State lawmakers took a smart step toward good government when they passed a bill to rein in unchecked cash and gifts for legislative office expenses.
Senate Bill 51 would prohibit all cash gifts to office accounts and would limit in-kind donations to $50. The bill, passed in the late-night hours of the legislature’s final day, received bipartisan support, and lawmakers should be proud of themselves. Now Gov. Bill Owens needs to give it the green light and make Colorado proud.
SB 51 closes the last big loophole in a campaign finance law passed by Colorado voters in 2002. That law capped contributions from both individuals and political committees in statewide races and placed voluntary spending limits on candidates. But the loophole enabled elected officials to continue taking unlimited amounts of cash from lobbyists under the guise of defraying office expenses. Colorado has been one of five states that doesn’t limit cash gifts to lawmakers.
Separate from the office accounts, the bill also requires lawmakers to report gifts such as sports tickets quarterly instead of once a year.
During a 2006 session in which some 673 bills were introduced, lawmakers also toughened reporting rules for lobbyists and clarified election rules. The session ended at 11:22 p.m. Monday, two days shy of the legal deadline. It was the second straight year that the Democratic-controlled legislature finished its work early.
We’d hoped to see a stronger lobbyist reform bill emerge, one with a one-year cooling-off period before an exiting lawmaker could become a lobbyist and a requirement that lobbyists report contributions to lawmakers of $100 or more. But legislators struck both provisions from the final version of House Bill 1149, which nevertheless will require lobbyists to be more forthcoming about the legislation they are pushing.
The legislature also made important revisions and clarifications to election rules in Senate Bill 170. Among other things, the bill allows centralized vote centers to be used and allows voters to cast provisional ballots electronically. The bill also clarifies that voters who move to a new precinct within 29 days of an election can use provisional ballots to vote for federal and statewide offices “for which the elector is eligible to vote.” Rules created by the secretary of state in 2004 allowed provisional ballots to count only for president and vice president.
All three bills deserve to become law and we would urge Owens to sign them or let them pass without veto.
