Colorado needs a government ethics law. Most states have one.
Last week a Denver District Court judge blocked the tough new ethics law, known as Amendment 41, that voters overwhelmingly approved last fall.
Judge Christina Habas’ injunction came after a group of elected officials, government workers and nonprofit groups sued, saying it was too broad, invaded the private lives of government workers and violated the First Amendment.
“I find that the Plaintiffs’ fears are well-founded, and that their speech, association and petitioning rights have been chilled,” Habas wrote.
Given her strongly worded, 41-page ruling, we’re guessing Amendment 41 is dead.
We’ve long believed that state lawmakers ought to be the ones writing and approving a strong ethics law. But they have failed to do so over and over again – first when Republicans controlled the statehouse and now when Democrats are in charge. (It was only last year lawmakers finally voted to prohibit themselves from accepting unlimited amounts of cash for “office accounts”that they could spend however they wanted.) So last year a coalition of citizens and interest groups did the legislature’s job and put an ethics law before voters.
Gov. Bill Ritter, on behalf of the state, will appeal Habas’ ruling to the state Supreme Court. But if the law is eventually overturned at trial this fall, as some legal experts predict, state lawmakers will – again – have the chance to approve a new ethics package that forbids lobbyists’ gifts to lawmakers and closes the revolving door of lawmakers who become lobbyists.
Most states have such ethics laws on the books. Colorado doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to find a law that’s been vetted by the courts and would work here.
The potential for scandal exists in Colorado, considering the lax regulation of lobbyists, the unusually high percentage of lobbyists to lawmakers – the fourth-highest in the country – and the loads of money already being spent to influence policy or win contracts. Before the law was enacted, lobbyists lavished officials with gifts totalling $1.6 million a year, according to their filings with the secretary of state.
Until a new ethics law can be passed, or this one restored, lawmakers should remind themselves that more than 60 percent of Coloradans wanted them to live under the rules of Amendment 41, and that desire needs to be met.
