The Capitol clash over Colorado’s new ethics law ended Wednesday when Senate and House leaders agreed to set up an ethics panel and send the measure back to voters in 2008.
The compromise came just hours after a coalition pushing the legislature to clarify Amendment 41 threatened to put a rewrite on the 2007 ballot that would have included a tax on professional lobbyists.
And it came one day after the debut of a radio ad attacking Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald for putting up a “roadblock” against a House bill that sought to clarify the ethics law.
Coloradans for Sensible Ethics was “pulling the ads off the air as soon as possible” after the compromise, spokesman Eric Sondermann said. The group also backed off plans to seek a 2007 vote.
House and Senate leaders announced their compromise at an impromptu evening news conference attended by Republicans and Democrats. They vowed to pass Senate Bill 210, which sets up a five-member ethics panel that would hear alleged violations of Amendment 41.
The legislature will ask the Colorado Supreme Court for guidance to help the ethics panel determine the gift ban’s scope – including whether it affects inheritances, scholarships and gifts for rank-and-file government workers.
Then lawmakers will work with the drafters of Amendment 41 to put a “constitutional repair” on the November 2008 ballot.
“We need a common-sense approach to how business is conducted up here,” said Senate President pro tem Peter Groff, who wants the new version of Amendment 41 to make clear the gift ban applies only to elected officials and policymakers.
The coalition that ran the attack ad includes Amendment 41 financial backer Jared Polis, who is likely to oppose Fitz-Gerald in the 2008 2nd Congressional District primary race.
The ad names only Fitz- Gerald – not Groff or Senate Republican leader Andy McElhany – and gives her phone number.
“Call Joan Fitz-Gerald and tell her to quit the political games,” it says. “Joan Fitz-Gerald has a decision to make – do what’s right for lobbyists or what’s right for Colorado.”
The ad goes after Fitz-Gerald because “you usually criticize the top guy and not the top three or four guys,” Sondermann said.
The coalition’s 2007 ballot proposal would have included a $25 to $75 yearly tax on professional lobbyists to fund the ethics panel, said Mark Grueskin, an attorney hired by the coalition. Including a new tax is the only way to get the constitutional amendment on the ballot in an odd- numbered year.
Senate and House leaders dismissed the idea that the ad or the threat of a 2007 vote on Amendment 41 spurred their compromise. They’ve been talking about a deal for weeks, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff said.
House Minority Leader Mike May called the 2007 vote proposal “a goofy plan,” and House Majority Leader Alice Madden said it was probably illegal to tax a certain profession.
Sondermann declined to say whether public pressure poured on by Coloradans for Sensible Ethics swayed Capitol leaders.
“I will let others speculate and surmise,” he said. “We’re encouraged that the legislature is seeming to come together to implement Amendment 41 in a way that honors voter intent and resolves unintended consequences.”
Polis declined comment, but his spokesman said the radio ad had nothing to do with the race to replace U.S. Rep. Mark Udall as he runs for the U.S. Senate in 2008.
“It has everything to do with clarifying Amendment 41 and implementing the will of the voters,” spokesman Mark Eddy said.
Fitz-Gerald said that if the ad was “meant to intimidate, that’s not a really good tactic.”
“I’m not sure why I’m the point person in the ads,” she said. But “I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”
In the compromise, the House scraps legislation passed just last week that would have clarified the ethics law’s “unintended consequences.” That House plan – which until Wednesday was awaiting action in the Senate – would have asked voters to sign off on the changes in November 2008.
Now, House Bill 1304 is likely to die in a Senate committee next week while lawmakers rework a Senate bill to reflect Wednesday’s compromise. It’s not yet clear when new language for an amendment – or a tweak to the current Amendment 41 – will be worked out.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
