In the political battleground of Colorado, a labor-business fight is raging

DENVER — Colorado has become an important battleground state in the presidential election, and one of the biggest senatorial races in the nation is over filling the seat of its retiring senator, Wayne Allard.

Yet the most ferocious political fight in the state doesn't involve Democrats and Republicans. Instead, unions and business groups have loaded the November ballot with an array of competing initiatives.

Each side says it will spend tens of millions of dollars to push its agenda and defeat its opponent's measures, which each contends would cripple the state's economy.

The seven initiatives on the ballot include what proponents say would be the toughest law against corporate fraud in the nation, which would make company executives liable for crimes committed by their firms. Each side says the initiatives should be judged on their own merits, but also accuses the other of acting in bad faith.

"Their agenda's very clear," Jan Rigg, a spokeswoman for the business group Defend Our Economy, said of her labor foes. "They want to send a message to the business community that they're going to play hardball on this."

But Jess Knox, executive director of Protect Colorado's Future, which is backing the corporate fraud initiative, contends that certain business groups have backed anti-labor initiatives to "divide workplaces and divide workers."

"We have a pretty rickety national economy, and what we need to do is come together," Knox said.

The dueling initiatives join at least two other hot-button issues on the November ballot: proposals to ban affirmative action and to declare a fertilized egg a human being.

"It's fair to say that Colorado will be the center of ballot initiative world in November," said Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan New America Foundation, which follows voter initiatives. "The business-labor [ones] likely will be the biggest, most bitter and hard-fought ballot fight in the country."

The labor-business battle began last year when Democrats, jubilant about controlling the statehouse and the governor's mansion for the first time in decades, sent a bill to newly elected Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. making it easier for workers to unionize.

Ritter outraged labor by vetoing the bill. Ritter later issued an executive order enabling state workers to collectively bargain. That led to a group of business leaders, spearheaded by John Coors of the prominent brewing family, to propose a ballot initiative to make Colorado a right-to-work state.