“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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“What I find fascinating is, if that is all you got– to scream racism– then the damn thing is a probably a pretty good ordinance.”

On a hunch, Boyles suggested city council, through Denver Elections Director Michael Scarpello, engineered a confusing title for the Initiative 300. Boyles irritated at being confused by the language, asked initiative proponent Dan Hayes who had appointed Scarpello. Hayes offered that perhaps it had been the city council.

“Ah, and City Council voted what on this [initiative]?” said Boyles

“Oh, [the council voted] overwhelmingly against it,” said Hayes.

But Scarpello was appointed by Denver’s first elected Clerk and Recorder, Stephanie O’Malley, in 2007, not by the Denver City Council.

Boyles also railed against present state laws outlining legal driving as “legalese, gobbelygook, verbal diarrhea.”

The gobbelygook states in part that vehicle will be immediately impounded if a person is driving contrary to the restrictions indicated on their license, including, for example, people who fail to wear glasses if they’re required to do so or people driving a car when they only hold a motorcycle license.

The law also states that undocumented citizens or illegal aliens would have their car impounded.

Boyles said he saw nothing in the law that smacked of racism.

Hayes expanded on the point. The man who has described his initiatives as an attempt to get “Hernandezes off the road” commented that in fact the current law is racist– but in favor of illegal immigrants. He said legal drivers are treated “wholly differently” from illegal aliens.

In discussing his initiative earlier this month, Hayes told the Colorado Independent that it’s important that everyone be properly licensed but he indicated that finding and penalizing illegal immigrants was at the heart of the bill’s objectives.

The authorities who would be affected by the law see it as a legal fishing expedition and have vocally opposed it. The Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police and County Sheriffs have come out strongly against the initiative, 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.

“Danny we are going to have you on again tomorrow, and tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow up until the final day,” said Boyles. “And remember, it is only a mail-in initiative, or a deliver ballot. Remember, vote yes,” Boyles told his listeners.

27 October; 6 a.m.

BOYLES: I got my ballot on Saturday sat down yesterday. That is probably the most confusing ballot initiative that I have ever read.

HAYES: Huh. Well that is what Michael Scarpello wanted–he demanded at the ballot title.

BOYLES: Who is Michael Scarpello?

HAYES: He is the new head of elections.

BOYLES: That is what I thought.

HAYES: He is an attorney.

BOYLES: And he is appointed by whom?

HAYES: Well, I don’t know who appoints him actually. Probably city council.

BOYLES: Ah, and City Council voted what on this?

HAYES: Oh, well, you know, overwhelmingly against it. I guess there was Jeanie Fautz.

BOYLES: So how tough is this for the average bear to figure out.

Hayes: I don’t know but I’ve got dozens of calls wanting me to explain it. .

BOYLES: Just vote yes.

HAYES: Right. Apparently the city put something on the ballot where No is Yes and Yes is No. I am not familiar with what that was.

BOYLES: That is right. I read it yesterday. I opened it up. And I have been receiving email on it. And I opened it up and I am sitting there and I said ‘Oh my god. Yes means No and No means Yes.’ So when you are getting ready to vote on your 300. You vote Yes. Just ink in the line that says Yes. That is all you need to know. Because the rest is a bunch of legalese gobbelygook verbal diarrhea.

HAYES: It is a laundry list of state law really why you would be driving without a license. That is if you drove a big truck and you needed a chauffeurs license and you just had a regular operators license you would actually be driving unlicensed. If you were glasses and didn’t have them on. Remember some people are practically blind. it is a good thing to require people to drive the way they are supposed to.

BOYLES: I know and I am going to drop mine off today.

[...]

BOYLES: My Fear is that you will say Yes I want this ordinance or No I read it wrong. The answer is read and vote Yes. It is one that you just ink in between two dots. And the Yes means you want this enforced.

HAYES: Yes, it is a yes vote.

BOYLES: We will see. This is my day. The initiative that will toughen the impound ordinances. And as I tried to make the case. We had very interesting go around with one of Denver’s City Council members. David Hancock was on the show. He couldn’t even describe why he called it racist. He would just get mad.

HAYES: I know. But really it is reverse racism on their part because they are allowing illegal aliens.

BOYLES: Sure.

HAYES: If they even bother to go in, ticket–if they are identified at all get a small fine and walk. If that happens to you three times and it’s a habitual driver.

BOYLES: That’s right.

HAYES: Treated wholly differently. It’s not fair.

BOYLES: Well, what I find also fascinating is, if that is all you got– to scream racism– then the damn thing is probably a pretty good ordinance.

[...]

BOYLES: Danny we are going to have you on again tomorrow, and tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow up until the final day up. And remember it is only a mail in initiative, or a deliver ballot. Remember vote yes.

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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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