The millions of dollars in campaign donations that poured into this year’s fight over budget-changing ballot measures has prompted some officials to call for tougher campaign-finance laws for issue committees.
Some leaders want better disclosure of the names of donors, while others prefer limits on the size of donations. And others want to limit donors from engaging in government-financed projects if they donate more than $500 to a campaign.
“These things evolve, but when the stakes are as high as they were in this election, maybe the time is nigh for the legislature to take a closer look,” said Rick Daily, a Denver election lawyer.
The state constitution puts strict limits on how much money donors can give candidates for elected office, but issue committees can collect unlimited contributions.
And donors to those committees can bundle contributions to hide the identities of individual donors. For example, Colorado Club for Growth contributed more than $2 million to defeat Referendum C, but nobody will say who gave that money.
“This campaign exposed the shortcomings in our system of political money and issue committees,” said Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Common Cause.
Maysmith’s group backed an amendment added to the state constitution in 2002 that capped donations to individual candidates, but left issue committees out of the limits. That’s because legal decisions wouldn’t let states place such limits.
Since then, a U.S. Supreme Court decision may provide the opportunity to reconsider the rules for donations to committees, Daily said. The law now lets states consider the “faith of the people in the institutions they use to govern themselves” when writing campaign-finance rules.
Rob Fairbank, a Republican former state representative, said he prefers full disclosure of donors rather than limits. “If a group is advocating a position,” Fairbank said, “I would like to see more light shined on where the money is coming from.”
Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, said he wants to remedy the “pay-to-play” problems with the campaign system. His proposal would block campaign donors from getting government contracts if they contribute $500 or more to a campaign that calls for increasing taxes.
Staff writer Mark P. Couch can be reached at 303-820-1794 or mcouch@denverpost.com.
