
other than for law enforcement. A complaint by Ritter that the Beauprez campaign
may have illegally obtained the information from a federal immigration agent
triggered an FBI investigation and put the campaign on the defensive.
Ritter appeared to win support with his politically moderate vision for the
state. The "Colorado Promise" campaign slogan touted problem-solving and moving
the state into the 21st century with investments in education, job growth and
creating a state health care plan to address the 770,000 Coloradans without
health insurance. Among voters who cited health care as a top issue,
Ritter drew more than 3-1 support, according to a pre-election Rocky Mountain
News/CBS 4 poll. Ritter's support was almost 2-1 among those calling the economy
their top issue.
But his win can be attributed, at least in part, to a tidal wave of voter
frustration washing away Republicans throughout the state and the country,
analysts said. "I didn't like Beauprez - he seems smarmy," said Kim
Terranova, 45, a Jefferson County Republican who cast an odd-couple ballot for
Ritter and Rep. Tom Tancredo, the Republican crusader against illegal
immigration.
Other voters, including some Republicans, were unhappy with Beauprez's
opposition to Referendum C, a measure approved by voters last year that pumped
excess tax dollars back to depleted state coffers instead of refunding the money
to taxpayers. "The race was first shaped by (Referendum C), which really
drove a wedge into the Republican party," between the measure's backers and its
anti-taxation opponents, said Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli. "Beauprez got
trapped in that, and was never able to heal the party back together."
The debacle over Referendum C dates to a nasty primary fight that went on for
months. Opponent Marc Holtzman repeatedly criticized Beauprez for what he
described as Beauprez's unwillingness to loudly decry Referendum C. The
debate saw Holtzman tag Beauprez as "Both Ways Bob," a nickname that stuck.
Ultimately, Beauprez made clear his opposition to Ref C, a move that angered the
moderate and business wing of the party - voters who saw the measure as
necessary to shore up education and highways in the state.
Ritter, meanwhile, was the first out of the gate in the governor's race, filing
papers in May 2005, and embarking on a campaign that centered on his early years
growing up on a farm east of Aurora with 11 siblings and a devoted mother who
raised a family alone after her husband left when Ritter was 13. "I think
he is Colorado," said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, whose tenure
overlapped with Ritter's years as Denver DA. "I think he has the potential to be
a great governor."
No Guarantees
Whether
your police association or organization considers itself a “labor
organization” or not, the bottom line commonality of CPOC is the strength
in numbers it gives to protect peace officer rights and the fight to gain
better working conditions through legislation. That is why membership is
so important. Your state voice, the CPOC, will serve both as a watchdog
and protector. Just read the below Wall Street Journal article and it is
apparent the message there is one big reason all peace officers in
Colorado should have CPOC involvement.
Bargaining Rights Are
Rescinded For State Employees
Several governors are
trying to weaken organized labor in the one place it has remained strong:
representing public employees.
First-term Missouri Gov.
Matt Blunt rescinded collective-bargaining rights for state employees this year,
undoing an executive order issued by a Democratic predecessor, and has
eliminated a state board overseeing union elections for public employees.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a former Bush White House budget director,
overturned an executive order that for 15 years provided collective-bargaining
rights for that state's public employees. And Maryland's Robert Ehrlich, backed
by the state Supreme Court, suspended a 2% pay increase unions had negotiated
for state employees with his predecessor.
The three governors,
following earlier moves by Kentucky's Republican governor, Ernie Fletcher, say
that their actions are warranted in an environment where state budgets are just
beginning to recover from severe stress, and that public employees' unions waste
resources and block government restructuring efforts.
"Missouri taxpayers ought
to determine how state employees are compensated, not some arbitrary arrangement
between a government bureaucrat and a labor union," Mr. Blunt told the
Associated Press shortly after his decision. Public-employee union leaders are
"just concerned with their own welfare," says Spence Jackson, spokesman for Gov.
Blunt. "The governor believes that state employees have the best employer in the
world – the taxpayers of this state."
"That's bull," says Gerald
McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees. "We have reached out in almost every state to address [efficiency
issues]. Who better knows the problems in the states besides public employees?"
The National Labor
Relations Act doesn't give public employees the same rights as private-sector
ones to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining, which consists of
negotiating issues such as wages, benefits and work conditions. Instead,
employees of some states have obtained those rights through state laws or orders
issued by the governor.
According to AFSCME, 25
states and the District of Columbia have passed comprehensive public-sector
labor-relations laws, extending collective bargaining to public employees at
state and local levels; an additional 15 states have passed less sweeping laws,
granting limited collective bargaining rights.
Public employees are a
source of strength -- and revenue -- for the embattled labor movement. About one
in every three of the nation's five million state-government employees is
represented by a union, compared with fewer than one in 12 private-sector
employees. AFSCME has more members than any other union in the AFL-CIO.
The bitterness between
AFSCME and unions that recently quit the AFL-CIO -- including the Service
Employees International Union, which has a significant public-employee unit --
is posing a challenge to unions' allies, says former Missouri Democratic state
Sen. Ken Jacob, now director of AFSCME Council 72. "The people you'd normally
talk to [at the national level] are fighting each other."
Last year, SEIU sparked
controversy within organized labor by donating more than $500,000 to the
Republican Governors Association, one of several ways that its strategy diverged
from some other AFL-CIO unions. Organized labor -- particularly public-employee
unions -- generally has been more generous to Democrats. Mr. McEntee excoriated
the SEIU for funding an association that backs some antiunion governors,
including Gov. Blunt. "You have no control over where the money goes," he says.
"We are a party committee,
and we support all the candidates under our party," says Mike Pieper, director
of the Republican Governors Association. "We don't have an agenda when it comes
to labor in one way or another."
Mr.
McEntee rejects claims that AFSCME can't work with Republicans; it is the type
of Republicans that matters. "We're going to support moderate Republicans, if we
can find them," he says, citing relationships with "fair-minded" Republican
former governors such as George Voinovich of Ohio, James R. Thompson of Illinois
and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania. Those governors presided over states that have
been union strongholds. Almost half of the nation's 15.5 million union members
live in six states: California, NewYork, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and
Ohio.
In states where unions have
fewer members and less clout -- especially the 22 states with "right-to-work"
laws making it illegal to require workers to join labor unions as a condition of
employment -- public-employee unions often find themselves on the defensive
these days.
In Missouri, Gov. Blunt,
then Missouri's secretary of state, made unions a linchpin of his campaign
against Democratic incumbent Bob Holden. He particularly targeted the state's
practice of deducting a fee from nonunion workers' paychecks that went to the
state employees union, ostensibly to compensate them for the costs of
representing them. After he took office, he repealed Mr. Holden's executive
order granting collective-bargaining rights, saying that decision should be up
to the General Assembly. The new governor said his decision to suspend the board
that monitored union elections among state employees should cut costs; duties
were shifted to the state's Labor and Industrial Relations Commission, which
handles workers' compensation and unemployment-benefit cases. State union
officials say they are concerned about the commission's workload.
In Indiana, after Gov.
Daniels took office and stripped state employees of collective-bargaining
rights, more than 20,000 hospital attendants, welfare case workers, health-care
workers, state troopers and clerical workers were affected. He also is backing
efforts to privatize nursing services in the corrections department and
administrative responsibilities in certain social-service agencies.
In Maryland, unions accused
Gov. Ehrlich of circumventing legally mandated agreements for state employees'
health care and benefits; courts have sided with him. His administration also
has been engaged in dismissals of civil-service personnel that have prompted a
probe by state legislators.
