A bill to protect children from consuming medical marijuana edibles moved out of the House Finance Committee today and is on its way to the House floor. HB 1250 exited committee with only one ‘no’ vote coming from Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, who said the bill had little real impact but that in the end parents should take responsibility for their children.

“I think it is important–since we have opened a whole new industry with this medical marijuana–that our kids and communities are safe,” bill sponsor Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, told the Colorado Independent.

The bill, originally designed to make medical marijuana edibles illegal in the state, was amended, through the suggestions of medical marijuana lobbyists, to put in place safeguards against children consuming what Acree sees as a medical, and potentially dangerous, product.

“We don’t want to deprive anyone’s rights to its use for medicinal purposes, but if it is going to be medicine it needs to be treated as a medicine and properly packaged and labeled and warned.”

As amended the bill now would require brownies, suckers and other similar marijuana products be packaged in childproof containers with medicine-like labeling.

“I just don’t think this bill is necessary. I think that the Department has the ability to promulgate rules; they have been in that process; they have stakeholders at the table to do this,” Duran said. “I am not in favor of children getting access to medical marijuana but a lot of these issues really come down to parental responsibility.”

Rep. Cindy Acree

Acree, however, felt her bill would help guide the rule making process to ensure that children were unable to access the drug.

She pointed to a number of cases where children, thinking the product was candy, got in to their parents’ stash.

The bill will now be heard for debate on the floor of the House.

Former Colorado Springs Senator Dave Schultheis is no longer holding forth on bills on the Senate floor in Denver, but he has continued to exert influence this year as the powerful force behind the conservative Republican Study Committee of Colorado. Now that influence may be waning. This week, a third of the RSCC flock quit the committee, rejecting the would-be radical-right revival.

The RSCC claimed 34 Republican members in the state Legislature – 11 in the Senate and 23 in the House – prior to Tuesday. At least 10 legislators quit in the wake of allegations that it was crossing ethics boundaries in influencing lawmaker votes, directing legislative aides and meddling in the race for state GOP chairman.

The committee drew media attention this year for pushing Arizona-style anti-illegal immigration legislation. It held informational hearings that were stacked with anti-immigration witnesses, some with clear ties to white spremacist organizations.

A high-profile surprise rebuke

The committee also took a strong stand in the race to replace Dick Wadhams as head of the Colorado Republican party this month. Schultheis and most conservative study committee members had endorsed RSCC member Senator Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch.

The committee members scrambled on stage last Saturday to nominate Harvey but their “we’ve got it nailed” confidence withered when the Republican Party Central Committee overwhelmingly elected state GOP Legal Counsel Ryan Call on the first ballot with 167.6 votes to Harvey’s 74.4.

As the vote was being read, RSCC Vice Chair Senator Kent Lambert tweeted, “They didn’t buy these ballot boxes at the magic store, did they? ;)”

The committee members and other hard-right Harvey supporters shouldn’t have been so surprised. Wadhams, dogged this year by Tea Partiers as a compromised establishment figure, received an enthusiastic standing ovation at the event. Also, influential RSCC member Senator Shawn Mitchell had seconded Call’s nomination as the kind of leader who could unify a party still reeling from the fractured 2010 Republican primary races for governor and U.S. Senator, offices the GOP lost in the general election.

The rump committee

Gone from the RSCC website membership page are photos and names of House Speaker Frank McNulty, Majority Leader Amy Stephens, Majority Caucus Chair Carole Murray, Majority Whip B.J. Nikkel and Representatives Cindy Acree, Kevin Priola, Ray Scott, Ken Summers, Spencer Swalm and Libby Szabo.

Several legislators recently questioned whether Schultheis and the group had crossed the line between a policy ad-hoc committee and a volunteer lobbyist coalition. They wondered whether the committee compromised a legislative aide who might have breached ethics by disseminating positions on bills and by twittering opinions.

The RSCC produces Senate and House reports – up to 20 pages long – that designate whether a bill “DOES” or “DOES NOT” support conservative values.

For example, an RSCC report evaluated HB 11-1144, which requires health benefit plans to cover medical evaluations of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. The disease is preventable by treating the mother during pregnancy.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Representatives Judy Solano, Edward Casso, Andy Kerr, Nancy Todd and Democratic Senator Lois Tochtrop, passed in both chambers and was signed into law, despite receiving the thumbs down by the RSCC.

The RSCC said the bill “DOES NOT” support the principles of “constitutional limited government, free markets and personal responsibility.”

That judgment sounded eerily familiar to Schultheis in 2009 citing the need for personal responsibility and less government regulation when he voted against a bill to protect fetuses exposed to the HIV virus. In a Rocky Mountain News interview, he reasoned that as an AIDS-afflicted baby grows up, “the mother will begin to feel guilt… The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity.”

The Colorado Springs wing

Earlier in this legislative session, Schultheis candidly discussed his role in monitoring bills and votes for the RSCC with the same eagle-eyed scrutiny he once brought to his search for illegal drug runners and undocumented workers on his treks with the group to the Arizona-Mexico border, most recently in August.

Schultheis appears to be going underground. He claimed “he’s not the brains behind the RSCC” and he blocked public access to his Facebook page.

The RSCC operates under the Legislative Support Group, a nonprofit organization registered with the Secretary of State’s office in June 2006. Schultheis registered the RSCC trade name and designated the entity as an “Other Non-Profit… Social Welfare” located at 1250 Golden Hills Road in Colorado Springs.

The base of operations is Schultheis’ $500,000-plus home perched above the canyon community of Pinecliff, where he rises before daybreak each weekday to assess legislative bills, their sponsors, and the votes cast by members of the Colorado House and Senate.

“It’s frustrating. The Republicans are acting like RINOs,” groaned Schultheis in late February. Among the GOP legislators gone rogue and drawing the ire of Schultheis by defying his version of conservative principles is House Speaker McNulty.

Skewing the initiative process to favor liberal ideology

The source of Schultheis’ anxiety was Senate Concurrent Resolution 11-001, sponsored in the Senate by President Brandon Shaffer and Nancy Spence and in the House by Majority Caucus Chair Murray and Minority Caucus Chair Lois Court. McNulty joined the bill’s numerous co-sponsors.

The resolution aims to tighten requirements to amend the state Constitution. It passed third readings in both chambers, and is pending Senate approval of House amendments. If approved, the measure will go before voters on the 2012 general election ballot.

Schultheis opposed SCR11-001 in a Feb. 23 memo dispatched to House State, Affairs Committee Republican Representatives Randy Baumgardner, Don Coram, Larry Liston, Jim Kerr and Mark Waller. The resolution’s numerous co-sponsors also included Baumgardner, Coram and Liston.

“As conservatives and those who advocate their allegiance for TABOR (Taxpayers Bill of Rights), it seems very apparent to me that should the legislature pass this bill, that two very onerous conditions will result,” wrote Schultheis, who asked that the resolution be killed or at least postponed.

If the resolution passes, Schultheis predicts that TABOR would be repealed and that “more liberal Constitutional amendments will be passed.” He said he had analyzed voter-approved initiatives and amendments over the past two decades, particularly those that passed by at least 60 percent of the vote.

“The shocker is that you will notice that all but one that passed placed liberal ideology in the Constitution,” said Schultheis in a memo. “You can verify that in the initiative summary that I’ve asked Lauri (sic) Bratten to provide you.”

Defining lobbying

Some RSCC members bristled at the notion that Schultheis or the RSCC has lobbied for or against legislation. According to Amendment 41 passed by voters in 2006, statewide elected officials cannot become paid lobbyists until two years after leaving office. Schultheis is free to voice opinions as a citizen or volunteer lobbyist although the latter are supposed to register with the House Clerk.

“I don’t consider the [RSCC] as lobbying,” countered Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, an RSCC member. “They’re just trying to promote Republican ideals and which they stand for. I don’t think they’re lobbying. There’s no difference between the RSCC and Colorado Municipal League or CEA (Colorado Educators Association).”

Both CML and CEA employ registered lobbyists.

More skeptical legislators said Laurie Bratten, referenced in Schultheis’ memo, is dangerously teetering on the ethics line.

Bratten is Director of Communications for RSCC and married to RSCC Executive Director Rich Bratten. She is also the paid legislative aide to RSCC-affiliated Senators Harvey and Scott Renfroe.

The legislators spoke on the condition of anonymity in fear of RSCC members killing their bills or dredging up a primary contender in future re-election bids. They objected to a legislative aide circulating information to influence votes and twittering opinions on bills and politics during committee and floor discussions.

For example, Bratten twittered about Senate Bill 126 that proposed in-state college tuition rates for high school graduates who attended a Colorado school for the three previous years regardless of immigration status. It was introduced and discussed in the Senate on Feb. 2.

On that day, from 1:00 – 1:19 p.m., Bratten pecked several tweets bashing the bill.

“Your kids can’t get a break for tuition in CO but Dems thinks they should give tuition money to illegals,” wrote Bratten.

“CO Dems just CANNOT stay focused on jobs and the economy! Giving an tuition to 4 illegals pressuer NOW.”

“Dem Senator Michael Johnston and the CEA are sponsoring this redistribution to a special class. Be afraid.”

“We have 8.8% unemployment in CO and a 1.5 billion $ deficit & CO Dems want 2 subsidize illegals college degrees?”

The rule governing legislative aides is well known to Schultheis, whose legislative aide Dave Crater testified before the House State Affairs Committee on behalf of the “Dr. Laura” bill in March 2001. The committee rejected Schultheis’ bill to mandate counseling for couples seeking a divorce, and Crater lost his job as a legislative aide.

“We can’t have someone on the state payroll that is advocating for the passage or defeat of a piece of legislation,” then-House Speaker Doug Dean, a conservative Republican, told The Colorado Springs Gazette.

Crater was demoted to an unpaid intern working for Schultheis. The senator, however, admitted that he’d personally padded Crater’s $800-a-month salary to the tune of more than $3,000 a month.

Has Laurie Bratten been inadvertently placed in a similarly compromising position?

“We’re very careful to simply put the legislative analysis in the perspective of whether a bill is consistent or inconsistent with our principles,” said RSCC Executive Director Bratten who refused to comment on his wife’s role. “I suppose that’s a question you will have to ask Senator Harvey.”

“It’s kosher!” laughed Harvey.

Harvey said that the legislative aide’s work on behalf of RSCC is part of her duties for himself and Renfroe, and asserted that other Republican senators’ aides also assist. Legislative aides, he said, follow the directives of their bosses.

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Republican chair of the House Finance Committee Brian DelGrosso, Loveland, Wednesday moved to advance Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper’s budget agenda by pushing an amendment that would have nearly doubled the extra amount government employees are paying into their state pension in order to help shore up the state budget. With Colorado employee partnerships calling the move Wisconsinesque, it was a Republican crossing party lines that drove the final nail into the amendment’s coffin.

DelGrosso offered two amendments to expand a bill brought by the Joint Budget Committee to help eliminate Colorado’s $1.2 billion shortfall. The bill, as written, compels state employees to continue contributing an extra 2.5 percent of their paychecks into their Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association fund, removing that burden from the state during the next fiscal year. If the bill is signed into law, many government employees would continue to contribute 10.5 percent of their monthly earnings into the pension. Teachers and local government employees are not affected.

The bill’s most recent fiscal note shows the state saving $61.7 million in employee benefits while losing income tax revenue of $1,850,204.

After close to an hour of testimony against the bill from state employees concerned further reductions to income would only serve to exacerbate the tenuous condition of many of their lives, DelGrosso offered his amendments to expand those cuts. While stating he did not relish even continuing with the 2.5 percent increase in employee contributions, he said with the possibility of bringing a tax increase to the vote of the people too far off, increasing contributions to 4.5 percent seemed like one of the most humane options.

“We are looking at: do we want to make cuts to K-12 education, do we want to have to continue to lay off state workers, [do we want to do] several different things that are out there or do we want to ratchet this up another 2 percent and potentially save money for K-12 education…?” DelGrosso asked.

DelGrosso modeled his amendment after Hickenlooper’s plan that calls for state employees to contribute an additional 2 percent of their salary on top of the 2.5 percent they were already asked to pay last year.

Democrats including Representative Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, Niwot, said the bill was out of step with the established process of allowing the bipartisan joint budget committee to develop long bill recommendations and said DelGrosso’s process would create greater partisanship over the budget in a year when hard choices had to be made. Hullinghorst went on to say she disagreed with a bill that would more greatly affect people “at the lower end who are going into bankruptcy, who are going to food stamps. That is just shifting the costs. It is the government that pays for those bankruptcies and food stamps.” Hullinghorst said. “I don’t like this Mr. Chair, it is pushing more people into these situations.”

DelGrosso said he was simply trying to start the process of discussions not create partisan battle lines.

“We are starting the process by running this bill. I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with starting this process. The time to start making those cuts and the time to start making those difficult decisions has to start somewhere and I feel today is the day we will start trying to make real difficult decisions.”

Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, said while she sympathized with state workers, she would be voting for the amendment. “I think we are going to lose jobs if we don’t do this.”

Rep. Daniel Kagan, D-Englewood, disagreed with what he called a false choice between a PERA shift and furloughs.

“Do we lay off employees or do we furlough employees or do we increase the employee contributions? That is not the only way that this budget gap can be narrowed,” Kagan said. “This committee has voted for tax exemptions worth tens of millions of dollars. So I just want to put on record that I don’t agree with the choice between furloughs and a PERA shift.” Kagan earlier in the committee raised the same issue by asking a state employee if he would prefer furloughs, a PERA shift, or a 2.9 percent increase on soda.

The amendment would have passed if not for the vote of Rep. Keith Swerdfeger, R-Pueblo West, who, without comment, lent his vote to the Democratic opposition.

DelGrosso brought a second amendment that allows school districts and local governments to decide whether to make teachers and local government workers contribute an extra 2.5 percent of their wages in place of the government contribution to PERA. DelGrosso said the amendment would allow school districts to possibly save teachers’ jobs. Despite Hullinghorst’s concerns over the effects it would have to the unfunded liability of PERA, the amendment was passed on a party-line vote.

Colorado WINS, the state employees partnership, attacked DelGrosso’s amendments.

“What we saw today was an attempt to “Wisconsinize’ the bipartisan budget process.” Scott Wasserman, Colorado WINS political director, said. “In one case cooler heads prevailed and in the other, they failed.”

The bill passed out of committee 8-5.

Medical marijuana community fears were curtailed today as a bill that could have eliminated edible marijuana products in Colorado was amended in committee to ensure the industry would survive under regulations the bill sponsor said protected children.

HB 1250, sponsored by Rep. Cindy Acree, R- Aurora, would prohibit the sale of food and beverage products that contain medical marijuana unless the product is packaged in child proof containers and is labeled “Medicinal Product – Not for use by children.”

Rep. Cindy Acree

“Originally we were going to ban all consumable and infused edibles,” Acree said. “But I think after hearing testimony from people who really need this for legitimate medical purposes and with an industry that will to try and work with us to put the same protections on this that we have for every other kind of medicinal product [that changed].”

Lobbyists for Medical Marijuana Industry Group told the Colorado Independent when the bill was first introduced that they had met with Acree to amend the bill to its current form.

Acree said that while some individuals have criticized her bill as already being addressed by the Department of Revenue’s rule making process, she said that they only address the ingredients placed in the product and not safety.

“That is the issue I think is the most compelling and urgent that we just create a product as we go along that is safe. That we make sure that people know the difference between the typical product that you get and a medicinal product,” Acree said.

The bill now goes to the House Finance Committee.

Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, said Tuesday, that she will amend a bill that many fear will make edible marijuana products in the state illegal. She says her bill will protect children from consuming the medication by either accident or through the coercion of marketing ploys appealing to children such as farce breakfast names like ”Cap’n Chronic“ and “Pot Tarts.”

Acree, who is the bill’s sponsor in the House, introduced amendments today after the Medical Marijuana Industry Group urged them in conceptual form on her last month. The amendments included provisions to require tamper proof packaging and medicine-like labeling for medical marijuana edibles and would stipulate that products should not be presented in a way that appeals to children.  

While testimony was heard from advocates, many of whom were not aware of the amendments, the bill was laid over to provide Acree more time to hone amendment language.

Jim Gerhardt holds up medical marijuana edibles (Boven)

Shan Moore, whose son suffers from  an extremely rare neurological disorder that causes him intense seizures, drove from Colorado Springs concerned that the THC lozenges that have brought his son some semblance of normality would be banned. Moore told the committee that as amended he had no objections to the bill, but wanted to make certain that his son’s feelings on banning his medication were known.   

Ralph Morgan, of Organa Labs, told the Colorado Independent that as originally written the bill would have devastated his own organic cannabis company and other producers of medicinal marijuana. However, he said that with amendments the bill was “a wonderful compromise.”  

“Let’s have responsible packaging,” Morgan said.

Others testified that the bill was not needed because rules were already being promulgated by Colorado’s regulatory agency that will stipulate medical marijuana products must be labeled as a medicine and include ingredients.  While Acree agreed that rules were being made, she said that oftentimes it is necessary to ensure rules are done right through statutory guidance.

Rob Corry, a lawyer serving the medical marijuana industry, told the Colorado Independent that while creating child proof packaging was something he has supported since day one, he felt another amendment, one which would restrict marketing methods that appeal to children, was far too broad. He said it should be up to the parents to make certain their kids are not getting into their medicine.   

“It is about parental responsibility; parents need to keep their medical marijuana in their medicine cabinet,” Corry said.

Sgt. Jim Gerhardt, with the North Metro Task Force, testified that Acree’s bill would be helpful to the community. He said that there have been a number of cases where children have consumed medicinal marijuana products.

Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs, also disagreed with many of the detractors of the bill’s proposed prohibition on children-friendly marketing. Pointing to Pot Tarts and Cap’n Chronic, Waller said he could easily see kids persuaded to try a drug if such persuasive devices were used. “That looks very similar to a product my child would consume,” Waller said.

In a press release this morning, The Cannabis Therapy Institute claimed that “Cap’n Chronic” and “Pot Tarts” are not real products.

From that release:

The Reefer Madness propaganda campaign based on the age-old “Save the Children” plea began with a letter from the Colorado Drug Investigators Association that had been given to Committee members with photographs of “Pot Tarts” and “Cap’n Chronic Cereal”, claiming that these were medical marijuana infused products that were showing up on Colorado school grounds and being marketed to children. However the “Pot Tarts” photograph in the letter came from a DEA bust in California in 1986, and the “Cap’n Chronic Cereal” photograph was only a T-shirt design and was never documented to be a real product by anyone.

An internet search this morning revealed that claims made by medical marijuana advocates were closer to the truth than information presented indicating these were real products being pushed at children in Colorado.

Scot Kersgaard contributed to this report.

A bill that might have outlawed edible marijuana in Colorado was pulled for revisions Thursday before it came before committee. HB 1250′s very presence on the docket spurred an immediate backlash from the medical marijuana community.

The Medical Marijuana Industry Group (MMIG) said last night that well before emails scorched a trail of fear across the internet Thursday, bill sponsor Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, had already indicated her bill was not a pot brownie killer. Instead, Edible medical marijuana is safe in Colorado according to lobbyists who say they were working with the legislator early Thursday morning before HB 1250, titled “concerning a prohibition on ingestible marijuana-infused products,” had the chance to get to committee.

An email blast went out Thursday morning from the Cannabis Therapy Institute that stated:

“Denver — House Bill 11-1250 was introduced on Wed., Feb. 9, 2011. This bill will outlaw all medicinal cannabis edible products in the state, overturning the licensing scheme for Infused Products Manufacturers that was created by the state legislature last year.”

According to Kara Miller, an independent lobbyist contracted with MMIG, both she and Acree worked to ensure the bill better suited Acree’s intention, which never was to eliminate consumable medical-marijuana products in the state. Miller said Acree simply wanted to ensure medical marijuana was treated as a medicine to avoid children thinking it to be a candy.

For example, she said that Acree wanted to nip marijuana infused soda pops, like one in California, from entering the state.

“What she is trying to get after is a California beverage coming in,” Miller said. “If something looks like soda pop [kids] are likely to drink it. It needs to look like medicine. She wants that amendment.”

While draft amendments have not been written, Miller said that Acree had so far agreed to three conceptual changes.

“She is okay with edibles, because she doesn’t like people smoking either,” according to Miller. “They have to all be manufactured in Colorado to keep us out of interstate commerce problems, they have to be marketed as medicine, they have to be marked with the patients ID number so that if kid gets a hold of it, it is the patient’s problem.”

She said that fines and loss of medical marijuana cards were being discussed as possible penalties for non-compliance.

Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley, the Senate sponsor of HB 1250, did not immediately respond to phone calls.

Prior to the bill being pulled for revision, Shan Moore, the father of a teenager who uses medical marijuana to control seizures, told The Colorado Independent that his son relies on ingestible medical marijuana to control his condition. Due to other health issue and also due to the fact that his son does not want to get high, smoking is out of the question for him.

The bill is now expected to return to committee in March.

The Independence Institute's Jon Caldara (Boven; TCI)

Spearheaded by Jon Caldara, president of the free-market Independence Institute in Golden, the rally was the latest move in the Institute’s sustained fight to defeat what its supporters refer to as “Obama care” or the “government takeover” of the essential, vastly profitable and expanding health-care sector of the economy.

Evoking the state’s rights Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Caldera told onlookers that the Colorado legislature “should defend Coloradans from Obamacare.” He said that if the state legislature was unable to pass anti-health reform legislation, then he was determined to bring the issue to the people in the form of a 2010 ballot initiative.

“The fight against Obamacare has moved from Washington, D.C., to this building. If they don’t stop it, we will [stop it] at the ballot box this fall with an initiative,” Caldara said, speaking from the steps of the capitol in a dark leather broad-brimmed hat and jacket. “Will they live up to their Tenth Amendment responsibilities and protect us?”

Supporters of health reform argue that government involvement is the only effective way to repair a broken and exploitative system that generates enormous profits for the heath care and insurance industries by in part denying service to millions of Americans and by excluding additional millions of the country’s uninsured from the most basic services.

The constitutional amendment Caldara is proposing is modeled on proposals being introduced in about 29 other states, all beginning from a draft written with input from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group with deep ties to insurance and health-care corporations. The state legislative and initiative efforts, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, are the latest move made by insurance companies and hospitals to influence the future of health care. The National Institute found that in the months surrounding the 2008 election, health-care groups contributed roughly $102 million to state political campaigns across the country.

Caldara did not mention the American Legislative Exchange Council’s role in helping to shape his ballot initiative. Neither did the rally’s other speakers, including Jeff Crank, Colorado director of American’s for Prosperity, the leading organization in the anti-health reform movement last summer, as well as Republican State Reps Amy Stephens, Cindy Acree, State Sens. Shawn Mitchell and Kevin Lundberg and Dr. Sanat Dixit, who was billed as a “local neurosurgeon.”

According to The Denver Post, Caldara’s proposal would prevent the state and the federal government from mandating citizens “purchase an insurance product or participate in any public or private health care plan or benefit. It would also allow cross-state purchasing of insurance coverage.”

Rep. Acree said the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that the powers invested in the federal government are explicitly implied or otherwise left to the people.

“We are the people and we will be heard. We have to remove the barriers [to health care] on our terms.”

Acree said she is introducing bills that would allow Colorado to op-out of the federal health care system. She said her legislation would force the government to allow individual to deduct health insurance from their taxes in the same way that large companies do and to purchase health care across state borders.

Denver capitol 'anti-Obama Care' protesters, 19 Jan 2009 (Boven, TCI)

Broomfield’s Sen. Mitchell said that “health care is a universal human need, which is exactly the reason that we do not want to depend on our government to provide it for us.”

Berthoud’s Sen. Lundberg said that state legislation designed to block federal health reform was Constitutional in that the U.S. government does not have the authority to force health care onto Coloradans. “They need to realize that,” he said.

Doctor Dixit said the federal legislation is a sham, that it “sells out the people that it is supposed to be serving.” He said that under the federal plan, many of his patients would have died.

“They are trying to piggy back this thing on the legacy of Edward Kennedy. I can tell you for a fact that in any of the European countries, that a 78-year-old man with a malignant brain tumor would not get Ted Kennedy care. Not unless he was Ted Kennedy.”

Critics of the state proposals aimed at blocking federal legislation say that the attempts will fail.

Bobby Clark, deputy director of progressive activist group ProgressNow, said that “there is no question that the federal government has the power to regulate on any subject that they want to regulate on.” He added that it’s not clear exactly how it will play out in terms of health care.

Caldara told the Colorado Independent he believed the initiative would “set Colorado up in a very specific way… that [the initiative] would trump the United States rule and, furthermore, it is written so that it is separable, so that if there are parts that the federal courts don’t like, they can remove just those parts…

“Assuming this wins and it gets challenged against Obamacare, I think it protects us very, very nicely,” he said.

Clark said the initiative is a clear corporate effort. He mentioned the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose members include lobbyists from Blue Cross / Blue Shield, he said, just one of the groups involved that have major financial stake in defeating or significantly altering health reform to make it most friendly to the health industry.

“To us, this is about politics, not policy. [The initiative] is going to be coordinated by the health-industry lobby for the right wing, which sees this as a golden [campaign] issue. Putting it on the ballot is simply a [voter] turnout tool. It is that transparent.”

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Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute said Tuesday that he is still working on the language for his proposal, which would then need signatures from 76,047 voters to make the ballot. But he intends to find out in the fall whether voters want to stop the federal government from dictating insurance requirements to Coloradans….

Caldara’s proposal aims to bar the state from requiring its citizens to purchase health insurance, ensure Coloradans can pay out-of-pocket for health care expenses and allow them to purchase plans from other states.

He hopes to make a draft of the initiative public next month.

Meanwhile, freshman state Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, says she’ll also push the state legislature to opt out of federal reform.

A New York Times story published Sunday argued that about a dozen states are working on similar proposals. It also noted that such amendments would be largely symbolic—since any federal legislation would supersede a state amendment.

Moreover, the Times argued that the proposals were largely being floated in states in which the health care industry had spent heavily. It noted, for example, that nearly all of the 42 Florida state legislators backing such an amendment received particularly large campaign contributions from health care interests.

“The states are the next battle,” said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for the liberal advocacy group Health Care for America Now, “and the insurers and health care industry are primed up and ready to go. The industry has enormous power at the state level, and very few states have state-level consumer groups that are able to lobby effectively against them.”

The Denver Post reported that Colorado ranked second among the Rocky Mountain West states in campaign contributions accepted from the health care industry in the last three elections, according to the Institute on Money in State Politics

Democrats interviewed by The Denver Post cautioned opponents to wait and see what health care reform actually looks like before proposing constitutional amendments to opt out of it. They pointed out that the House and Senate bills still have to be reconciled.

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Lobbyist Erik Groves (Photo/Zakhem Atherton)

A legislative panel on Wednesday recommended that a former lobbyist for the Colorado Chiropractic Association be formally scolded for trying to sway a freshman Republican to vote for Rep. David Balmer, R-Centennial, in a leadership election in December. An ethics watchdog group praised the committee’s recommendation but renewed calls for a criminal investigation into vote-buying allegations and asked legislators to mandate ethics training for professional lobbyists.

Lobbyist Erik Groves, who contended throughout the months-long investigation he hadn’t known it was against the rules to get involved in the race for House minority leader, said in a statement after the ruling he’d made an “honest mistake.” He also maintained he hadn’t tried to discuss Balmer’s candidacy for the leadership post with Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, while waving a campaign contribution from the chiropractors, but the ethics committee sided with Acree’s version of events, which claimed he had.

A separate panel a month ago threw out a complaint against Balmer charging that he’d improperly tried to influence the election to succeed House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker. May filed the complaint against Balmer — and suspended plans announced days earlier to resign from the Legislature to tend to his business – after Acree told him Groves and two prominent chiropractors contacted her about their preference in the leadership vote, dangling a check and a committee position.

A bipartisan committee appointed to investigate allegations of vote-buying in the leadership race voted unanimously to recommend legislative leaders “formally admonish” Groves “in a private meeting,” write a “letter of admonishment” and tell him not to do it again. The General Assembly’s Executive Committee — made up of the leadership from both parties in both chambers — will take up the matter sometime this month, a representative for the House leadership said. It’s up to the Executive Committee whether to take the ethics panel’s recommendation.

(Click to enlarge the document outlining lobbyist prohibitions)

“I am pleased that by cooperating with the committee I was able to help them understand an honest mistake,” Groves said in a statement released by his attorney after the ruling.

Groves — still touted as the lead lobbyist for prominent Republican firm Zakhem Atherton — has stopped lobbying at the state Capitol this session, and the chiropractors have retained another lobbyist, said attorney Richard Kaufman, who represented Groves throughout the investigation.

“I think it’s fair,” Acree said after the ethics panel rendered its decision on Groves. “I think it sends a message.”

The Aurora Republican echoed the reaction to the ruling by Colorado Ethics Watch, which also suggested lobbyists should have to undergo training. “Maybe what we need to do is require that all our lobbyists go through a formal orientation that speaks to the substantive content of the law,” Acree said.

During testimony before the ethics panel, Groves wouldn’t say whether he had ever attended the Legislature’s annual ethics training for lobbyists, an optional presentation offered before the start of each session. He said he skipped the training this year because of press attention over the complaint.

“If we accept this was all just a big mistake because (Groves) didn’t know the rules, why don’t we have this training be mandatory?” asked Luis Toro, Ethics Watch senior counsel, after the ruling. In a statement, Toro outlined the group’s proposal:

Mr. Groves demonstrated a lapse of judgment that caused a diversion from vital legislative work and a drain of scarce taxpayer resources. We are pleased that the committee recognized the severity of this unethical conduct and put the lobbying community on notice that such conduct will not be tolerated. We also commend Representatives May and Acree for bringing this issue forward. It is apparent from all of this that lobbyists must be required to undergo ethics training before they are allowed to engage in lobbying activities.

Toro also said the limited scope of the ethics panel’s inquiry — convened solely to determine if Groves had violated a rule forbidding lobbyists from inserting themselves into leadership races — left “a lot more unanswered questions. It would be appropriate for public corruption authorities to see whether — and I’m not saying there were — whether there was any attempt to vote-buy.”

Groves had the chiropractic group — which had already donated to Acree’s campaign before the election — cut a $300 check and tried to deliver it to her while attempting to discuss the leadership race but said he ended the discussion as soon as Acree objected and then voided the check.

“If anybody was trying to use money to get Rep. Acree to vote a certain way, there’s criminal implications to that,” Toro said, adding that Ethics Watch had earlier called on state and federal authorities to investigate a “possible scheme to buy votes.”

Balmer and Groves both submitted affidavits swearing they hadn’t discussed the leadership race before May suspended the election and filed a complaint against Balmer.

“We’ve not gotten any indications that anybody’s looking at it,” Toro said, noting that it’s rare for officials to reveal whether an investigation is under way.