Tag: Amendment 54

It was an easy hook but it garbled Jessica Fender's Denver Post story. Fender was reporting the fact that the Colorado Supreme Court found...

In a four to one vote, the Colorado Supreme Court this morning declared that so-called clean elections Amendment 54 unconstitutionally tramped on the right...

Who holds the lawmakers to the law? Who watches the watchers? The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission last year operated behind closed doors, ironically shrouding in secrecy the open-government mission voters bestowed upon it when they voted it into existence. Nonprofit Colorado Ethics Watch called out the commission, filing and winning a lawsuit this summer, forcing the commission to open its deliberations to public scrutiny and bringing the matter to the attention of the press. Luis Toro, new director of Colorado Ethics Watch, counts the suit as a major victory and a model for the kind of work he will pursue in the coming year.

In case no one heard about it, blogger Republican Joshua Sharf is running again for Colorado House District 6. The past co-host of Backbone Radio...

The future of controversial so-called clean government Amendment 54 has been fast-tracked by the Colorado Supreme Court. This week the Court directed attorneys to submit records by next Friday, Sept. 4. Court arguments will begin in the fall. "There's a perceived obligation to get appellate clarity when the voters have adopted a law and it has been declared unconstitutional," said Mark Grueskin, one of the high-powered attorneys who represented plaintiffs fighting the amendment. "There's just added importance to getting the Supreme Court to weigh in and say there is or is not a problem."

Dug up fresh, daily. CLEAN GOVERNMENT MUDDLE: Amendment 54, the so-called clean government amendment passed as a ballot initiative in the fall and enjoined by...

Dug up fresh, daily. HEALTH-CARE RICHES: Colorado anti- health-care reform protesters are being rallied and bused around tomorrow by "free-market" group Americans for Prosperity. On...

Denver District Judge Catherine Lemon delivered her written preliminary injunction of Amendment 54 this afternoon. The judge decided in favor of plaintiff's at a...

Denver District Court Judge Catherine Lemon issued an injunction against controversial voter-approved Amendment 54 on Tuesday, agreeing with lawyers for the plaintiffs that the vague and often confusing language of the amendment created laws that were overly broad and clearly violated the right to free speech.

Colorado voters are making too much law and the wrong kind of law at the ballot box, according to a growing list of elected officials, analysts and experts. Critics of the state's famously loose ballot-initiative process agree it unnecessarily opens up the state constitution to improperly vetted amendments, which are extremely difficult to rework or repeal. The result: Bad laws that bog down government and generate extended and expensive lawsuits.