By

Dan Pilcher

CACI Senior Vice President

Phone: 303.866.9600

E-Mail: dpilcher@COchamber.com

Thursday, January 4, 2007 -

Governor Bill Ritter to Headline CACI's Annual Business Day at the Legislature January 25th

Governor Bill Ritter has confirmed that he will speak at CACI’s annual Business Day at the Legislature Luncheon, 12 Noon—1:30 p.m., at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.  The Luncheon will be followed by a session at about 2 p.m. featuring the six principal legislative leaders in the Old Supreme Court Chamber at the State Capitol.

Invitations to this event were mailed last week to CACI members.  For more information, contact Denise Reeves, CACI Vice President for Events and Programs, at 303.866.9622 or via e-mail at dreeves@COchamber.com

The Platinum Sponsor of the CACI Business Day at the Legislature Luncheon is Qwest.

The Gold Sponsors are AngloGold Ashanti N.A., CH2M Hill, IBM and Safeway.

The Silver Sponsors are Boeing, BP America, BNSF Railway, Comcast, Coors Brewing Company, Gates Corporation, Eastman Kodak, Pinnacol Assurance and Xpedx.

Over the Holidays . . . .

Governor Bill Ritter and his Transition Team have been extremely busy over the holidays with interviews and decisions about the key people whom he will appoint to cabinet positions in his Administration.

In late November and early December, Jim Lyons, Executive Director of Ritter’s Transition Team, pulled together committees for the various departments and state agencies.  These committees reviewed resumes that had been submitted and narrowed their recommendation to less than a half-dozen candidates, which they submitted to the Governor-Elect.  CACI President Chuck Berry served on the Transition Committee for the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT).

As he will take office next Tuesday, Governor Ritter is still working to finalize his cabinet nominations.

2007 Legislative Session Starts Next Week

Next Tuesday, Bill Ritter will assume office as Colorado’s 41st Governor.  The oath of office will be administered by the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, Mary Mullarkey.  The inaugural ceremony will commence at 11:00 a.m. next Tuesday on the West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol.

Also being sworn into office at that time will be Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brien, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and Colorado State Treasurer Cary Kennedy.  Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman will be sworn into office two hours before at the Secretary of State’s Office, according to today’s The Rocky Mountain News.

During the ceremony, Colorado’s new Governor also will deliver the traditional Inaugural Address and set forth his vision for the State of Colorado during the coming four years.

Pursuant to the specific direction of the Colorado Constitution, the 66th session of the Colorado General Assembly will convene on Wednesday morning at 10:00 a.m.

Chief Justice Mullarkey will administer the oath to the 65 State Representatives and those State Senators elected in November to the legislature.  In the House of Representatives, Andrew Romanoff is expected to be re-elected by his colleagues for another two years as Speaker of the House.  In the Senate, Joan Fitz-Gerald is expected to be re-elected by her colleagues as Senate President.

Speaker Romanoff and President Fitz-Gerald will deliver the traditional opening-day addresses to their respective chambers as will the two minority leaders, Representative Mike May in the House and Senator Andy McElhany in the Senate.

On Thursday morning, Colorado’s new Governor will deliver his first State of the State Address to a joint session of the General Assembly in the Chamber of the House of Representatives.  His address is scheduled to begin at about 11:00 a.m. and will air on several network television stations in Denver as well as being carried as a Web cast by the stations.  Listeners may also listen to the address by going to the legislative Web site, http://www.leg.state.co.us/ and clicking on the link titled “Audio Broadcasts of Current Proceedings.”

Governor Ritter’s two inaugural dinners and concert will take place Friday evening, January 12th, at the Colorado Convention Center and the Hyatt Regency Convention Center Hotel.  Details can be found at http://www.coloradopromise.org/

CACI’s 2007 Lobbying Strategy

For more than four decades, the Colorado Association of Commerce & Industry (CACI) has been the statewide business community’s leading advocate at the Colorado State Capitol to protect and enhance our state’s economic climate.

Colorado’s political circumstances, however, have changed dramatically in recent years.  Major changes to our system of governance, laws and State Constitution have had significant repercussions on the business community.

One recent example is the voters’ approval on November 7th of Amendment 42, which enshrines an increase in the minimum wage, with annual increases linked to inflation, in the State Constitution.  CACI strongly opposed this measure because the minimum wage rate should be in the statutes and not in the Colorado Constitution.

Another example is campaign finance, when the voters in 2002 passed a measure that has enabled labor unions, using “small-donor committees,” to contribute ten times more money to legislative candidates than the business community can through political action committees, such as CACI’s Colorado Business Political Action Committee.

Meanwhile, so-called “527 committees” have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into political television advertising aimed at state and federal campaign races.  (The “527 committee” ads, however, are not under the control of the candidates and are not subject to the contribution limits and disclosure requirements of PACs.)

Following the November 7th elections, control of the Governor’s Office, the State House of Representatives and the State Senate will be vested in one political party in 2007.  This will be the first time that Democrats have held the political “trifecta” since 1962.

CACI believes, however, that labor unions, trial lawyers, environmentalists, consumer advocates and social-justice groups will try strongly to lobby state legislators and Governor Bill Ritter on bills that will have a significant, negative effect on the Colorado business climate--and on your company in particular.

We anticipate that bills--both potentially good and bad for business--will be introduced in such areas as health-care cost, quality and availability; employer mandates; unemployment insurance;  workers’ compensation; environmental regulations; transportation funding; and water supplies.

Consequently, as the state chamber of commerce, CACI is adapting to this changed political environment with a multi-pronged strategy:

The CACI Executive Committee and the Board of Directors met in November and December to refine a lobbying strategy for the 2007 session of the Colorado General Assembly, and CACI looks forward to working with its members to implement this strategy.  The three main elements of this strategy are:

1. Stregthen a grassroots network of business leaders across the state to contact their legislators on key votes on bills that are on the CACI legislative agenda;

2. Work cooperatively with pro-business legislators of both parties and the Administration of Governor Bill Ritter to (a) support bills that are good for the state’s business climate and to (b) oppose, or amend, bills that are bad for the business climate;

3. Deploy a comprehensive communications and public-relations strategy that communicates CACI’s views to its membership, the legislature, the Ritter Administration, other business groups, the news media and the general public.

1.  Grassroots Action & Information Network (GAIN)

To seek greater input into our policy-making process, to communicate with more businesses across the state, and to increase the visibility of the statewide business community at the State Capitol, we are stregthening a broad-based grassroots educational and outreach effort in partnership with local chambers of commerce and individual companies.

When a vote is scheduled in a committee or on a chamber floor on an important bill that CACI is lobbying, state legislators need to hear from business leaders and local chamber of commerce executives in their districts.

The first e-mail about this new effort went out to CACI members two weeks ago.  Based on the response of CACI members, CACI is creating a database of business leaders who are willing to contact legislators and perhaps testify before legislative committees.

Business leaders will be asked by CACI to not only contact the legislators in whose districts they reside or their company is located, they also may be asked to contact legislators with whom they have a relationship.

As a general rule, legislators will respond favorably to being contacted by their constituents on any given bill.  The combined effect of these constituents’ contacts can often be more effective in persuading a legislator to vote a certain way than the most diligent effort of lobbyists.  The need for business leaders to contact their legislators has become central to CACI’s lobbying strategy.

Participating in GAIN as a defender and advocate for statewide business issues is easy.   Just print, complete and fax back to 303.860.1439 the form that was e-mailed to you or download the form from the CACI Web site:

www.COchamber.com/grassroots.htm

And feel free to forward this information to any other business leaders whom you may know in your community and urge them to sign up, whether they are CACI members or not.  The more business leaders across the state who are involved in GAIN, the more successful we are likely to be with our legislative agenda during the session.

We will contact you when a key vote is coming up and your direct contact with a key legislator can make a difference.  We will provide you with all the information you need to contact your legislator and ask for his or her vote.  If you are able to testify, then we will provide you with necessary information for your presentation before a committee. 

CACI members who have questions abut GAIN should call Bonnie Finley, CACI Program Director, at 303.866.9643 or e-mail her at: bfinley@COchamber.com

2.  Work cooperatively with pro-business legislators of both parties and the Administration of Governor Bill Ritter

During the election campaign, CACI endorsed 38, pro-business, winning state legislative candidates: 12 Democrats and 26 Republicans.  After the election, CACI President Chuck Berry wrote to these candidates to congratulate them on their victories and to convey that CACI looks forward to working with them and other pro-business state legislators to protect and strengthen Colorado’s economic foundation.  (The list of CACI-endorsed winning candidates can be found on CACI’s Web site.)

In addition, Berry and Donnah Moody, CACI Governmental Affairs Vice President, met in December with House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D-Denver) to discuss the Speaker’s view on business issues that will come up during the session.  The Speaker made the point that CACI and its members need to be part of the solution when bills are being considered and not just constantly oppose legislation.  CACI wants to work with pro-business legislators of both parties to seek constructive solutions to the problems that face Colorado that concern the statewide business community.

Governor-Elect Ritter attended the CACI Board of Directors meeting at the CACI Office on December 14th and spoke about his transition process.  At this same meeting, Rep. Cheri Jahn (D-Wheat Ridge) and House Speaker Pro Tem also addressed the CACI Board.

3.  Communications and Public Relations

With the assistance of Pete Webb Public Relations, a CACI member, we will continue our communications and public relations effort to communicate CACI’s legislative priorities and work during the 2007 legislative session to our members across the state, the news media, the Colorado General Assembly, the Governor’s Office and the public.