Hearing no business objections, Colorado Senate committee OKs campaign-disclosure bill

Monday, May 3, 2010
Denver Business Journal - by Ed Sealover
http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2010/05/03/daily11.html

No business interests showed up Monday to testify against a bill before the Colorado Legislature requiring corporations and labor unions that donate to political campaigns to identify who they are and how much money they are giving.

Senate Bill 203, sponsored by Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, passed out of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee by a 3-2 margin after Democrats backed it and Republicans opposed it.

The bill is a direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Jan. 21 decision in the "Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission" case, in which it ruled that laws banning direct corporate and union donations to campaigns illegally abridge their right to free speech. As a result of that, states have scrambled to shine a spotlight on what are expected to be tens of millions of dollars in direct business and labor contributions with new laws.

Carroll's proposal would require corporations and unions that give at least $1,000 to an independent expenditure campaign to register as an independent expenditure committee and list a registered agent of the company. Colorado officials believe the Supreme Court ruling does not invalidate current law against those groups giving directly to candidates but just allows them to pay for ads that are not coordinated to the candidates' campaigns.

SB 203 also bans foreign corporations from contributing to any political campaigns in Colorado, keeping in line with the state's ban on donations from foreign individuals.

Representatives for Colorado Common Cause, the Colorado AFL-CIO and the League of Women Voters of Colorado all testified that the law is fair in that it simply subjects corporations and unions to the same disclosure requirements as individual Coloradans.

"Coloradans support limiting money in our political process," said Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, the author of Amendment 27 which limited individual contributions to campaigns in 2002. "While the court has opened the door on expensive corporate spending and union spending, they did not close the door on disclosure."

Ryan Call, the legal counsel for the Colorado Republican Party who testified as a campaign-finance attorney, cautioned that some parts of the bill are vague and that a proposed requirement to announce funding sources in campaign ads could be considered unconstitutional.

But no representatives of corporations, who are expected to be responsible for most of the new money flowing into campaigns, came out to protest the bill.

"If we don't do something like this, the majority of funds being spent on Colorado's elections will go undisclosed, which makes meaningless in some way that which is disclosed," Carroll said. "This is a big deal that, frankly, shakes the confidence of the people."

Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, argued, however, that the bill was being jammed through without full understanding of how it would affect the businesses that are allowed now to donate to campaigns.

"I believe it's too late in the session to be rushing something like this through," Schultheis said. "And I think it's too soon after the Supreme Court decision. We need to give it time."

SB 203 heads next to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

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