Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said Thursday that Amendment 41 bars University of Colorado professors from accepting Nobel Prize money and public employees’ children from taking certain scholarships.
Suthers said he was forced to that conclusion by the plain language of the measure, calling the consequences of it “absurd.”
However, a number of officials said in response that they believe the General Assembly can write enabling legislation that eliminates such interpretations of the popular constitutional amendment. It was approved by voters in November and bans gifts to public employees.
“There is ample opening here for the legislature to act and interpret this in a reasonable way that would allow scholarships for children of public employees and would allow Nobel Prize winners to keep whatever monetary awards are offered,” said Mark Grueskin, an attorney hired by backers of Amendment 41 to draft enabling legislation.
Lawmakers pass enabling legislation to clarify and add detail to constitutional amendments.
“The courts never impose absurd results on the electorate,” Grueskin said. “They always assume the electorate intended a reasonable outcome.”
Suthers and his deputy, Jason Dunn, wrote their “extremely unfortunate, yet unavoidable conclusions” on Amendment 41 in a letter to CU President Hank Brown. He had asked about its effect on CU employees.
Dunn concluded that the plain language of Amendment 41 bans gifts, including awards for past performance such as Nobel Prize money and scholarships based on grades in high school.
To be legal under Amendment 41, the recipient of money or a gift must provide something in return. So a scholarship that requires a future action is legal, he wrote. This might be good grades in college or attendance at a particular university in a particular field, he wrote.
A research grant would be legal because it is expressly tied to future conduct - the research, he wrote.
The amendment allows gifts from a relative or friend on a “special occasion,” but doesn’t define what special occasions are. So Dunn was unable to answer Brown’s question on whether it would be legal to accept an expensive bottle of wine from a friend for dinner.
Brown, however, was encouraged. “The attorney general’s letter was more generous than I thought you could get away with. As long as the backers of the amendment are willing, I think we have a chance of solving most of these,” he said.
Numerous people affected by Amendment 41 are alarmed by it.
But Grueskin called many of them “horror stories” rather than reality. Among the ones he finds ridiculous are claims that public employees could not collect lottery winnings or borrow a lawn mower.
The attorney general debunked one of those in his letter, saying public employees may collect lottery winnings if they bought the ticket.
But there is no question the amendment bans lobbyists from taking lawmakers to lunch.
“That’s what the voters wanted to achieve,” Grueskin said. “The lawn signs said, ‘Ban lobbyist gifts.’ ”
“The voters did intend . . . that people in a position to make a decision not accept tickets or gifts from those who want to influence them about that decision,” Grueskin said.
Jenny Flanagan, head of Colorado Common Cause, said her organization has said all along that it does not believe the amendment outlaws scholarships. She said her group supports enabling legislation that makes the amendment clear without changing the voters’ intent.
“It’s about freebies, tickets, lavish receptions. It’s the culture,” she said.
Source: www.rockymountainnews.com
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