Face the State

Group endorses GOP candidates in less than 10 percent of races
Face the State Staff Report

Denver - A Republican legislator is alleging partisan motivations behind a Colorado environmental group's biased system for ranking legislative votes. At the same time, a lobbyist who played a prominent role in assigning the scores has left his post to be chief of staff for Democrat legislators.

On June 6, Denver-based Colorado Conservation Voters (CCV) released its 11th annual ratings of state legislators for their votes on selected environmental issues during the 2007 legislative session. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, says CCV’s method for rating lawmakers distorts the record of both parties to make Democrats look more pro-conservation than Republicans.

In the Senate, the highest-rated Republican was lower than every Democrat. In the House, Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Golden, was the only member of his party to be rated as high or higher than a Democrat. CCV’s system unfairly denied Witwer and another Republican a perfect score. “If they’re putting out a scorecard, they shouldn’t try to pass it off as non-partisan. They at least need to be truthful,” Gardner said.

As an example of methodology currently being questioned, conservative lawmakers are pointing to House Bills 1341 and 1169 as examples of how CCV slanted its analysis. CCV used House members’ votes on the original versions of the bills rather than the final Senate-amended versions. The group rated members of the two houses for voting on two different versions of the bill without providing a written explanation. “The way they wrote it makes it look like (Republicans) voted against them when we voted for them,” said Gardner.

HB 1341 changed the composition of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to shift the balance to favor conservationists over oil and gas company representatives. HB 1169 altered net-metering policies to encourage more alternative energy production by rural home and ranch owners. The changes to both bills made them palatable to lawmakers from both parties while preserving the substantive pro-conservation reforms.

CCV director Carrie Doyle said her group chose to record votes on different versions because they look to track difficult decisions. “We look for the controversial votes on environmental issues where there’s an important difference,” said CCV director Carrie Doyle. “We are looking for votes that create a clear difference of those who vote for the conservation position and those who vote against it.”

Gardner said the explanation doesn’t hold up, as the scorecard also includes the unanimously-approved HB 1298. Furthermore, CCV’s decision to rate different versions of HB 1037 and HB 1146 resulted in tracking votes that were less closely disputed—and less favorable to Republicans. Doyle acknowledged that the scorecard’s explanation of the different votes was ambiguous. “I should have added a sentence in to make it clearer,” she said.

But CCV’s explanation doesn’t clear up the discrepancies in vote selection that consistently favored Democrats and disparaged Republicans.

The partisan taint to the legislative scorecard is compounded by the June 7 announcement that Environment Colorado program director and lobbyist Will Coyne has accepted the chief of staff position in the Democrat House Majority office. CCV acknowledged Coyne for his help in preparing the scorecard, and his Environment Colorado colleague Matt Baker was a member of the advisory committee.

Doyle said Coyne was not rewarded for political service. “I don’t think Will has a history of engaging in partisan politics or being a big Democratic activist,” she said.

Yet Coyne was given a highly partisan position immediately after the scorecard’s release, and the obvious appearance of political bias injected into the rating process is difficult to dismiss.

According to its website, CCV-endorsed candidates won 48 of 51 races. CCV endorsed 47 Democrats and four Republicans in 2006. “I’m an optimist,” said Doyle, who took her current job in April. “I’d be interested in spending more money to endorse more pro-environment Republicans.”

Gardner remains skeptical, seeing CCV’s legislative scorecard as evidence that the group is not very interested in reaching across the party divide. “There is no secret that special interests shill for their organization by cherry-picking votes,” he said.