DENVER—Colorado’s best-known anti-tax activist has hired one of Denver’s most high-profile lawyers to represent him in a case stemming from a lawsuit over tax measures on the November ballot.
Douglas Bruce has hired David Lane to represent him in a contempt-of-court case. The case stems from failed efforts to force Bruce to testify in a lawsuit to determine who is financing three tax-cutting initiatives.
Bruce, who has represented himself in court, was in Denver District Court in July to respond to the citation and is due back Aug. 18.
Lane represented former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who created a furor with his essay likening some Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism victims to a Nazi who helped orchestrate the Holocaust. He also represented Richard Heene, the Fort Collins father who pleaded guilty in the balloon boy hoax.
Lane has filed a motion asking that the upcoming hearing in Bruce’s case be postponed. He says he will be in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to represent detainees imprisoned by the United States.
The Colorado attorney general’s office, representing the secretary of state in the lawsuit, has objected to the delay. Lane knew about the Aug. 18 hearing when he took the case, the attorney general’s office said.
The attorney general’s office has accused Bruce of stonewalling in the lawsuit, aimed at forcing organizers behind the tax-cutting proposals to report who is supporting them. State officials asked a judge to hold Bruce in contempt of court after they tried and failed 30 times to subpoena him.
Bruce has said he was out of state when attorneys tried to serve the subpoena. He wrote the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a 1992 constitutional amendment limiting government spending and taxing in Colorado. But Bruce has said he’s not involved with the anti-tax measures on the November ballot.
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Information from: The Denver Post,
