DENVER-
The House gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill that would clarify new voter-approved ethics rules and would then ask the voters to sign off on the changes in 2008.
House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, said lawmakers need to clear up questions raised by the voter-approved rules, including whether state employees’ families can accept certain scholarships, whether professors can accept Nobel prizes and what gifts state employees can take.
The measure faces another vote in the House before it goes to the Senate.
In addition to asking voters’ approval, the bill will allow courts to decide whether the changes are constitutional, May said.
In the meantime, the changes would go into effect if approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, he said.
“This way the voters would get to weigh in and say whether or not that’s what they intended. If voters say no, that is not what we meant, it dies,” May said.
The original ethics rules, included in a constitutional amendment approved as Amendment 41, were meant to limit lobbyists’ influence by barring some state employees from accepting big gifts or meals.
They ban lobbyists from buying meals or any gifts worth more than $50 for state lawmakers. They also ban gifts to any state employee or their families worth more than $50. Employees of cities or counties that have their own ethics guidelines are exempt from the law.
But they created much confusion, and some backers have asked the Legislature to step in.
Rep. Michael Garcia, D-Denver, objected to the compromise, saying voters meant what they said, even if the measure did have unintended consequences.
He said no gifts means no gifts, and passing a statute to go around the constitutional requirements wouldn’t solve the problem. He said lawmakers cannot ask judges or voters to step in each time a question comes up about what a voter-approved measure means.
“It’s crystal clear,” Garcia said.
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, said the compromise provides double protection.
“For the bill to get on the books, it would need the court’s blessing. For it to stay on the books, it would need the voters’ blessing,” he said.
The proposal got a lukewarm reception in the Senate, where President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Golden, said she wasn’t consulted on the compromise and had no comment.
The proposed revisions would allow state employees’ spouses or children to accept payments or awards to cover accidents or illnesses and scholarships based on academic achievement. It would also allow court awards and other gifts or awards approved by an ethics commission.
