State legislative leaders united this week to help alleviate concerns over the loose language in Colorado’s new Amendment 41 ethics law. Their compact, which is still being written, should help set the minds of thousands of government workers at ease.
We were glad to see Democratic and Republican leaders sitting shoulder to shoulder at a small table in House Speaker Andrew Romanoff’s office Wednesday evening as they struck the first major legislative compromise since Referendum C two years ago.
Just a day earlier, Colorado Senate leaders had offered their own approach to Amendment 41.
They have been critical of the House approach, but their willingness to move forward made the accommodation possible. Collaboration from all corners of the statehouse was the only way to ensure Colorado’s new ethics-in-government law would be implemented quickly and appropriately.
An overwhelming majority of Colorado voters last fall approved Amendment 41, wanting to ban lobbyist gifts to lawmakers and policymakers. But the poorly worded amendment raised a host of other concerns.
The legislative leaders say first they’ll pass Senate Bill 210, which sets up a five-member ethics panel that would hear alleged violations of Amendment 41.
Lawmakers also will ask the state Supreme Court for guidance to help the panel determine the gift ban’s scope. That should help clear up some of the absurd fears that have arisen, such as concerns that children of government employees can no longer accept college scholarships or that future Nobel Prize winners would not be able to accept their award.
We believe it will take only a frivolous complaint or two to be tossed by the new commission before it’s clear that a violation of the public trust must occur before Amendment 41 is called into play.
Lawmakers, in concert with backers of Amendment 41, also will put a “constitutional repair” on the ballot in 2008 that specifies exactly who the gift ban applies to, such as lawmakers and policy makers.
Coloradans clearly want an ethics law, and lawmakers failed for years to provide one.
The legislature is fulfilling its responsibilities by clarifying the law and creating the apparatus that will implement it. Though details are still forthcoming, we’re encouraged to see both houses of the legislature, and both political parties, making an effort to craft a measure that embraces the clear intent of voters while also taking the unnecessary fears out of ethics reform.
