Amendment X: Ethics in Colorado

Or lack thereof. Todd Shepard at the Independence Institute reports that Gov. Bill Ritter's Admininistration has filed one of 15 conflict of interest disclosures as required by Executive Order.

Governor Ritter's office has only one "conflict of interest" report on file for the fifteen members of his cabinet, despite an executive order that requires each and every member of his cabinet to file such a disclosure.

An executive order by Governor Bill Owens requires that all cabinet members as well as senior staff members submit a conflicts of interest report before the end of January every year. The Independence Institute filed a Colorado Open Records Act Request with the Governor's office asking for copies of all the current reports. Craig Welling, Deputy Legal Counsel for Governor Ritter indicated that there were only three pages of "responsive" documents. Those documents were conflict of interest reports from Agriculture Secretary John Stulp.

Governor Ritter responds. As we found here in New Hampshire when we started investigating exceptions to Governor John Lynch's hiring freeze, government officials sometimes find it's a lot easier to pass new laws than to comply with them.