The Denver Chamber of Commerce has always been a pariah in the Chamber of Commerce world, to the point that they really shouldn't be called a Chamber of Commerce. If their most recent legislator scorecard is any indicator, the Denver Chamber has no clue whatsoever about what pro-business means. When they list union stooge Ed Casso (D-Commerce City) as the second most pro-business legislator in the House, the only thing you could possibly think is the Denver Chamber has been hitting the crack pipe, and hard.

The Denver Chamber has been on a downward trend for years, such as when they chucked support of the right-to-work initiative in favor of giving millions to union bosses to spend attacking the ballot issue. Their recently unveiled legislator scorecard marks rock bottom for them. In the addicts world that means it's time for an intervention. We at the Peak think they need help–of the professional mental health variety. 

The scorecard didn't just shock us, it left Democrat legislators flabbergasted as well. When Wheat Ridge Representative Sue Schafer was told by the Denver Business Journal that she ranked first in the House she replied: "You've got to be kidding." 

Not only did they rank big government liberals at the top, but they put solid conservative Republicans at the bottom, ranking Colorado Springs Senator Bill Cadman last of all State Senators. 

How did they come up with such a ludicrious system of rankings? For one, they decided to ignore any bill that got killed in committee. So all those bills to reduce the cost of doing business in Colorado, such as the repeal of the onerous business personal property tax, were not taken into account.

This had the effect of a carnival mirror, allowing people like “Flower Fraud” Senator Brandon Shaffer to appear pro-business. Since the bipartisan bill to repeal the job-killing Amazon tax was blocked by Shaffer from coming up for a vote, it wouldn't factor into his pro-business score. That's kind of like giving a baseball player a batting average based only on the balls he swung at. 

Ed Sealover of the Denver Business Journal points out another ridiculous element to the scorecard:

Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Castle Rock, saw several business personal property tax cuts and a regulatory reform measure die at the hands of Sen. Rollie Heath’s Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee this year. And for that effort, Scheffel scored three points lower in the chamber’s eyes than Heath, D-Boulder: 60 percent to 63 percent.

While the Denver Chamber's credibility was already highly suspect in business circles in Colorado, this latest move gives their credibility about the same value as a crackhead's credit score.