June 18, 2009 05:05 PM UTC

Shaffer Acknowledges Error, Will Repay "Retreat" Funds

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels (we’re still getting used to that) reports:

Following a rash of criticism, state Senate President Brandon Shaffer has decided to use private Democratic funds rather than ask taxpayers to foot the bill for a $4,200 workshop from which Republicans were excluded.

“The perception was that it was an unwise use of funds,” John Cevette, Senate chief of staff, said Wednesday.

The Denver Post reported Tuesday that Shaffer, a Longmont Democrat, used Senate funds to pay for a workshop on team building and conflict resolution. He also covered the instructor’s $179 plane ticket.

Republicans were peeved at the use of taxpayer money because they weren’t invited, and even left-leaning blogs were critical. Shaffer said he erred in excluding them, and that the cost will be paid for out of “personal donations.”

“I think that was a smart move on their part,” said Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction…

Thus ends this brief foray into the stupid for our new Colorado Senate President Brandon Shaffer. We suppose everybody gets one pass while they’re just getting their feet under them. This was, if we’re to be so charitable, definitely the one such pass he’ll get–and we assume that the swift kicking he received will result, as we recommended the day before yesterday, in better consideration of the political consequences of all these bright little ideas people come up with at staff meetings.

As for as the other problem that emerged on Tuesday for Senate leadership, the bonuses that were paid to primarily the former staff of Sen. Peter Groff, there’s no doubt it will be used against Democrats in the coming months. Like we said before, the simple facts open up an excellent line of attack for Republicans that they won’t fail to exploit. That said, the real damage reputation-wise for these ill-timed bonuses would seem to be firewalled at former Sen. Groff personally, since he is the one who gave out by far the most bonus money this year, as well as higher salary costs in general according to the Post. And going back only one year, you see the GOP gave out much more bonus money than Democrats–which limits their ability to legitimately capitalize on this.

One more word about “team building.” We have heard from a number of Gold Dome sources since the session ended and Shaffer took charge that the Senate leadership is considerably more functional now than it was under prior leaders. Gaffes aside, we’ve heard good things about the outreach efforts of the new senior staff, in an effort to close communication gaps that have caused huge problems in the last year. We don’t know if it was this ‘conflict resolution’ seminar they attended that did the trick, in fact those kind of annoy us so we doubt it was. Whatever it is, if we keep seeing good stuff behind the scenes, and less stupidity making its way into the newspaper of record, the latter being really important, there are reasons for Democrats to be optimistic.