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CO: Judge fines D-11 for campaign flier
Category: Government Accountablilty · State: Colorado · Source: Colorado Springs Gazette
A judge has fined Colorado Springs School District 11 $1,000 for violating a campaign finance law that bans using public money to urge voters to approve a ballot measure.
The case concerns a mailer sent to voters in September that discussed a ballot measure to increase the district's property tax rate. The mailer included information about how the district planned to use the $21.5 million in new taxes that would have been raised had Question 3E passed on the Nov. 4 ballot. The measure failed with 56 percent of voters saying "no."
Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer ruled Wednesday the mailer violated Colorado's Fair Campaign Practices Act.
"The district's favorable presentation of the (mill levy override) as a method to meet its goals was an unmistakable plea for support for the ballot issue then pending before the electorate," Spencer wrote.
District 11 spent $11,063 to prepare, print and mail the flier.
Tax-reduction crusader Douglas Bruce filed a complaint against the district after he received the mailer at his house. Bruce said Thursday he was pleased with the ruling but felt the fine should have been higher.
"It was a fraudulent, blatantly illegal activity, and they deserve to be criticized for it and fined even more than they were," he said.
Spencer said he kept the fine low because district employees didn't deliberately violate the law and because the district is "already under financial stress."
The mailer was one of three District 11 sent as part of a program officials said was designed to boost the district's image. It was the only one, though, that mentioned the proposed property tax increase. District spokeswoman Elaine Naleski said during hearings in the case she tried to ensure the mailer complied with the law by removing words from a draft version that said: "We cannot do this alone. So we are coming to you for help."
In addition, District 11 Chief Financial Officer Glenn Gustafson distributed a document to district employees explaining rules that govern working on a tax campaign.
Gustafson said Thursday he views the ruling as a narrow interpretation of the law but doesn't intend to appeal. That decision would be up to the district's seven-member board.
"We apologize for misconstruing the law, and we're sorry it came out this way," he said. "We'll use this information. I think this give us much better guidance on future elections as to materials we prepare."
Gustafson said legal fees to defend the district were about $50,000.
Bruce has filed numerous complaints over the years about alleged violations of campaign finance laws. He has a mixed record. A complaint against state House District 15 candidate Mark Waller was successful when a judge found Waller accepted an improper donation from a corporation. Waller ousted Bruce from the House District 15 seat in the August Republican primary election. Bruce also alleged Memorial Health System made an illegal contribution to a campaign to raise El Paso County's sales tax rate, but that complaint was thrown out.
Gustafson said a similar complaint from Bruce was tossed in 2004, and Bruce was ordered to pay $1,000. The district's legal fees in that case were about $60,000.
Education establishment stalled after defeat of 59 and Ref O
Category: Education · State: Colorado · Source: Face The State
Following the defeat of two measures on the statewide ballot, a joint effort by Colorado's three largest education lobbying groups to alter the state's tax system has been left in a lurch.
The "Believe in a Better Colorado" Web site - part of a collaborative campaign by the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Association of School Boards, and Colorado Association of School Executives - urged members of the respective organizations to vote Yes on Amendment 59, known as the Savings Account For Education or SAFE, and Referendum O as "the first major steps...to adopt[ing] a new tax system before 2011."
More than 52 percent of Colorado voters rejected Referendum O, while nearly 55 percent voted down the SAFE initiative. SAFE was marketed as a proposal to remove conflicting existing constitutional provisions mandated under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, which limits government spending, and Amendment 23, which requires increases in school funding on an annual basis.
"I don't think we're making all that much progress," said Ken DeLay, executive director of CASB. DeLay said the campaign's partners are focused on repealing TABOR, a measure he characterized as "indefensible" and "absurd".
But Aimee Rathburn, a leader of the campaign that successfully defeated Amendment 59, said that the education lobbying groups are simply upset by TABOR's requirement that every tax increase be approved by a vote of the people. "People who like spending other people's money don't like to ask first," she said.
Rathburn believes the defeat of the proposal is a sign that Colorado voters have awakened to the need to once again consider limiting government spending. "Colorado voters aren't fooled by a wolf in sheep's clothing," she added.
Prior to the election, Believe in a Better Colorado made available an online toolkit for school districts to share with employees that provided pro-59 & O talking points and form letters. DeLay said the toolkit was developed by a communications agency contractor and paid for solely by CEA, but that partners CASE and CASB contributed directly to earlier educational efforts.
The coalition launched in 2007 with a "Phase One" outreach to school employees explaining the case for a major overhaul of different fiscal elements in the state constitution. DeLay says Believe was created to raise awareness of the combined impact of TABOR, Amendment 23, and the Gallagher Amendment, which fixes the ratio between residential and commercial property tax rates.
DeLay says coalition partners are looking for a "comprehensive" answer but have not come to any particular solution to address the complex issue. "You can't fix a piece of it," he said. "You need to fix the whole thing."
While DeLay said no data had been collected to measure how many schools and employees the Believe campaign reached with its "Phase One" outreach, Jefferson County teacher Leslie Thompson said she attended a staff meeting where a colleague presented the "Phase One" DVD and other materials to teachers without any sort of balanced response.
"They weren't interested in sharing the full facts," Thompson said, admitting that she was upset and left before the meeting concluded.
According to election law attorney John Zakhem, the district's legal obligation, as a taxpayer-funded entity, is to present a balanced approach on political issues including pending ballot measures. "If any government agency is to expend funds in relation to the review and deliberation of any ballot question, it is incumbent upon them to provide both sides of the issue," Zakhem said.
The online toolkit urges members of the three partner organizations to "talk to friend and colleagues" about Amendment 59 and Referendum O, but no cases have been reported of Believe or its member partners campaigning directly for the two measures using official school times of resources. While teachers and coalition members were encouraged to circulate campaign materials in on-campus locations, the toolkit specifically cautioned district employees not to advocate a "Yes" vote during school hours.
DeLay said Believe's partners were very careful to abide by legal requirements. "We're not unaware of those issues," he said.
Opinion: The future of affirmative action
Category: Affirmative Action · State: Colorado Nebraska Oregon · Source: Statesman Journal
Did the hot-button issues of affirmative action and racial preferences come up in this election? It depends where you look.
Voters in Nebraska and Colorado weighed in on ballot initiatives to ban racial preferences. Those in Nebraska voted “yes” on the ban, following the lead of California, Washington and Michigan, which had approved similar initiatives. Those in Colorado voted “no,” making it the first state in the country to reject such a measure.
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Even so, the topic of racial preferences didn’t surface much during the main event: the presidential campaign. Nor did the softer concept of affirmative action, which need not be a hard preference of one aspirant over another. It could simply mean government, colleges or industries considering an applicant’s race as one factor among many.
There were a couple of sightings.
During a Democratic debate in April, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos reminded Barack Obama that he had suggested his own daughters shouldn’t benefit from affirmative action since they’re not disadvantaged. Stephanopoulos asked Obama how he would change those policies so that affluent African-Americans aren’t given advantages over less-affluent whites.
Obama said that his priority would be “providing ladders of opportunity” and making sure “every child in America has a decent shot in pursuing their dreams.” He also said that he supported affirmative action as “a means of overcoming both historic and potentially current discrimination.”
In July, during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” John McCain was asked by Stephanopoulos if he supported an initiative to end racial preferences that, at the time, appeared headed for the ballot in his home state of Arizona.
McCain fired off a sound bite about how he supported the proposed initiative because he did not “believe in quotas.” Ultimately, his point was moot. Supporters failed to get enough signatures to put the measure to a vote.
But, curiously, it’s only now that the election is over that the topic of affirmative action is taking center stage in a way that is interesting but not helpful. Some Americans suggest that the election of Obama should mean the end of the program.
In fact, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer recently asked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin if, given Obama’s victory, it was “time to get rid of affirmative action in our country.”
Palin said she believed in “equal opportunity for everyone” but that — as long as every American is treated equally — there are probably “some specific policies that I’m sure ... we can move beyond.” She also said that she was very proud of America for the “progress our nation has made in not allowing race to be ... a prohibitive factor in an election” and that she was happy to see what Obama accomplished not just for himself “but also for our nation (and) for our children.”
Frankly, the answer was much better than the question. This idea that the election of Barack Obama should be the death knell for affirmative action is absurd. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That kind of thinking starts with the epidemic of Americans patting themselves on the back for being enlightened enough to elect an African-American president.
The best argument for affirmative action is that it strengthens institutions by fostering diversity and recruiting people with different experiences. But if you think that Obama’s election justifies ending such policies, you probably think of affirmative action as compensation for past injustices or some necessary evil to be tolerated until we realize Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of living in a society where people are judged by character and not skin color. But wait, people ask, isn’t that what happened when Obama was elected president?
Yes, that is what happened — for Barack Obama. But this doesn’t mean that, with the election of America’s first
Labor, business reach pact
Category: Civil Rights · State: Colorado · Source: Rockey Mountain News
Colorado labor and business leaders announced a joint effort aimed at defeating three contentious anti-union measures on November's ballot, an unprecedented agreement that marked the culmination of weeks of intense negotiations among unlikely allies. In return for the business community's pledge to campaign against a "right-to-work" measure and two other amendments targeting unions, the organized labor community agreed to withdraw four ballot initiatives that businesses had feared would harm the state's economy. "We're here today as citizens of Colorado to do the right thing for our state," Walter Isenberg, a Denver business executive closely involved in the talks, said at a news conference Thursday. Business leaders such as Isenberg, who heads a group of prominent local executives called Colorado Concern, promised to raise $3 million for the fight against the three amendments, including the so-called "right-to-work" amendment that would ban mandatory union fees for workers.
Ref O benefits from support of heavy hitters
Category: Initiative and Referendum · State: Colorado · Source: Face The State
Dozens of state organizations and elected officials have endorsed Referendum O, a measure that proposes to transform Colorado's ballot initiative process. Under current state law, there is no difference in the process between putting a statutory measure or a constitutional amendment on the ballot. Ref O seeks to change this. According Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, special interests have no reason not to put something in the constitution. “If they’re going to the trouble of collecting signatures, spending money in the media to get a "yes" vote for their campaign, if there is no difference between statutory and constitutional, they’re going to go for a constitutional measure,” she said in a Face The State podcast. Ref O would alter the process between statutory and constitutional measures by changing signature-gathering requirements, mandating that campaigns gather signatures from each of the state’s seven Congressional districts. It would also increase the number of voter signatures needed for a constitutional change to 6 percent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election, up from the current requirement 5 percent, or just over 76,000.
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