Ethics-law fix heads to a skeptical Senate
Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
Published March 14, 2007 at midnight
The Colorado House passed a bipartisan fix for the new, problem-plagued government ethics law today, but it won’t fly unless skeptical Senate lawmakers vote initial approval.
It didn’t help that Senate President pro tem Peter Groff is irked that he learned about the proposed House repair for Amendment 41 in the newspapers — not from fellow Democratic leaders in the House.
"It still has to come through the Senate, so it certainly would have been nice to kind of hear what was going on," said Groff, D-Denver.
He and Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, D-Coal Creek Canyon, have been doubtful about the legality of lawmakers trying to iron out the voter-approved constitutional amendment.
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff said he advised Fitz-Gerald Tuesday as the House took a vote on the compromise solution. He stressed that House leaders had their hands full just hammering out the complex repair plan.
If the Senate gives its initial approval next week, the Colorado Supreme Court will be asked to rule if the legislation to implement and clarify Amendment 41 is constitutional. Then voters will be given final say on whether to approve lawmakers’ implementation of the ethics law in a Nov. 2008 ballot measure.
House leaders in both parties maintain that legislators can’t sit on their hands while confusion over interpretations of the ethics measure is spawning lawsuits and causing public employees across Colorado to quit jobs for fear of jeopardizing their children’s college scholarships.
"Some folks are saying, 'Well, just tell those public employees and their kids to accept the scholarships and just hope they don’t get hauled before the (new) ethics commission,'" Romanoff said this afternoon. "I think that’s not very comforting advice."
"Instead of fighting this out in court or in the ethics commission, we can muster the courage to clear up the confusion around Amendment 41 now," he added.
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