Colorado billionaire Pat Stryker has emerged as the major financial backer of the campaign against an anti-affirmative action measure on this year’s ballot.
Stryker has given a total of $50,000 to the campaign against the measure, including $25,000 in the most recent reporting period. The campaign, simply called Vote No on Amendment 46, reported $33,676 in the bank on the report it filed by Monday’s deadline.
Amendment 46 would eliminate affirmative-action programs in state hiring, contracting and education. Its proponents, a group called the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative Committee, reported no contributions over the past month and $1,924 in the bank in its filing Monday.
But the pro-Amendment 46 campaign already has collected and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Sacramento, Calif.-based American Civil Rights Coalition. The organization, founded by businessman Ward Connerly, has pushed similar anti-affirmative action measures in other states.
Craig Hughes, spokesman for Vote No on Amendment 46, said his organization is working to expand its donor rolls, which so far have seen a small number of contributors but received sizeable support from Stryker and big-money donors Tim Gill, Jared Polis and Merle Chambers.
“The important thing is we’re starting to build our broad-based support,” Hughes said.
The ballot-issue campaigns for November are still rounding into form, and a number of initiative campaigns have yet to report any contributions.
The Colorado Right to Life Committee, which is one of the groups backing Amendment 48 to define personhood as starting at the moment of fertilization, reported $245 in contributions over the last month and $2,068 on hand. Reports for Colorado for Equal Rights, another group pushing the measure, were not available Monday evening.
Meanwhile, the group Protect Families Protect Choices, which opposes Amendment 48, reported $428 worth of contributions over the last month and $3,849 in the bank.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
