There once was a time–you know it’s true–when school board candidates in Colorado hoped to raise enough money for yard signs and a flyer to hand out or leave at doors. Times have changed.
On the 2nd anniversary of the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, human people gathered on the West Steps of the Colorado Capitol to protest the decision they say granted human-like rights to corporations.
In filing suit yesterday against Denver County over its 2011 election plan, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has raised the specter for the second time since he took office in January that he is using his position as head of elections not to expand but to suppress voting in the state.
Despite the demise of a bill to increase the percentage of votes needed to pass a voter initiated constitutional amendment in the Legislature this year, grassroots advocates recently voiced their opposition to the move they see as part of a trend by legislators to limit the power of the people.
Special interest groups will continue to be able to use 501c(4) organizations to donate money to political campaigns anonymously in Colorado for another year, if not longer, after the final gavel fell on this year’s legislative session without a bill being introduced.
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.
A bill designed by Secretary of State Scott Gessler and sponsored by Rep. Chris Holbert, R-Parker, to ensure the integrity of the Colorado voting system is being called a means to reduce voter participation by voters’ rights advocates.
State Senator Morgan Carroll and Representative Lois Court’s ballot-initiative transparency bill, HB 1035, passed Monday unanimously out of the Senate and with a wide majority in the House. The deep support for the bill is notably rare when it comes to legislation that seeks to tweak Colorado’s ballot initiative process, an intentionally loose process loved by citizens and special interests alike.
The Colorado House passed a resolution 52-12 today that will give the voters the option of limiting their own ability to change the Colorado Constitution in the next election. SCR 001 now goes back to the Senate, as amended by the House, for final passage.
DENVER– Democratic state lawmakers Rep. Lois Court and Sen. Morgan Carroll have taken another step in their move to head off would-be anonymous Colorado ballot-initiative authors and financiers. A bill they introduced this legislative session comes in response to the farce Colorado Springs anti-tax crusader Doug Bruce made of the initiative process last year, when as “Mr X” he sent detailed emails of instruction to the initiative proponents, failed to report he was housing petition-signature gatherers and dodged subpoena servers for more than three months.
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