January 21, 2011 11:14 PM UTC

So Much for "Respecting Witnesses"

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• by: Colorado Pols

Audio courtesy ColoradoNewser

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports:

Mesa State College workers sparred over a bill Thursday that would allow them to opt out of the state’s personnel system.

The measure, which narrowly passed the House Economic & Business Development Committee, would allow the 120 college workers who are in the system to elect to be unclassified workers, meaning they would lose certain protections offered under the system.

Some of the employees said the system is broken and thought they’d fare better in pay and benefits if they worked at the will of college administrators…

The six Democrats on the 13-member panel questioned the proponents of the measure about why they would give up the union-like protections the personnel system offers.

The remaining seven Republicans attacked opponents for being union workers.

Rep. Spencer Swalm, R-Centennial, questioned the political contributions of Colorado WINS, which represents numerous state workers, including several at the college. Later, Rep. Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, referred to the union as “Colorado Loses.”

We’ve talked a couple of times about the apparent patronage stable of political appointments to administrative jobs at Mesa State College in Grand Junction under the leadership of Tim Foster–this became a bit of a headache for then-gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry who, after railing about the supposedly unheeded “hiring freeze” in state government on the campaign trail, had trouble explaining how members of his family got plum appointments to Mesa State too.

Which makes this GOP-backed bill all the more curious, but we’d like to point out something else for just a moment: how many of you remember last legislative session, in particular the heated debates over the repeal of certain tax credits? Republicans complained loudly about the “bad manners” Democrats showed questioning the GOP’s friendly witnesses, such as Rick Enstrom of Enstrom’s Candies–you’ll recall that Enstrom basically predicted the sky would fall on his business if the candy tax exemption was repealed, only to meekly confess to Tim Hoover of the Denver newspaper last fall that he knew all along his testimony was false.

Well, between Enstrom’s lying in testimony–making irritation with him a little more understandable at least–and this silly presumptuousness from Rep. Kevin Priola (audio above) against a Mesa State employee solely on the basis of his union membership, we’re guessing Republicans won’t make that complaint again. At least not, you know, credibly.