Labor interests Thursday detailed a lawsuit they filed to keep the right-to-work measure off the state’s November ballot, claiming proponents of the initiative committed fraud.
The suit alleges that some signature collectors, or circulators, were out-of-state residents who falsely stated their addresses on the petitions and wrongly swore that they understood circulation laws.
Circulators are required to be Colorado residents, but some provided home addresses that were traced to a payday lending store, a shuttered tanning salon and a vacant field, according to Jess Knox, executive director of the group behind the lawsuit.
Filed in Denver District Court late Wednesday, the suit also challenges the validity of the petitions’ notaries and claims more than 53,500 signatures are from individuals who aren’t registered to vote.
Kelley Harp, spokesman for the group pushing the right-to-work measure, called the suit a smokescreen and said union forces “would rather fight this in court than at the ballot box.”
“If any of the claims are true, what the lawsuit purports to show is clearly not up to par with the high standards of this campaign,” Harp said.
The right-to-work group submitted more than 136,000 signatures last month. Secretary of State Mike Coffman’s office estimated that 94,546 were valid based on a random sample, certifying the measure for November’s ballot as Amendment 47. The initiative would ask voters to amend the state constitution to say that union membership and the payment of dues or fees are not mandatory.
The suit seeks to have the court vacate Coffman’s certification and either declare that the petition lacks the required signatures or order the state to perform a “line-by-line” analysis of the petition.
“The proponents and funders of Amendment 47 failed to follow laws, potentially committed fraud and in some instances may have committed criminal acts,” said Reed Norwood, a union member listed as a plaintiff.
The suit names Coffman, Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier and Julian Jay Cole as defendants. Frazier and Cole submitted the ballot proposal.
