Amendment 49

Sandra Hagen Solin, writing as the issues manager for the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance (NCLA), explains in today’s Fort Collins Coloradoan why her organization backs Amendment 49, the Ethical Standards initiative:

Amendment 49 prevents state and local governments from bundling money from public employees’ paychecks and delivering the funds to special interests, like unions. The NCLA [...]

October 22, 2008
Complaint: Amendment 49 Opponents Break Law
Issue Committees Illegally Transferred Campaign Resources
ENGLEWOOD, CO – Supporters of a good-government initiative on this November’s ballot say a citizen’s complaint against amendment opponents highlights the need for reform.
Today, Colorado Springs resident and former school board candidate Reginald Perry filed a formal complaint against the issue committee Protect [...]

A letter from former Governor Bill Owens supporting Amendment 49 was published in today’s Grand Junction Sentinel. After explaining how the initiative promotes government ethics and efficiency, Owens concludes:

This payroll reform is already working. Some county governments in Colorado, along with a handful of municipalities, have implemented this idea. But with an ethical loophole this [...]

From former Governor Bill Owens’ opinion piece published in today’s Rocky Mountain News:

Our state and local governments should be focused on the jobs we pay them to do, whether it’s keeping our neighborhoods safe, educating our children or fixing our roads. We shouldn’t expect our governments to provide banking services for unions or any other [...]

Following up on Jon Caldara’s high-stakes offer to Gov. Bill Ritter, the editors of the Colorado Springs Gazette dove into the fray this morning:

Amendment 49 is an outstanding proposal that would restore the rights of government employees to control more of their own earnings, while forcing unions to collect their own fees. The Gazette enthusiastically [...]

From today’s lead editorial in the Rocky Mountain News:

We don’t know at what point Amendment 49 got thrown into the mix - or why it should even be there, since it appears to us to be a benign good-government measure.
As you may have guessed, we support Amendment 49 - just as we previously supported various [...]

From an editorial in today’s Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on the Ethical Standards Initiative:

Employees could still belong to professional organizations or unions, but would have to pay dues some other way.
Despite the scare tactics from the union-backed mailer, that’s not something that endangers public safety.
“The government shouldn’t be bookkeeper, accountant and collection agency” for these [...]

From a piece in today’s Rocky Mountain News by longtime political columnist (and now retired) Peter Blake:

No doubt passage of [Amendment] No. 49 would make it more difficult for unions to collect dues. But Caldara said that in the age of automatic bank transfers, union members can easily arrange to have dues deducted if they [...]