Sustainable Democracy

Colorado congress and senate recently passed a bill to “clean-up politics” by removing all those exciting money incentives. The bill is the Ethics in Government ballot measure.
Problem:

Lobbyists dominate Colorado politics. They spend millions of dollars each year to influence public officials. As a result, moneyed special interests have access to decision makers that most Coloradans do not.

• In 2005, Colorado lobbyists spent more than $1.6 million in gifts, trips, meals, golf lessons, Broncos tickets and other expenses to influence public officials.

• In the past decade, the income of lobbyists has nearly tripled to more than $22 million per year, increasing by 191%.

Solution:

Amendment 41 will raise the ethical bar in Colorado by:

• Banning gifts from lobbyists to public officials and setting reasonable limits on gifts from non-lobbyists;

• Creating a two-year “cooling-off” period before legislators can become paid lobbyists;

• Establishing an independent ethics commission.
(from - http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1761425)

It boils down to limiting the size of any gift to an elected official to $50 in value, along with the limiting private employment, and the ethics commission. At least that was how the spirit of this new law was expressed to the public.

The reality of the law is much more sweeping. No state employee or any member of their family may receive any gift of over $50 for any purpose. The high cost of this sort of ill thought out legislation can be seen in a story published in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

The Daily Sentinel, Jan. 31 2007, P.1 Sec. A
When Alex Hurd was told he was ineligible for a prestigious Daniels Fund scholarship, his grades and test scores were not to blame. Instead, Hurd’s eligibility problem was spurred by Colorado’s recently passed “Ethics in Government” ballot measure. …
Because Hurd’s mother, Sheila, works as a secretary at the Grand Junction office of the Colorado Public Defender, a state-funded agency, her son’s scholarship search has become a matter of constitutional concern.

Amendment 41 bars public officials, public employees and their dependents from receiving any gifts worth more than $50 every year. …

For example, a memo prepared by legislative attorneys at the Capitol, informed lawmakers that their children arguably cannot accept any scholarship funds in excess of $50.

In the world where we hope that our elected officials read the legislation that is written up for them, this is a terrible wake-up call. The obvious disregard for the wellbeing of state workers and there children is almost chilling. While it would be nice to believe that the politicians who approved this amendment to the state constitution were doing so out of the goodness of their hearts, it would be interesting pass out a query to find out how many of their children would need scholarship funding to be able to go to college.

The limiting clause keeping currently elected officials from joining any special interest groups also seems sincere. However, as much as it is distasteful for politicians to set up private enterprises through their positions it is their right. Certainly non-competition contracts as setup by companies to protect proprietary information are needed. Even politicians should not transfer to “a competing team” as it were. But these men and women have every right to work where they want after they leave office, so long as it does not breach any condition of security (if on any committee that dealt with such information). If we do not wish our politicians to spend their time developing a business relationship with special interest groups while they are in office; perhaps we should elect people with higher notions of integrity.

This new issue in Colorado will test her citizens patience with government. It will also test the ability of the middle class’s ability to meet financial demands with ever shrinking purchasing power. Perhaps Colorado will be the test bed of the survivability of our formerly robust middle class. And all the while we can view the success or failure of this new challenge in at the cost of our new generation.