Dominique Torres will cash a $200 check she received Saturday from 9News in recognition of her work as a school volunteer. When the Mead Middle School seventh-grader does, her dad will call the bluff of Amendment 41 naysayers.
If someone wants to charge Mead Town Trustee Gerry Torres with violating the state’s new ethics amendment because his 12-year-old daughter got a $200 check and a $900 scholarship for being among 9News’ Kids Who Care, well, bring it on.
“I take the stance that it’s a ridiculous interpretation,” Torres said of a constitutional provision whose open-ended language undermines its intent.
Friday afternoon, Mead’s town attorney told Torres that he would violate “the black letter of the law” by letting his child collect an award recognizing her volunteer work.
This legal interpretation echoes what Colorado Attorney General John Suthers’ office has been telling state agencies and individuals. The AG’s office is apparently trying to protect people from the imprecise syntax of Amendment 41, which forbids elected and appointed officials and government workers, as well as their immediate families, from taking anything worth more than $50.
Like Dominique, 18-year-old Machebeuf High student Kaela Mattson went to the 9News Kids Who Care lunch Saturday. Unlike Dominique, Kaela will not cash her $200 check or accept her $900 scholarship from the state group College in Colorado.
State officials, including College in Colorado director Dawn Taylor Owens, will hold Kaela’s and Dominique’s scholarships in limbo until May. But Kaela’s grandparents and guardians say that Owens has told them that as things stand, if Kaela accepts the scholarship, her grandfather, state Revenue Department employee Dick Mattson, will violate Amendment 41.
“This is ludicrous,” said Donna Mattson, Kaela’s grandmother. “We’re between a rock and hard place.”
“Our legal department told us it was wrong for any dependent (of a public employee or elected official) to accept a gift over $50,” Owens explained. Owens said her lawyers also told her that College in Colorado could be fined for giving the scholarship money to dependents or spouses of government workers and politicians.
Torres, a 38-year-old ex-Marine and insurance broker, doesn’t mind calling bull hockey on that interpretation and anybody mean enough to try to apply it.
“It’s ridiculous,” Torres said, “absolutely ridiculous.”
Deputy Attorney General Jason Dunn claims the loose language of Amendment 41 allows no other reading.
“There is nothing in the prohibition about breaching the public trust for private gain,” Dunn said.
That distinction, he continued, doesn’t come until the penalty section of the amendment, which sets out fines against both people who accept gifts or money and people or groups that provide them.
Late Friday, the attorney general’s office advised 9News to require some quid pro quo for its $200 Kids Who Care awards in order to avoid violating Amendment 41.
“Each child received a letter from 9News with their checks that said they should continue their volunteer work for the next four months,” said Donna Mattson. “We’re supposed to take a picture of Kaela doing her work.”
Whether this kind of absurdity can be cured with legislation in this session of the General Assembly is unclear. Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff, who once blew off doomsday scenarios for 41, now admits that something must change.
“The status quo is a state of confusion that is not sustainable,” he said.
True. But even if Amendment 41 needs clarification and perhaps another amendment to set it right, I’m glad Torres will test the language as it exists. The notion that College in Colorado would refuse to give Kaela or Dominique their scholarships sends a bad message to good kids.
To Gerry Torres, this craziness sounds a lot like paranoia. To me, it sounds a lot like politics driven by those who opposed ethics reform all along.
With that in mind, let’s clean things up so 41 specifically prohibits gifts or money that seek to make public servants breach the people’s trust for private gain.
Meanwhile, I will happily eviscerate in print anyone hardhearted enough to charge Gerry Torres with an ethics violation because a TV station and a state agency wanted to recognize his kid’s exemplary commitment to her community.
And I can’t wait to skewer any ethics commission blind enough to public will to uphold such a stupid claim with a fine.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com. David Harsanyi’s column will return soon.
