Ritter working to kill transparency bill

April 3rd, 2009 by Amy Categories: general, health care 8 Responses
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As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” Or in the case of Governor Ritter’s transparency executive order, “the devil is no detail.”

According to a Denver Post article, this new era of transparency includes “descriptions of revenues and expenditures” and “aggregated state credit-card expenditures instead of line-by-line statements.”

A friend of COST described Ritter’s executive order as a husband telling his wife, “honey I’ll be faithful, I just can’t tell you what I’m doing.”

The timing of the Executive Order is somewhat suspect as well. According to State Representative BJ Nikkel, sponsor of the Colorado Taxpayer Transparency Act, Governor Ritter is trying to kill her bill because HB 1288 provides much more detailed information that taxpayers want and the Governor and State Controller David McDermott do not.  

The bill was supposed to be heard in the House Appropriations Committee today (Friday, April 3).   If it passed, that would have been a major hurdle and much harder kill later.  Make no mistake, this bill was supposed to be dead by now.  As COST reported earlier, the hearing has been delayed.

  1. [...] in Colorado has more lives than even the luckiest of felines. Powerful anti-transparency forces never wanted this bill to see the light of day.  In a pleasantly surprising turn of events, HB [...]

  2. [...] and increase fees on those who want to purchase a gun.  What Coloradans need is transparency.  No wonder Ritter resisted it. Written by amy in: Colorado, politics | Tags: Governor Bill Ritter, HB [...]

  3. [...] wonder the Governor fought so hard against transparency, he doesn’t really seem to understand it.  To help the Governor, COST has taken the liberty [...]

  4. [...] This is more than just “confusion.” These disclosures are about good governance and transparency.  The state’s chief executive officer must air on the side of transparency, but as COST has documented the Governor is no friend to transparency.  [...]

  5. [...] bad publicity from HCPF’s misuse of taxpayer funds.  COST can call to find out, but if Governor Ritter gave more than lip service to transparency, taxpayers and COST would [...]

  6. [...] 7.Colorado Spending Transparency » Ritter working to kill [...] and increase fees on those who want to purchase a gun.  What Coloradans need is transparency.  No wonder Ritter resisted it. Written by amy in: Colorado, politics | Tags: Governor Bill Ritter, HB [...] http://transparency.i2i.org/2009/04/03/ritter-working-to-kill-transparency-bill/ [...]

  7. [...] on government spending, Governor Ritter worked his tail off to try to bury it. He attempted to kill the legislation before it saw the light of day. When that didn’t work, he created a horribly ineffective and [...]

  8. [...] on government spending, Governor Ritter worked his tail off to try to bury it. He attempted to kill the legislation before it saw the light of day. When that didn’t work, he created a horribly ineffective and [...]