Common Cause bailout Print E-mail
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
Rocky Mountain News Editorial
2/19/07
Bill attempts to rewrite passages of Amendment 41
Let's say you joined an athletic club whose written bylaws said "members of the club shall enjoy access to the pool." Naturally you'd assume you could test the waters any time the pool was open without prior approval from the rest of the membership.
You'd be indignant, and justly so, if the club's management later said, "Sorry, but you'll need the official consent of 80 percent of club members before you can actually take a dip."
Why, you'd probably accuse the club of failing to follow its own written rules.
Well, Colorado voters should be indignant, too, because something very similar to this verbal shell game is poised for a run in the legislature. It's called House Bill 1304, although it could have been dubbed The Act To Save Common Cause From Its Own Blunders. Not surprisingly, it's 15 pages of brazen adjustments to the plain language of Amendment 41.
Here's what we mean. Among Amendment 41's many provisions is one that says the following: "Members of the independent ethics commission shall have the power to subpoena documents and to subpoena witnesses to make statements and produce documents."
In other words, each member of the commission has subpoena power. That's what "members" means in this type of English sentence, as our opening example with the athletic club shows. There is no other accepted way to read that line.
But here's what HB 1304 has to say about the ethics commission's subpoena power: "No subpoena requiring the attendance of a witness or the production of documents shall be issued by the commission unless a motion to issue any such subpoena has been made by one member of the commission and approved by no fewer than four members of the commission."
Let's recap: A constitutional amendment passed by voters says each commission member enjoys subpoena power; a proposed law implementing the amendment says a commission member can issue a subpoena only if three other members agree. We'd call that an attempt to rewrite the constitution without a vote of the people. It's flatly illegal. It's positively wrong.
HB 1304 is full of similarly high-handed definitions that would be entirely reasonable if the legislature were creating an ethics commission and Amendment 41 didn't exist. In theory, we actually like the idea of requiring a supermajority of the commission to issue subpoenas; indeed, the thought of one unelected member going off half-cocked and issuing subpoenas gives us the willies. But like it or not, Amendment 41 grants the subpoena power to individual members. It may be stupid, but that's what it does.
The authors of HB 1304, Rep. Rosemary Marshall, D-Denver, and Sen. Steve Ward, R-Littleton, justify their bill with lofty references to what "the voters intended." We don't profess to read voters minds; we prefer to stick with facts.
Fact 1: Voters passed Amendment 41.
Fact 2: The legislature can't revise the constitution.
Fact 3: HB 1304 is an attempt to pretend Fact 2 doesn't exist.
Once lawmakers understand Fact 3, we trust they'll vote this measure down.
http://www.coloradosenatenews.com/content/view/133/38/
