Following yet another disclosure that the Ritter administration is doing the bidding of labor unions that are trying to organize state employees, Senate Republicans are demanding a public disclosure of all the promises the governor has made to his union backers.

"Every time you turn around, this administration is playing footsie with the unions," Senate GOP leader Andy McElhany, of Colorado Springs, said today. "How many other deals have they made with big labor? It is time for the governor to come clean."

McElhany was reacting to a report in the Rocky Mountain News Friday that two more state agencies under Gov. Bill Ritter had worked out partnerships with the Colorado Association of Public Employees. The Departments of Regulatory Affairs and Transportation are conducting staff outreach with the union's help, the report said.

The report follows an earlier disclosure  that Ritter's Department of Personnel and Administration will give unions the e-mail addresses of all department employees and allow unions the use of state mailrooms and space to hold meetings.

GOP lawmakers denounced a Democrat plan for state-sponsored recruitment of migrant workers from Mexico, saying it risks making Colorado an immigration magnet -- and even a sanctuary for illegal aliens. Republicans say the proposal is another attempt by Democrats to backslide from recent legislative efforts to curb the flow of illegal immigrants to the state.

The new plan, being proposed by Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, requires the Colorado Department of Agriculture and Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to cooperate with the Mexican government to grant work visas and provide housing for immigrants working on farms, construction sites and oil-fields.  The pilot program would also have Colorado establish a million-dollar employment office in Mexico and would require the state and employers to provide housing to migrant workers.

"Creating a magnet for immigration is not the way to alleviate the current labor shortage,” said Republican Sen. Greg Brophy, a farmer from the Eastern Plains. “This is sending the wrong message. We need to be more creative than just opening up a state-sponsored employment office in Juarez. That's throwing in the towel and saying, 'Come on in.'”

Republican senators say they are not surprised that energy producers in Colorado are organizing their efforts against what they feel is an increasingly hostile environment under the new administration of Gov. Bill Ritter.

The latest round of distinctions bestowed on Colorado's burgeoning charter-school movement suggests that the spread of charters could help jump-start stagnant student performance statewide, the Senate GOP's leading voice for reform said today.

Assistant Senate Republican leader Nancy Spence, of Centennial, pointed to a charter school that was ranked No. 1 this month on a list of Denver's best high schools as well as a Pueblo charter program that is being touted by the U.S. Education Department as a national model for reaching at-risk kids. 

"For all our efforts to re-examine and reinvent public education on a grand scale -- including a blue ribbon panel studying education issues right now -- it is looking more and more like one of the best solutions has been right in front of us all along," Spence said. She denounced attempts by some members of the legislature's ruling party earlier this year to roll back charter schools.

Key lawmakers said today they were appalled to learn school districts are collecting millions of education dollars from the state's taxpayers for time students spend passing between classes.

The lawmakers also chided some state and local education officials for failing to take the issue seriously when it was raised recently by state Board of Education Vice Chair Bob Schaffer. Schaffer sent a memo today to members of the Senate and House Education committees and the Joint Budget Committee, telling them that more than $145 million a year is spent on "passing periods" at 32 school districts. 

The Senate's assistant GOP leader called  the practice "a disgrace."

"Think how many at-risk kids could benefit if we spent that money in class," said Sen. Nancy Spence, of Centennial, the ranking Republican on the Senate Education Committee. "Imagine how many charter schools $145 million could open."

Gov. Bill Ritter's refusal to rule out a gas-tax hike on Coloradans confirms that "a tax hike for transportation is pretty much what we can expect" from the Ritter administration, the Senate's Republican leader said today.

Senate GOP chief Andy McElhany, of Colorado Springs, also rebuked the governor for failing to defend the current highway-funding mechanism against repeated raids by lawmakers who divert those dollars to grow other government programs.

McElhany said Ritter's attempt to sidestep any stance on a gas-tax hike while a commission he appointed studies the issue makes clear that the panel is "an old political ploy to give cover to the governor" when he ultimately seeks a tax hike.

Using natural-gas revenue from  the West Slope's Roan Plateau to bolster Colorado's colleges and universities -- as proposed by Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita, and Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park -- "will provide a lasting benefit to Coloradans," the Denver Post Editorial Board opined in its Sunday, Aug. 5 edition.

"...Whatever the size of the revenue raised by drilling on the Roan and other federal lands in Colorado, Penry and White are absolutely correct that the state's share of this coming windfall must not be frittered away but instead channeled into a trust fund for higher education...," the editorial states.

The Post editorial also rapped a pending move in Congress to ban energy exploration on the Roan. The editorial marks the second time the state's largest newspaper has lauded the Penry-White plan and is joined by a number of other Front Range and West Slope newspapers that have endorsed the innovative proposal.

The governor's latest attack on gas exploration in western Colorado suggests "he just doesn't get" the pivotal role energy plays in the state's economy – and could play in shoring up the state's budget – GOP senators said today.

The senators say the economic windfall to the state posed by tapping extensive gas reserves – and their potential to fund the state's colleges and universities under a proposal by the West Slope's Sen. Josh Penry, R-Fruita – is being overlooked by an administration that seems bent on stopping new energy development at any cost.