The rolling skirmish over a plan to rework the state’s hospital provider fee at the Legislature is intensifying, even in the absence of any legislation for the opposing parties to wrangle over.

Conservative advocacy group Advancing Colorado unleashed a broadside Wednesday against state Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa, who has signaled he may be open to reworking the hospital fee. The idea was originally proposed by Democrats in a failed bill last year. It aims to remove the fee from spending caps imposed by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, an amendment to the state constitution.

“Sen. Crowder seems to believe it is his job to help light the match to compromise in burning the Constitution this session in an effort to attack our constitutional rights to a voice in tax policy and government spending,” said Advancing Colorado Executive Director Jonathan Lockwood. He was quoted in a release sent out Wednesday morning. “[Crowder] should listen to Coloradans who are outraged with the constant tax-and-spend mentality that has held up the statehouse. His seeming support for compromising on the Constitution shows that members of both sides of the aisle are willing to be lobbied into becoming constitutional arsonists.”

Crowder was unavailable for interviews as of press time.

Sources at the Capitol Wednesday were hesitant to comment on the thorny release, saying news on the tug-of-war over the hospital fee plan was coming at a fast clip.

Democratic lawmakers are likely to release a bill outlining their plan for the fee in the coming weeks.

Supporters say the plan would free up hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation and education spending.

Opponents say the move would violate Colorado’s constitution and shift money into the state’s general fund that should be refunded to taxpayers in years like the current one, according to the formula put in place by TABOR.

Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and House Minority Leader Brian DelGrosso, R-Loveland, have also characterized the plan as legislative gamesmanship and as a shortsighted stopgap measure. They say lawmakers instead should be looking to bring down steadily increased levels of state spending.

The powerful small-government group Americans for Prosperity has been lobbying hard at the Capitol against any potential bill that would target the hospital provider fee for a makeover. The group has asked lawmakers to sign a pledge to “protect the Constitution.”

Lockwood said his group is ready to “engage in the grassroots arena.”

“We don’t engage in electoral politics, but we will work to get the word out,” he told The Colorado Statesman. “Crowder has to know that we are watching. These are our constitutional rights we’re talking about.”

Lockwood said he has “an active line of communication with all the liberty groups,” on the right and that he has “talked to everyone about this.” He mentioned talking to people at the Independence Institute, Concerned Vets for America and the Libre Initiative, a free-market Latino group.

Crowder is up for re-election this year in swing district 35, but he is one of the Legislature’s more independent, less predictably partisan members and may be less susceptible to pressure on the right than many other elected Republican officials in the state. Indeed, the political chess that might be played around a Crowder defection on the hospital fee would be complex.

At the Capitol, Republicans control only the Senate, and they control that chamber by only one vote. A more hardline Republican who might defeat Crowder in a primary may also lose a general election against a Democratic candidate whose campaign is sure to be well funded.

Crowder is the only Republican in the Legislature so far to go on record as at least not starting out opposed to the idea of reworking the hospital provider fee. He made his position known in an interview with The Colorado Independent after Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper in his State of the State speech last week urged Republican lawmakers to seriously consider supporting the hospital provider fee plan.

“If we can’t make this very reasonable change… then what choice do we have but to re-examine TABOR,” Hickenlooper said.

Hickenlooper has been pitching the hospital fee change to business groups for months, asking representatives to help him make the case with lawmakers.