When Colorado voters approved Amendment 41, the lobbying reform initiative, we’re quite certain not one of them intended to prevent University of Colorado scientists from accepting any future, well-deserved Nobel Prize award money.
And voters clearly weren’t bent on keeping scholarships out of the hands of children whose parents happen to be everyday government employees. Voters, by a wide margin, simply wanted to clean up government, especially with several high-profile national influence-peddling scandals in 2006.
The law creates a ban on lavish gifts to state officials and lawmakers, while also closing the “revolving door” that allows retiring legislators to immediately become lobbyists. It goes into effect today.
But Attorney General John Suthers has taken a very narrow view of Amendment 41, echoing some of the theatrics delivered by opponents of this measure this past fall. He says the law, as it’s written, makes it illegal for university professors to receive large cash awards, even though they’re earned rewards and not gifts. He says it also keeps other university employees from even receiving simple gifts from friends and relatives, such as picking up a dinner tab, if it’s not on a special occasion. (Suthers was reviewing the law’s language at the request of CU president Hank Brown.)
Suthers admits his interpretation leads to some “extremely unfortunate, yet unavoidable conclusions.”
“This is an absurd result,” he said.
The initiative’s somewhat vague language allowed opponents during the campaign to exaggerate its impact. (Remember the yarn about the car dealer who wouldn’t be able to buy team jerseys for the children of government employees?)
Now that the voters have spoken, it’s the job of the legislature to write implementing language that captures the voters’ intent without the overreaching extremes that have generated so much hype.
If voters have to approve clarifying language through a ballot measure, so be it. However, because of state law limitations, the earliest it could go before voters is 2008.
“No court would ever say that the people, in amending the constitution, intended to make absurd results,” said attorney Mark Grueskin, who was hired to help draft implementing language. We agree.
Plus, the law creates an ethics commission that will surely reject such frivolous claims. For now, lawmakers must offer legislation that reduces the prospect of frivolous or overreaching claims.
