The Colorado playbook

The upcoming vote on the latest Republican version of TABOR here in Wisconsin makes an article that appeared in Governing worth a read by members of both parties. It is an in-depth look at what happened when Colorado had to live under TABOR and the stunning capture of the state legislature by the Democrats for the first time in thirty years.

The campaign that was waged to suspend TABOR was run by a coalition that the state has never seen before.

It was waged by an improbable coalition that included not only teachers and labor unions but chambers of commerce, technology entrepreneurs, real estate developers and, perhaps most important, Republican Governor Bill Owens, who was an original sponsor of TABOR in the early 1990s and had long touted it as his proudest achievement.

The affects of TABOR combined with a Republican legislature that had stopped working on the issues that voters really care about also created a lot of problems for the Republican Party in Colorado among part of their base. What people were saying about the legislature sounds an awful lot like what folks have been saying about the legislature here in Wisconsin.

By 2004, leaders at the Chamber of Commerce including some long active in the state Republican Party were grumbling audibly about a legislature that spent too much of its time talking about "God, gays and guns."

One particular segment of the business community was taking conspicuous offense: the high-tech industry. Generally liberal on social issues and closely aligned with the University of Colorado, wealthy IT interests had begun pulling away from the conservative Republicans early in the decade. By 2004, they financed a Democratic legislative takeover.

Wisconsin Republicans have tried to put up numerous road blocks to the new economy here. In fact, Senator Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) had a recent editorial complaining a hallway between the two areas of the proposed Discovery Center for the UW is just not enough for folks like him to be assured that scientists will not be using state tax dollars for research on new stem-cells lines. The UW has been working under the rules set by the Bush Administration on this for a while now so there is no reason to think the new building will need more regulation just to please the "God" crowd of the Republican Party.

Will the suburbs of Milwaukee, a gold mine of votes for Wisconsin Republicans, continue to accept moves like this that steer the direction of their party away from investing in the future of state? The history of the Colorado election says they may not:

Equally important, though, was the fact that the issues stressed most heavily by the TABOR reform coalition health, education and transportation gridlock topped the list of suburban concerns.

On Election Day, the returns from the suburbs were striking: The reform initiative carried both Jefferson and Arapahoe counties, whose general affluence and combined population of more than a million have made them the core of Republican strength in statewide elections.

There are lessons for both parties of our state in this article and I'm sure many Republicans here would agree with one Colorado Republican:

The interesting question is whether a little laminar politics might produce similar results for struggling Democrats elsewhere in the country. "I would hope that in other states the Democrats don't get up to speed as quickly," admits Joe Stengel, the Republican leader in the Colorado House. "I hope they don't figure out how well it worked here."

It would be better for our economy if they do.