Senate leaders want to dump Colorado’s new ethics law and ask voters to replace it with a “common-sense” rewrite that applies only to elected officials and policymakers.
The proposed Senate fix to Amendment 41 – a voter-approved measure that has been broadly interpreted to ban gifts between friends and scholarships for the children of government workers – comes a week after the House passed its own proposal.
Both plans end with an election in November 2008, but the House version would clarify the ethics law’s “unintended consequences” through legislation this session. Then voters would have to sign off on the narrowed interpretation of the ban on gifts to public officials.
The alternate approach announced Tuesday by Senate President pro tem Peter Groff and Senate Republican Leader Andy McElhany would ask voters to repeal the amendment and replace it with a version that excludes rank-and-file government workers.
In the meantime, a government-appointed panel would offer guidance on the ethics law.
“Ours is the clean approach,” said McElhany, who said the legisla – ture cannot write a law to tinker with a voter-approved constitutional amend ment.
The House version, House Bill 1304, includes a companion measure to ask the Colorado Supreme Court whether the legislature has the authority to clear up the intent of the ethics law.
Groff likened that to lawmakers poking their heads in a courtroom during deliberations.
“That’s not the way it works,” he said. “We have a separation of power for a reason.”
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, though, criticized the Senate proposal for not clearing up the “cloud of confusion” over Amendment 41 and instead “sending the cloud” above the ethics panel.
“Our proposal gets an answer in two months,” Romanoff said. “The Senate approach would take 20.”
The Senate proposal, which has not been introduced yet, would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature because it calls for a constitutional amendment. The House legislation, passed last week and on its way to the Senate, requires a simple majority.
It’s too early to tell which proposal will survive.
“This should not become a game of mutually assured destruction,” Romanoff said. “We’re here to make law, not war.”
House Majority Leader Alice Madden said it was not surprising the chambers are clashing over Amendment 41.
“Reasonable minds disagree over what to do with this,” Madden said. “There are lawyers all over town saying the exact opposite of each other.”
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
