Kudos to Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, who last week stopped a bad bill dead in its tracks. The bill would have repealed a Colorado law requiring that, once a company’s employees approve a union, they have a second, secret-ballot vote on how dues will be assessed, with a 75-percent supermajority required for approval. Colorado labor leaders exulted when Democrats in the state legislature rammed the bill through despite protests from the business community. Ritter’s veto put a stop to the bum’s rush being given to the 92 percent of Colorado workers who aren’t members of unions.

Congressional Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee would do well to take a cue from the moderate Western Democrat Ritter and back off the rush to pass legislation favored by Big Labor, especially when it is so clearly a special interest favor like the proposed “Employee Free Choice Act.” This bill is Big Labor’s No. 1 legislative priority for the 110th Congress because it repeals a long-standing federal provision requiring that workers have secret ballots when voting in representation elections.

Big Labor wants to repeal the secret ballots and instead use a “card check” system whereby union leaders could simply collect cards allegedly signed by employees voting on the representation issue. Besides being an obvious invitation to wholesale vote-rigging, the Big Labor proposal would expose workers to greatly increased intimidation from labor leaders desperate to reverse their long-standing membership decline.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., is both chairman of the Education and Labor Committee and the main sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. Miller’s committee held a one-day hearing on the bill last week and announced yesterday that it will vote on the proposal tomorrow. In other words, like their Colorado compatriots, House Democrats here are trying to rush through a bad bill favored by Big Labor. It will surprise no one to discover that 64 percent of Miller’s 2006 campaign contributions came from labor, according to OpenSecrets.org.

What may surprise many, however, is how Miller sings a different tune south of the border. Back in 2001, Miller and many of his fellow co-sponsors of the bill now before Congress lectured Mexican officials on the secret ballot issue, saying it “is absolutely necessary in order to ensure workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they may otherwise not choose.” Miller needs to explain why he thinks Mexican workers should have the secret ballots he and his Big Labor friends are now rushing to strip from American workers.