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Proponents of a ballot measure that would ban the deduction of union dues from public employee paychecks, including those of teachers, have filed their petitions with the secretary of state’s office.
And, opponents of the measure, Initiative 53, have filed complaints with the secretary of state alleging fraud in the gathering of signatures for 53 and for Initiative 59, which proposes to limit union political contributions.
A lawsuit by opponents also is pending against Amendment 47, the so-called “right-to-work” initiative, with complaints about the signature-gathering process.
The measures are part of a ballot brawl between organized labor on one side and the Independence Institute (which is pushing 53 and 59 through surrogates) and brewing family scion Jonathan Coors (who got the ball rolling on Amendment 47) on the other. The unions, under the umbrella group Protect Colorado’s Future, are backing two counter initiatives, a corporate fraud proposal (Initiative 74) and a measure requiring stated cause for all employee firings (Initiative 76).
The business-labor showdown was sparked partly by reaction to Gov. Bill Ritter’s 2007 executive order expanding the ability of state employees to organize.
The state’s two teachers’ unions, the Colorado Education Association and the Colorado Federation of Teachers, already are heavily involved in the fight.
Protect Colorado’s Future has raised $2.2 million. The Colorado Federation of Teachers has contributed $5,100, and an arm of the National Education Association has chipped in $130,000. (Heiress Pat Stryker, funder of many liberal causes and Democratic legislative candidates in 2006, has contributed $25,000.)
(The Colorado Education Association has given $7,638.02 to Savings Account for Education, the committee backing the plan to substantially amend the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and Amendment 23.)
Clean Government Colorado, the group supporting initiatives 53 and 59, has raised about $1.4 million. Virtually all of the contributions have come from another group called Colorado At Its Best. That group doesn’t have to report its contributions. Its registered agent is Dennis Polhill, a senior fellow at the Independence Institute.
Colorado At Its Best is part of network of groups associated with Howie Rich, a wealthy New York real estate investor and libertarian activist who over the last several elections has pushed term limits, property-rights measures and TABOR clones in states around the country. The Colorado group provided virtually all the money for an unsuccessful 2006 ballot measure that proposed term limits for Colorado judges.
Much of Clean Government Colorado’s spending has been on paid petition gatherers. Protect Colorado’s Future, the opposition group, has spent heavily on legal fees, polling and campaign consultants, according to reports filed with the secretary of state’s office, the most recent this week. (It must be a hungry group: There also were lots of small-ticket expenses for meals.)
(Click here if you’d like to search campaign finance reports. Warning: The website is kind of clunky.)
A spokesman for the secretary of state’s office said the petitions for Initiative 53 were filed Tuesday. (The protests were filed the same day.) The deadline was Wednesday.
Spokesman Rich Coolidge didn’t know how many signatures were filed, and campaign representative Michelle Austin hadn’t returned an EdNews phone message by the time this story was posted. Initiatives require 75,047 valid signatures of registered voters to be put on the Nov. 4 election ballot.
With the exception of Amendment 47 and Initiative 53, other initiative campaigns still are gathering signatures. (Measures, like 53, are assigned sequential numbers when their language first is filed. New numbers, like Amendment 47, are assigned once measures are certified.) The petiition deadline for all remaining measures is Aug. 4.
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