Colorado Democrat Michael Beatty probably never expected to publicly bash a sitting governor of his own party, but that's exactly what the successful energy industry attorney did recently at a Denver business conference.

Beatty ripped incumbent Gov. Bill Ritter for being excessively partisan and for denigrating the energy industry, Colorado's biggest, according to The Denver Business Journal. He was formerly a senior aide to Democrat Roy Roemer, Colorado's chief executive from 1987 to 1999.

The Beatty blast, however, is only among the latest in a series of strange doings in Colorado this year, as the state experiences a political uproar that likely presages what's in store for the whole country after the November election.

The uproar didn't come about all at once, however, as its origins were with a quartet of Colorado liberals with bulging checkbooks who several years ago began making common cause with local Democrats, their ideological allies in the non-profit world, and hyper-aggressive union political operatives from across the nation.

This story continues below
Advertisement

This coalition created what Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard calls "the Colorado Model," the game plan one veteran Colorado Republican dubbed a "swarm offense." Liberals and unions are using it in 2008 to move a somewhat red state decisively over to the blue column. They plan to use it to move the whole country their way in 2009.

Nationally, Coloradans have voted for Democratic presidents only twice since 1964, Lyndon Johnson that year and Bill Clinton in 1992. Even so, with steadily growing liberal power centers in Denver and college towns like Boulder and Fort Collins, Colorado has sent more than a few Democrats to Washington, including Gary Hart, Pat Schroeder and most recently Ken Salazar.

It has not been uncommon over the years for a Democrat to be governor, either, but only six percent of the state's employees are union members, and energy, business and farming interests remain among Colorado's biggest employers and leading political influences.

But the moderately red tilt started turning purple in 2004 when Democrats – quietly funded largely by the wealthy liberal quartet known locally as the "Gang of Four" - upset enough incumbent Republicans to take over the state legislature for the first time in four decades.

Then Ritter won the governorship in 2006, defeating Republican Bob Beaubrez, a former U.S. representative, by successfully appealing to both business and labor with promises of centrist governance emphasizing consensus solutions, especially on education and transportation funding.

But the Ritter era has seen little resembling consensus-building. He had hardly finished taking the oath of office when out of the blue he endorsed a union-backed reform measure gutting Colorado's venerable Labor Peace Act.

The state lacks a right-to-work (RTW) law but a complicated representation process makes union organizing difficult, so Colorado is something of a labor-neutral haven. The union-backed reform was approved on party line votes by the state legislature's Democratic majority, which expected a quick Ritter signature.

The stunned business community successfully pressured Ritter to veto the bill in April 2007. The veto in turn prompted cries of betrayal from labor leaders nationwide, including thuggish hints that the 2008 Democratic National Convention might be moved out of Denver as punishment.

To that end, Ritter got a tongue lashing – finger-in-the-chest style- from Teamsters national president James Hoffa. So, Ritter then sprung another surprise in November, signing an executive order granting collective bargaining rights to state employees.

That's when the political uproar began in earnest, with a RTW initiative petition ballot drive led by Jonathan Coors sparking an incredible explosion of counter-initiatives filed by unions and their trial lawyer allies, with massive funding from state and national sources.

What followed has been an outpouring of fund-raising, political organizing, voter registration drives and marketing campaigns of rare intensity, even by Colorado's initiative and referendum-friendly standards.

Counting both Ballot Question 47, the RTW initiative, and the related Question 49, an Independence Institute-backed measure banning payroll deductions for any purpose except taxes and health insurance, Colorado voters will face at least eight major initiatives in November.

Another 13 questions await certification by the Colorado Secretary of State but appear to have enough petition signatures to make the grade, the most since 1912 when voters decided 22 initiatives, according to Ballotpedia.org.

They've pledged $35 million just to defeat RTW, and will spend far more backing a raft of union-backed anti-business measures that would make it immensely more difficult to fire incompetent or dishonest employees, extend criminal liabilities of a business to its directors, managers and employees and establish severe new civil penalties for a variety of alleged corporate sins.

But wait, there's more! Another proposed measure requires all employers with 20 or more employees to provide expensive new health insurance coverage and establishes a new state bureaucracy to oversee the program. Yet another proposed measure imposes costly new workplace safety standards of doubtful value.

Most of the proposals would create new litigation opportunities for class-action plaintiffs lawyers. And the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association had another nine radical ballot proposals that were only withdrawn when they realized a "just vote against everything" attitude among voters could undermine the entire coalition.

No wonder conservative Colorado legislator John Andrews – who coined the "swarm offense" term - told The Examiner "you sort of feel like they are coming at you from all directions, so you are constantly being thrown back on your heels."

Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner.