June 16, 2009 05:58 PM UTC

Step Into My Parlor, Said the Spider to Brandon Shaffer

• 12 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post kicks off today’s inauspicious news cycle for our new Colorado Senate President:

State Senate President Brandon Shaffer said he erred when he excluded Republicans from a two-day, taxpayer-paid retreat on conflict resolution and team building.

The event last week cost more than $4,300.

“In retrospect, I made a mistake,” said Shaffer, D-Longmont. “I should have invited Republicans as well.”

Senate Republicans said because they were excluded, the event should have been paid for out of private Democratic caucus funds, not taxpayer money…

And we’ll say it: they’re absolutely right. A retreat limited to Democrats, even if it was nominally for committee chairs who happen to, you know, all be Democrats, should have been paid for with party funds–or at least something other than taxpayer dollars. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t a lot of money, the appearance is politically horrible and somebody in Shaffer’s office should have realized this before it made the Denver Post.

We’ll add that Shaffer’s defense of this retreat, claiming it was necessary in response to “criticism this year about committee chairs who were thought to be disrespectful to the public or to fellow lawmakers,” is not very damn politically auspicious either. We would argue the money might have been better spent on a public relations consultant, or for that matter anyone skilled in the art of not inserting one’s foot directly in-mouth when reporters come calling unbidden.

Unfortunately for Sen. Shaffer, the tough news day didn’t end with this story. As the AP reports separately:

Former Colorado state Senate President Peter Groff paid his staff $30,000 in bonuses before he left office, according to records obtained by The Associated Press, despite a statewide hiring freeze and a budget crisis that could mean furloughs for thousands of other workers.

His successor as Senate president, Democrat Brandon Shaffer of Longmont, said he awarded a $5,000 bonus to one of his staffers.

Both defended the bonuses, saying their staffers were paid low wages and worked long hours…

Shaffer said he paid a bonus to his assistant, who he said made only $8,000 over the past six months and got no state benefits.

Shaffer acknowledged it’s a “sensitive subject” but said he authorized the bonus because the assistant did a good job.

Okay. We don’t doubt that Senate leadership staff worked really hard during the recent legislative session. Legislative staff in Colorado are some of the hardest working, most underpaid people we know. And the Post’s story on these bonuses correctly notes that up until last year, the Senate GOP handed out fat bonuses to its own staff–much more, in fact, than Democrats gave their staff.

But the GOP didn’t award bonuses this year. The decision to forego bonuses this year was made anticipating that the Democrats would follow the customary practice with their own staff and pay them bonuses, which they did. The GOP knew exactly what they were setting themselves up to do.

But it’s not really fair to Republicans to call it a “trap,” since there’s no question that in an environment where state employees are being furloughed and still more painful cuts to the state budget loom, this kind of tone-deafness–and worse, the combination of two such incidents getting earned media on the same day–is politically nightmarish for Democrats with nobody’s help. It’s a gift to Republicans, giving them this wonderful frame to attack with, and the ameliorating facts aren’t nearly as sexy as the original accusation. That’s a time-honored formula for losing the debate before it begins.

And this leads to our point: why didn’t somebody in Democratic leadership consider the political ramifications of what they were doing? It’s just like the time earlier this year when Minority Leader Mike May cunningly duped House Democrats into voting for an amendment to a bill that perfectly serviced the GOP’s line of attack against said bill. Somebody should have had the sense to pull Shaffer aside and say, “this could be a problem,” and nobody did. That’s a serious issue.

For those of you plotting Democratic victories in 2010, the possibility of this kind of self-inflicted damage continuing should scare the hell out of you. It must stop, as surely as Bill Ritter needs to stop laying mines at the feet of his putative allies. The consequences of this avoidable bumbling if it goes on…well, the Republicans can show them to you better than we can tell you.