Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Friday, February 16, 2007 11:25:46 AM
The Denver Post promoted the Common Cause Jarad Polis Amendment because they thought it was good politics. It kept the national Republican scandals in the news. In the view of the Denver Post editorial board, good politics always trumps good government. They also heavily promoted the DA Carol Chambers Show Trial, which was definitely not good government, but great pre-election politics.
Even though they haven't (to my knowledge) admitted their part in the Jarad's Joke debacle, they are at least printing guest editorials that lay bare how bad the Polis Amendment was.
Today, they published a guest editorial by Donnah Moody of the Colorado Association for Commerce and Industry. The whole editorial is very much worth reading, but three paragraphs stand out:
The ultimate irony in the effort to address undue influence is that now Polis has hired a number of high-powered lobbyists to try to get the legislature to "fix" the "unintended consequences" of Amendment 41. A "fix" would require the legislature to unethically ignore the limits of its authority and instead rewrite part of the Constitution, which can be amended only by a vote of the people.
Polis defends himself by reminding us that the legislature "clarified" previous campaign-finance constitutional language. That is true; the difference here is that the legislature filled in the blanks where Amendment 27 was silent.
In this case, Polis wants legislators to read the intent of voters - as he is interpreting that intent - and change the amendment's specific language that voters approved "as is." I think we can all agree that such action would require a serious ethical gut check on the part of all Colorado lawmakers.
If you are not sure how bad the Polis Amendment really is, don't skip this editorial.