Amendment X: Ethics in Colorado- Update

Last month, we noted the efforts of Todd Shepard at the Independence Institute to get members of the Governor's Cabinet in Colorado to file their ethics disclosures, at required by Executive Order.

Then, we found out that Governor Bill Ritter had re-issued the order to require his Cabinet officers to file new ethics disclosures, while ignoring the missed filings.

Since then, the Independence Institute learned that Ritter's climate advisor, Alice Madden, was also on the payroll of the liberal Center for American Progress. Faced with public disclosure of this conflict, Madden has been forced to resign from CAP.

This shows why it is not only important to put ethics codes on the books, but also for independent watchdogs to hold government accountable to them.

Amendment X: Denver Post follows up on Colorado ethics violations

Thanks to the work of our friends at the Independence Institute, Governor Bill Ritter has been forced to comply with ethics requirements that allow the public to know of conflicts of interest from him and his Cabinet. After filing just one of 15 required disclosures over the last three years, Ritter is now reissuing the Executive Order that he failed to follow, with a huge exception.

The new executive order closely mirrors the 1999 executive order issued by former Gov. Bill Owens, though it rescinds a section requiring gift disclosures and puts monitoring authority in the hands of the Independent Ethics Commission in deference to Amendment 41. It does not require retroactive disclosures for the past three years.

Both the new and old order extend to Cabinet heads and members of the governor's staff.

So, if you get caught breaking the rules, just pass a new rule and pretend the last three years didn't happen.

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.

Amendment X: Freedom of Information Act in Colorado

Our colleagues at the Independence Institute in Colorado have found that state agencies have employed a new tactic to get around those pesky Freedom Of Information Act requests; charge prohibitive fees to provide public records.

Shepherd has no complaints about most of the agencies. For instance, the Northeastern Colorado Association of Local Governments in Fort Morgan sent him packets of information for each employee hired with the cash. In contrast, Northwest shipped blank bid packets, and when he e-mailed about seeing the winning and losing bids, he was told this data could only be compiled at a cost of $55 an hour -- and personnel anticipated that it would take four-to-eight hours of work to do it.

At first, he didn't smack the panic button. "It's always been my experience that the price of open records is negotiable," he says, adding, "I'm typically charged $12 to $20 an hour for open-records requests -- and usually the first half-hour or hour is free before the clock starts running." So he suggested via e-mail that they try to compromise -- but he didn't receive a reply until he followed up with a note revealing that he planned to discuss the situation on KHOW radio (which he did yesterday). Instead of caving, however, the Northwest respondent simply explained that the cost was based on contract charges and couldn't be reduced. Along the way, Shepherd contacted GEO press liaison Todd Hartman asking if that agency could help both parties find a middle ground. Nope: Hartman said the matter was between Shepherd and Northwest.

I recommend the entire article. The level of hubris from minor government officials is astounding.