Elected officials, public employees and nonprofit agencies challenging Colorado’s new ethics law are reading it out of context to the point of absurdity, a deputy attorney general argued Wednesday.
Amendment 41’s ban on gifts to government workers applies only when there is a breach of public trust, Maurice Knaizer said during closing arguments of a hearing on whether to block the law’s enforcement.
Knaizer rebutted the claims of about a dozen witnesses who testified that Amendment 41 infringes on their rights. One woman said she resigned as a Fire stone planning commissioner because she thought her children would lose their college scholarships. And a University of Colorado police officer said the ethics law prevented him from collecting more than $50 a person for a co-worker whose son died.
Amendment 41, passed by voters last year, bans lawmakers from taking anything from lobbyists and prohibits government workers and their families from receiving gifts worth more than $50, except on special occasions.
Backers of the ethics law say concerns are exaggerated.
Amendment 41 specifies at its beginning and end that it applies to cases where there is a “breach of public trust for private gain.”
Knaizer argued that the law’s ambiguity is resolved by reading the amendment in context.
But Jean Dubofsky, a former Colorado Supreme Court justice representing the group suing the state, is asking Denver District Judge Christina Habas for a preliminary injunction, which would stop the law’s enforcement. If she wins, a more in-depth trial would determine whether it is constitutional.
Habas ruled Wednesday to keep records sealed that plaintiffs subpoenaed from Amendment 41 backers Jared Polis, Colorado Common Cause and Coloradans for Clean Government.
In court documents, Polis and the ethics groups argued the subpoenaed records were irrelevant to the court case.
