Does anyone else appreciate the irony surrounding Colorado’s new government ethics law, also known as Amendment 41? Take a step back from the emotional rhetoric for a minute and think about the whole issue in logical terms:
Jared Polis, a wealthy activist backer of the amendment, capitalized on the public’s concern (real or perceived) that “something” must be done about corruption in politics.
Ask those same folks who voted to place Amendment 41 in our Constitution what problem they were trying to solve, and they likely will say, “Lobbyists have too much influence; look at Abramoff and Halliburton!”
Now, forget for a minute that those high-profile and totally indefensible violations of public trust occurred at the federal level. Ask most people who voted to pass Amendment 41 to identify their state legislators, and many cannot.
The real targets of Amendment 41 are lobbyists like me, whom, we all know, are wining and dining lawmakers and offering up the state equivalent of a defense contract; i.e., pricey sports-event tickets.
And if that’s all Amendment 41 did – prohibit lobbyists from giving big-ticket items to lawmakers – I doubt any lobbyist, myself included, would complain. However, Amendment 41 actually:
1) Prohibits those serving in elected or appointed office from taking a job influencing public policy for two years following that service;
2) Prohibits the public from giving anything more than $50 in value annually to anyone associated with any level of government (not just decision-makers), including friends and family and independent contractors;
3) Prohibits lobbyists from giving anything of value to anyone associated with any level of government (not just decision-makers), “even a beverage”; and
4) Creates an ethics commission with broad subpoena powers, and no disincentive for the commission to be used to punish political adversaries under the guise of forcing ethics compliance.
Amendment 41 – passed by a 62 percent margin – creates real damage in its attempted pursuit of ethical governance. The amendment already faces multiple legal challenges, and concerns have been raised about well-earned scholarships, Nobel Prize awards, and fundraising efforts for anyone who has even loose connections to government.
Amendment 41’s opponents warned of these outcomes before the November 2006 election – and Polis’ lawyers argued that these claims were merely scare tactics.
I’m still stymied at how these consequences can be called “unintended,” when the non-partisan legislative legal services blue-book analysis, the Colorado attorney general and, yes, lobbyists publicly warned of the amendment’s far reach into mundane, everyday, above- board practices well before the election.
Despite our deep knowledge of the legislative process, the warnings of statehouse lobbyists about the damaging reach of Amendment 41 were dismissed as tainted because of our vested interest in the process. This ignores the fact that all Coloradans have vested interests, because all of us have a stake in some special-interest group. Lobbyists don’t just represent businesses, as I do. They also represent the Humane Society, the elderly, teachers, environment groups, government workers and labor unions.
The Colorado lobbying corps represents the interests of those who voted for Amendment 41, those who voted against it and those who never vote.
The ultimate irony in the effort to address undue influence is that now Polis has hired a number of high-powered lobbyists to try to get the legislature to “fix” the “unintended consequences” of Amendment 41. A “fix” would require the legislature to unethically ignore the limits of its authority and instead rewrite part of the Constitution, which can be amended only by a vote of the people.
Polis defends himself by reminding us that the legislature “clarified” previous campaign-finance constitutional language. That is true; the difference here is that the legislature filled in the blanks where Amendment 27 was silent.
In this case, Polis wants legislators to read the intent of voters – as he is interpreting that intent – and change the amendment’s specific language that voters approved “as is.” I think we can all agree that such action would require a serious ethical gut check on the part of all Colorado lawmakers.
Lobbyists are conspicuous in their silence on this issue, despite being uniquely qualified to clearly outline the many drawbacks of Amendment 41. But who wants to speak against “ethics in government,” especially with that pesky “vested interest” label we carry?
Donnah Moody is vice president of government relations for the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry.
