Legal News

Colorado Campaign-Giving Ban Likely To Trigger Legal Skirmish

By Jennifer Forsyth

The woeful predictions that Election Day would leave behind a legacy of legal fights in state after state didn’t really materialize. Lawyers were primed, only to find that things went smoother than expected in most places.

But there have been some surprises. Advocates of gay marriage were caught off guard when seemingly left-leaning California decided marriage was solely for a man and a woman. Court challenges to the constitutional amendment began the very next day (Find previous coverage here and here and here.) And in Minnesota, Al Franken, the comedian-turned-Democratic-pol who’s locked in a tight race for the Senate with the non-comedian incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, is suing to access data on voters who had their absentee ballots rejected, as an already nasty race turns nastier. Here’s the AP story.

And there’s more: In Colorado, a legal fight is looming over a narrowly passed ballot initiative that prohibits numerous voters from contributing to campaigns. Amendment 54, as explained in this WSJ story, bans campaign contributions from entities holding large no-bid government contracts. The prohibition extends to the entity’s officers, directors and trustees, and to those individuals’ relatives.

Lawyers advising the unusual coalition of big labor, big business and non-profits angered by the ban, predict a court challenge very soon. Mark Grueskin, a Denver attorney advising some of the opponents, says the ban has severe First Amendment problems and would be very difficult to enforce. Says Grueskin: “There’s no way political candidates will know who they can take funds from. They’ll have to do a retinal scan on contributors if this amendment takes effect.” It’s scheduled to do just that at the end of the year.

However, Dennis Polhill, a senior fellow with the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank, defends the ban on contributions by relatives as necessary to clean up government. “The reason for that is obvious,” he said in an interview with the WSJ’s Stephanie Simon. “So no one can play games with the money.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).