State lawmaker backs out of ethics vote

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 25, 2007 at midnight

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The House minority leader is boycotting a vote today on whether an ethics committee should be formed to investigate a complaint against a lobbyist.

Rep. Mike May, R-Parker, said he is worried that two separate complaints filed this year against lobbyists threatens their livelihoods and sends the wrong message.

He said he now regrets his vote two weeks ago to investigate a lobbyist. And he said he doesn’t want to be involved in today’s decision, although the complaint is from his own party.

May said he was concerned last year when ethics complaints were filed against lawmakers, which then spurred more complaints.

"I said then, ‘Where are we going with this?’ and we never answered that question," May said.

In a letter to House Republicans, May said he believes the legislature is "set upon a new course."

"Regulating speech, in fact effectively criminalizing speech, by a majority party is a dangerous path for our state," he wrote.

May was quick to later say he was not referring to Democrats, who hold the majority, but any party that has the majority. But May repeatedly zinged Democrats in the letter.

He refused to discuss two separate ethics complaints filed this decade when Republicans controlled the legislature. One Republican lawmaker filed the complaints.

"I’m talking about right now on my watch," May said.

May is one of six members of the Executive Committee, which is comprised of the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate, and the House speaker and Senate president. Democrats hold a 4-2 majority.

The complaint the committee will review today was filed Tuesday by Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, against Lynne Garramone Mason, the lobbyist for the Colorado Education Association.

He said she was deceptive in an e-mail sent to drum up support for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter’s plan to stabilize property taxes to raise more money for schools. Nearly every Republican opposes to the plan.

Critics say the complaint is baseless, and was filed only because a Democratic lawmaker earlier filed a complaint against a lobbyist often aligned with Republican interests.

In that case, leadership unanimously voted to empanel a committee to review a complaint against William Mutch, which was filed by Rep. Alice Borodkin, D-Denver.

Mutch is executive director of Colorado Concern, a high-powered business group that was trying to defeat a homebuyers’ protection bill. The group was involved in hiring a firm to make phone calls to voters to get them riled up about the bill. Democratic lawmakers’ whose constituents received those calls said they were deceptive.

Mutch told the Rocky Mountain News that his group was not involved, but e-mails between Mutch and the firm dispute that.

"William was stupid to lie to (the Rocky) but that’s not a crime," May said.

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