“Ordinarily, the Bell Policy Center does not take positions on local ballot measures, but last year we weighed in on Denver’s Initiative 100 because we felt it was bad policy. More than that, we felt it was racially motivated,” a release from the center stated. Jones told The Colorado Independent that the center opposes 300 for many of the same reasons it opposed 100.

“The fiscal aspects of it, you know, just jump right out at us. This is a pretty expensive initiative to implement,” Jones said. “If you look at the reasoning for it, and you look at the potential discriminatory effects, it starts to become pretty clear in our view that we don’t need to do this.”

The Bell Center cited a police department study that found the initiative would cost “more than $1.6 million in police expenses.” The report also noted there would be increased costs to both the Sheriff’s Department and City Attorney’s office. The predicted 115 percent increase in vehicles towed by the city could also require purchasing land to store the impounded vehicles.

Jones said the Bell Policy Center works to develop and promote public policy that generates opportunity. The impound initiative conflicts with that objective, he said, because it would disproportionately impact low-income families. On the most basic level, it causes more problems than it solves. For fairly bureaucratic reasons, working families “could lose their means of transportation. That will have a serious impact on their economic livelihood.”

The authorities who would be affected by the law have vocally opposed it. The Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police and County Sheriffs have come out strongly against the initiative, saying it be diverting and costly and would unnecessarily take discretion out of the hands of officers on the scene. Colorado Common Cause and Coloradans for Safe Communities also oppose the initiative, as do Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the Denver police and the city council.

Jones explained that the money the impound initiative would burn up could be spent in a much more productive way and that the motives driving the initiative appear to be punitive and racist.

Proponent Daniel Hayes has said 300 is a “traffic safety issue,” said Jones, but it “retains obvious racial overtones of Initiative 100.”

The text of the initiative dictates that police would be required to impound the vehicles of anyone “reasonably suspected” of being an “illegal alien.”

In discussing his initiative earlier this month, Hayes made it plain to The Colorado Independent that the initiative was meant to address what he saw as holes in the country’s immigration enforcement laws.

The Bell Center strongly urges a “No” vote on the impound initiative. “Initiative 300 is an ill-conceived and racially motivated initiative that will only make a bad situation worse.”

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Dan Hayes, the man behind the initiative, told the Colorado Independent that it’s important that everyone be properly licensed, but he also indicated that finding and penalizing illegal immigrants was at the heart of the bill’s objectives.

Judd signed on with Coloradans for Safe Communities, a coalition of unions, immigrants advocacy groups, law enforcement groups, and lawmakers, to oppose the initiative. He outlined his arguments against the initiative in a statement:

* If Initiative 300 becomes law, police officers would be forced to impound the vehicle of anyone driving without their license or registration, even in the case of a driver forgetting their wallet or purse at home. Once impounded, a driver could be forced to pay in excess of $2700 to get their vehicle out of impound.

* This measure, if passed would cost the police department of Denver 1.6 million dollars at a time when the city faces a budget shortfall and many important programs are being cut.

* Police officers are already given the ability to impound vehicles if they feel it is in the best interest of public safety, including driving without a license. This initiative micromanages the efforts of our police men and women by forcing them to wait for tow trucks and to fill out paperwork instead of spending their time safeguarding our city.

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Impounded! (eggman: CC Flickr)

“This would force police to do something that will cost us roughly $6 million to implement — and they already have the ability to use their discretion and impound cars in a circumstance when someone does not have a valid driver’s license,” said Carolyn Siegel from Coloradans for Safe Communities, a coalition of labor, advocacy and religious groups.

Initiative 300 was brought by Daniel Hayes. The laws it would create require police officers to seize the vehicles of anyone driving without a valid license. But, as investigations have made clear, the initiatives aren’t primarily concerned with traffic safety; they are meant to bolster anti-immigration policy, using traffic laws to find undocumented immigrants and to bring legal action against them.

Law enforcement and city authorities have opposed the initiatives as misguided. Officers on the ground require discretion, they say, but the new laws would unnecessarily tie up officers on the road, turning them into proxy immigration agents, and drain municipal resources.

The phone bank is being run out of the Denver Area Labor Federations offices as part of an eight-day effort. Volunteers included members of labor unions, the American Civil Liberties Union, citizen activist groups, senior citizens, and faith-based groups.

“We just need to make people to understand how bad this initiative is. Any grandma driving down the street could find herself with her car impounded just because she’s forgetful,” construction worker Tom Rutherford told The Colorado Independent.

Vote No on impound Initiative 300, Denver (Joseph Boven: TCI)

Last year Denver voters passed Initiative 100, an early version of the impound initiative. That version, however, left the decision to impound vehicles up to officers and the law has been largely ignored.

The new version mandates impounding for all persons driving either without a license or convincing corroborating identification, such as ID and proof of insurance. Drivers without licenses who produce other reliable information would be issued citations and required to provide the license within 10 days. If 10 days pass, the city would be expected to track down the individual and impound the car. The initiative also calls for police to impound a vehicle when they believe an individual “is an illegal alien or may be reasonably suspected of being such.”

Sara Kuntzler, political director of the Denver Area Labor Federation, who coordinated the phone banks, explained that the Labor Federation entered the CSC because the issue was one important to working families whom the Labor Federation represents.

“We really feel that this is a working-families issue that needs to be addressed,” Kuntzler said.

Kuntzler said that the legislation is poorly written, provides vague explanations of what constitutes identification, and wastes the time of police officers “who need to be doing their job instead of spending their time waiting for tow trucks.”

She says working class families would be disproportionately burdened by a penalty that does not fit the crime.

The phone bank on Wednesday was scheduled to hit 20,000 homes, Kuntzler said. She said the data they were collecting was better than they hoped. The numbers she said suggested that after a phone call from one of the volunteers 7 out of 10 individuals said that they would not vote for the initiative.

“Most people don’t know about it, but once we tell them what it does, most say no.”

–
Edit note: The original version of this story reported that the impound initiative would appear on the ballot in Aurora. It will not. Signatures for the initiative were tossed out by a Judge there, who ruled that petitions in Aurora violated the law by not printing the full text of the initiative for signatories to read.

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Hayes’s initiatives, however, will be considered by voters in Denver and Aurora. The laws they would create require police officers to seize the vehicles of anyone driving without a valid license. But, as investigations have made clear, the initiatives aren’t primarily concerned with traffic safety; they are meant to bolster anti-immigration policy, using traffic laws to find undocumented immigrants and to bring legal action against them.

Law enforcement and city authorities have opposed the initiatives as onerous and misguided. Officers on the ground require discretion, they say, but the new laws would unnecessarily tie up officers on the road, turning them into proxy immigration agents, and drain municipal resources.

Resident Sigrid Higdon challenged the signature-petitions for the initiative in Lakewood and was joined by Colorado Common Cause and Colorado Safe Communities. Lakewood authorities threw out some contested signatures but the validity of the petition was upheld by Hearing Officer John E. Hayes.

The groups appealed that decision, and because the Lakewood City Council can not rule on a petition currently under appeal, the initiative failed to make the September deadline to appear on the November ballot. If the initiative is upheld by the court of appeals, it may be placed on the ballot in a special election.

Daniel Hayes told The Colorado Independent that he thought opposition attorney Mark Grueskin could have filed the paper work before the Sept. 4 deadline had passed.

“They managed to stall the election, so maybe that is what they wanted to do.”

Grueskin said the allegation ignored the facts.

Even had he worked through Labor Day weekend to file the paperwork, he said, the city would not have had the opportunity to file its paperwork and the court would not have gotten a chance to hear the case.

“The only reason the process is where it is at is because the proponents waited so long to put their petitions in.”

Colorado Ethics Watch also filed suit against the initiative in Lakewood. The suit forced the Lakewood Safe Streets Committee to register as an issue committee there, a designation that required it to reveal its financial backers. The Lakewood Safe Streets Committee proposed the initiative in Lakewood but accepted signatures collected through a company paid by Hayes.

“A Lakewood city clerk told me I didn’t have to file [as a donor],” said Hayes. “She was wrong about that. So, I went ahead and filed. I followed all the rules. I’m not trying to dodge anything. The last thing that I want is trouble.”

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Impounded! (rat fink; CC Flickr)

But the initiatives aren’t primarily about keeping the roads safe and the man behind them doesn’t live in Denver, Aurora or Lakewood. As many know by now, the man behind the initiatives is Daniel Hayes. He lives in unincorporated Jefferson County and his initiatives are a weapon in his personal battle against illegal immigrants.

Since 2005 when he first began floating his initiatives, Hayes has learned to soften his rhetoric. He has mostly stopped talking about “getting Hernandezes off the road” and the need to “send illegals home” because “something has to be done.” He talks instead about getting unlicensed drivers off the road because, if they hit you, they could bankrupt you.

Scratch the surface, though, and the old Dan Hayes comes back.

In an interview, he told The Colorado Independent that it’s the people who oppose his initiatives who are the racists.

“They call me the racist but let’s face it, illegal aliens are not treated the same on the highway … They don’t even get identified. They drive all they want. So I guess what [the opposition] is saying is that they don’t care. They want these people to drive without being bothered.”

Hayes said Colorado Ethics Watch, which filed transparency lawsuits this summer against the Aurora and Lakewood initiatives, has a pro-illegal immigrant agenda and pointed as evidence to the fact that Ethics Watch attorney Luis Toro is Latino.

“You know that guy is a Spanish guy and he hates this car towing, this Luis Toro.” Referring to Toro, he said Ethics Watch has taken “his side.”

But opposition to the initiatives doesn’t just include Toro and Ethics Watch. Nearly all the authorities who would be affected by the law oppose it. The Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police and County Sheriffs have come out strongly against the initiatives, saying they would be diverting and costly and would unnecessarily take discretion out of the hands of officers on the scene. Colorado Common Cause and Coloradans for Safe Communities also oppose the initiative, as do Denver Mayor Hickenlooper, the Denver police and the city council.

Transparency concerns

Toro told The Colorado Independent that Ethics Watch was drawn into the case because of the lack of transparency.

“Voters only know [the initiative] is about illegal immigration because of media reports,” he said. “And we only know Hayes is the man behind the initiatives because of legal complaints. That’s no way to run a government or to make laws.”

Because Hayes doesn’t live in the places where he is introducing the initiatives, he has had to find voters there to act as proxy proponents. He has also provided funding for the signature campaigns that will place the initiatives on ballots. But Hayes had remained technically anonymous until Ethics Watch filed complaints in Lakewood and Aurora.

The complaints seek to force the people financing the initiative campaigns to publicly identify themselves in compliance with state campaign-finance laws.

In Aurora, Ethics Watch contends Hayes gave $14,000 to Dan Kennedy Enterprises, which collected 8,300 petitions in support of the initiative. Those signed petitions constituted an in-kind donation.

Ethics Watch asked Debra Johnson, Aurora’s city clerk, to compel Hayes, as well as the Aurora voters working with him, Pere Wickes, Kay Aaro and Erik Hanson — members of a group called “Unlicensed Driver Motor Vehicle Impoundment and Bonding Initiative” — to register as an issue committee and disclose donations and expenditures.

But Johnson said Hayes was an individual not a committee. “I do not find the requisite probable cause to take further action on your complaint,” she wrote.

Toro said Johnson’s ruling ignores the fact that Hayes is pulling strings from outside the voting municipality. The laws are meant to prevent outsiders from waging these kind of long-distance campaigns. “It is obviously a wrong analysis,” Toro said, but it doesn’t come as a surprise.

“There is a frequent problem in this state where people charged with the responsibility to enforce campaign finance laws don’t actually do it– especially if they have aspirations for higher office and might be perceived as taking sides.”

Disclosure as intimidation?

Those campaign finance laws are bad laws, Jon Caldara, head of the conservative Independence Institute told The Colorado Independent. “The laws have a chilling effect” on expression, he said. People should not be forced to reveal for public record how they stand on issues. Requiring disclosure amounts to intimidation, he said.

Caldara said the Institute battled Referendum C in 2005 and was “set on the legal path” as a result, drawing suits asking for donor identities. “They wanted the lists of people who gave $20,” said Caldara. The Institute incurred mounting legal fees and Caldara was forced to testify for hours on the stand in the last weeks of a “busy election cycle.”

The Independence Institute is presently waiting to learn whether the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its case in favor of repealing Colorado campaign finance laws. The argument in Independence Institute v Boucher was rejected by Colorado courts last year.

“It’s not the government’s job to protect us from ideas, even those backed by people and groups with great resources … People are able to make up their own minds,” attorney Steve Simpson is quoted at the Institute’s website.

Marketplace of ideas

But in the marketplace of ideas, money and power matter a lot, said Monica McCafferty, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in conversation with The Colorado Independent this summer. Planned Parenthood battled an antiabortion initiative last year and is battling another one this year.

“‘No’ campaigns cost a lot more than ‘Yes’ campaigns,” she said. Groups with money can come from outside. They use Colorado as a petri dish for their issue of choice because of our ballot initiative laws. She says because the wording of initiative titles can be vague on the ballot, No campaigns have an uphill battle. You have to educate the voters about the issue generally, she said, and also on the intention and effect of the proposed law.

“We won one of the largest margins of defeat, 73 percent to 27 percent, against Amendment 48 last year,” she said about the proposed anti-abortion amendment. “But it’s back. This is not a representation of how Coloradans feel.”

McCormick reports that the “NO on 48″ campaign raised about $1.8 million while the Yes camp raised about $580,000.

“Our coalition raised about three-times the amount in comparison to the opposition,” she said. “Now we have to do it all over again.”

This year, Hayes only needs to secure 3,972 signatures (pdf) to land his impound initiative back on the ballot in Denver. It won’t appear on the Lakewood ballot due to delays caused by the legal complaints and signatures in support of the proposed law were tossed out by a judge in Aurora because the petition residents signed did not include the full text of the initiative.

Written with reporting by Joseph Boven.

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