"For some reason, he was on cable all of October. That isn't cheap, but there he was," she says. "You don't work that hard to become a city council member. Ambition for an $11,000-a-year job? There's more there."
Part of the answer comes from American Furniture Warehouse, which donated $1,000 to Frazier's campaign and contributed $5,000 worth of TV ad production and development. The furniture company's CEO, Jake Jabs, and general manager, Andrew Zuppa, are key supporters of Amendment 47.
Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier has fans and foes.
Jess Knox, director of Protect Colorado's Future, is fighting Amendment 47.
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But if Frazier was simply out to do the bidding of the GOP establishment, he's made some pretty odd choices. In 2006, he stood alongside Democratic Denver mayor John Hickenlooper in public support of Referendum I, which would have allowed domestic partnerships, and when that measure failed, Frazier said he wanted Aurora to provide benefits to same-sex partners of city employees — the sort of stuff that makes moral conservatives in his party apoplectic. He's also ambivalent when it comes to pro-life issues: "I am not a fan of abortion, but I struggle with whether it is the appropriate role of the government to place itself there."
Nor can he be counted on to come out strong for his party's presidential ticket this November. "I'll decide at the ballot box," he says of the presidential race.
"I can see already that comments like this will not make some people in my party very happy," he says, adding that in the past, he's gotten "hundreds of calls from Republicans who are just livid with me." But he isn't the only Republican who seems to be eschewing the state party's long-held cultural-conservative playbook. Other GOP thirty-somethings, like state senator Josh Penry and state representatives Frank McNulty and Cory Gardner, are shying away from the culture wars and sticking with fiscally conservative stances. Even prominent state Republicans like party elder Hank Brown have come out against Amendment 48 on this November's ballot, which would define a fertilized human egg as a person and therefore, many believe, outlaw abortion.
It could be indicative of a fundamental shift within the statewide GOP apparatus. After Republicans saw that their fixation on unborn babies and marriage licenses got them nowhere except out of office, they've opted for a reboot, a return to the small-government, personal-freedom ideals of old.
"I think that's an astute and correct observation," says Steve Schuck, a prominent Colorado Springs Republican and onetime contender for Colorado governor. "I am pleased that the Republican Party is moving in that direction, higher regard given to policy issues than social issues. Partly, it's a failure of them to be effective. There are so many examples of us not being successful that can be attributed to a preoccupation with social issues."
Frazier agrees. "I think Republicans got fat and happy and, in the process, forgot about what was important, and that's principle," he says. "That it's about standing for something greater for yourself." That's why he's standing for Amendment 47. For him, it's all about principle, even though that principle has come with a price.
"I'll be honest with you, man," he says, shaking his head. "This past year has been, for me, one of the most challenging experiences I have ever faced."
Over the past seventy years, nothing has been quite as divisive in labor issues nationwide as the question of whether employees can be required to pay union dues in order to work at a unionized workplace.
Federal law passed in the 1940s left it up to individual states to decide whether unions could require all employees to pay dues. Since then, 22 states have passed right-to-work laws, which make obligatory union dues illegal, usually over vocal objections from unions that such regulations are businesses' attempt to divide and weaken workers. Most of the rest are "union security" states, meaning that union dues can be a condition of continued employment.
The Colorado Labor Peace Act, however, makes this state unique. Here, unions can make dues obligatory, but only if three-quarters of the employees in a workplace vote to allow it. So while both unions and employers like to grumble about it, everyone can agree that the 1943 act, actively enforced since the 1970s, is at least well named: For decades, it's helped keep relative peace.
"[The act] was a compromise everyone was willing to except," says Ray Hogler, a management professor at Colorado State University and a right-to-work opponent. "Nobody wanted to open that can of worms."
At least until last year. Emboldened by newly won majorities in the state legislature, Colorado Democrats pushed through House Bill 1072, which would have gutted the Colorado Labor Peace Act and made Colorado a "union security" state, allowing unions to require dues without a special vote. Infuriated, business interests and conservatives mobilized against it, and in the fracas, Governor Ritter vetoed the bill, incurring the wrath of labor and his own party. But the move wasn't enough to wholly pacify those irate over HB 1072. Even though he vetoed the legislation, the governor indicated that he agreed with the principle of dismantling the Colorado Labor Peace Act, and two months later, in November 2007, in a conciliatory gesture to labor, he allowed state employees to unionize. To some observers, the message seemed clear: It was only a matter of time before Colorado became a union-security stronghold.
