Colorado voters might have the final say over the state legislature’s decision last month to exempt themselves from parts of the Open Meetings Law. Libertarian activist Jon Caldara has filed a ballot initiative to repeal Senate Bill 157, which allows lawmakers to have more conversations in private.
Democrats who control the legislature passed the bill March 11, and Gov. Jared Polis quickly signed it into law March 12. It went into effect immediately.
Caldara filed his ballot initiative 10 days after the law passed.
"We needed to act very quickly in order to to address this," he said. "We were just repulsed that our elected officials were so arrogant, so full of hubris that they would exempt themselves from letting the people see the people's business being done. It was nothing more than a knee jerk reaction of 'this cannot stand.'"
Senate Bill 157 lets lawmakers meet one-on-one with fewer restrictions and allows them to discuss bills and other public business electronically without the communications constituting a public meeting.
It also narrowed the definition of public business at the statehouse.
The state’s leading government transparency advocates, including the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, strongly opposed the new law and blasted it’s passage in an editorial titled “Just when you thought public trust in government couldn’t get any lower.”
Opponents said it would encourage lawmakers to debate bills and craft policy in secret.
“It is absolutely reprehensible that our elected officials vote to immune themselves from simple transparency,” Caldara told KUNC News on Friday before he attended a first hearing at the Capitol for his ballot initiative to repeal Senate Bill 157. “Colorado has open meetings laws and sunshine laws so that we can see what they are doing. And for them to excuse themselves is just an abuse of power.”
Caldara, the president of the Independence Institute, is aiming to get the potential repeal of the open meetings exemptions on the November ballot. The initiative is co-sponsored by Vanessa Rutledge, the Independence Institute’s communications manager.
Ballot measures in Colorado must only include a single subject. Asked Friday by Legislative Council staff what that subject was, Caldara replied: “to repeal the godawful bill that was signed into law.”
Supporters of the potential ballot measure still have hurdles to overcome to get it on the ballot this fall.
The state’s Title Board, which is represented by the secretary of state, attorney general and Office of Legislative Legal Services, must rule in the coming weeks whether the proposal meets the legal requirements for ballot initiatives.
An initial Title Board hearing on the measure is scheduled April 17.
Ballot language would also have to be written and approved.
“Assuming all that goes well, the real tough job is to get the 125,000 valid signatures to get it on the ballot,” Caldara said.
Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 157 months after they were hit with two separate lawsuits alleging they had broken the open meetings law.
They lost one lawsuit for using secret ballots in recent years to help decide the fate of bills competing for state funding. They settled a separate suit alleging they also held secret meetings to talk about bills.
Democratic leaders at the Capitol said the lawsuits created “uncertainty” at the Capitol and they needed to “clarify” the Open Meetings Law for the legislature.
“This uncertainty has caused members to stop talking to one another,” House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, said last month at the final public hearing for Senate Bill 157. “That is a detriment to our democratic process.”
She called the Open Meetings Law “vague, confusing, and in many instances, impossible to comply with.” She and other sponsors of the bill to relax transparency rules said lawmakers needed more space to talk to each other.
But Caldara said if left unchecked, lawmakers’ decision to exempt themselves from parts of the Open Meetings Law would have a “grave impact for the public.”
“The fourth estate, the press, and here in Colorado, the people deserve to know what's going on in the legislature,” he said. “It was a very cleverly-written bill that they had. What it does is it makes it very difficult to find out when (lawmakers) are meeting, when they're talking about our issues, and deciding how to vote on bills and amendments.”
