Voters could have a shot this year at fixing Colorado’s new ethics law and taxing lobbyists to pay for it if lawmakers dueling over competing proposals don’t clarify the gift ban’s scope this legislative session.
A coalition pushing the legislature to carry out Amendment 41 threatened today to put its own measure on the ballot this November if the Senate rejects a House bill that would clear up confusion over the ethics-in-government measure.
The proposal from Coloradans for Sensible Ethics includes a $25 to $75 yearly tax on professional lobbyists to fund an ethics panel that will hear alleged violations of Amendment 41.
Including a new tax is the only way to get the constitutional amendment on the ballot in an odd-numbered year.
The Senate and House are clashing over how to carry out Amendment 41, a voter-approved measure that has been broadly interpreted to ban family inheritances and scholarships for the children of government workers.
The House and Senate plans both end with an election in 2008, but the House wants to clarify the law’s “unintended consequences” through legislation this session. Voters would have to sign off on the changes in November 2008 for the legislation to stick.
But Senate leaders – who say lawmakers have no authority to carve out parts of the constitutional amendment – want to repeal it and replace it with an ethics law that applies only to elected officials and policymakers.
Senate President pro tem Peter Groff and Senate Republican Leader Andy McElhany announced their proposal Tuesday, the same day a radio ad attacking Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald over Amendment 41 debuted on several Denver stations.
The ad was paid for by the coalition, which includes Amendment 41 proponent and Internet entrepreneur Jared Polis.
Polis and Fitz-Gerald are likely opponents for the 2008 2nd Congressional District race.
The ad names only Fitz-Gerald – not Groff or McElhany – blasting her for putting up “a roadblock” against the House plan to clarify the ethics law.
“Call Joan Fitz-Gerald and tell her to quit the political games,” the ad says. “Joan Fitz-Gerald has a decision to make – do what’s right for lobbyists or what’s right for Colorado.”
Coalition spokesman Eric Sondermann, a political consultant, said the ad goes after Fitz-Gerald because “when people criticize the Bush administration, you usually criticize the top guy and not the top three or four guys.”
“We are trying to develop public support to encourage her to move this along,” he said.
Sondermann questioned the timing – soon after the radio ad aired – of a hastily called press conference Tuesday to announce the Senate plan.
“Curious, huh?” he said. “The coincidence was not lost on us.”
