Colorado Peak Politics » transparency

The Pious Hypocrites of Campaign Finance

ahornaday — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:23:59 +0000

Common Cause is apoplectic about the combination of privacy and free speech.

For example, on their national website Common Cause states “The 2012 election will be the most expensive in history, with hundreds of millions spent by ‘independent’ groups that do not disclose their donors.”

It’s not just on the national scene; Common Cause has raised those very concerns right here in Colorado. In response to a rule proposed by the Secretary of State, Elena Nunez, Director of the Colorado branch of Common Cause, expressed the worry that the proposed rules would “allow large entities to spend significant amounts of money” on both ballot issues and in elections without filing public disclosures.

To frighten people about “secret money,” Common Cause frequently cites the arrangement of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. If you are unaware, A SuperPAC like American Crossroads must disclose its contributors, but a 501(c)(4) organization like Crossroads GPS is not required to. When a 501(c)(4) gives to a SuperPAC the SuperPAC reports the contribution from the 501(c)(4), but the 501(c) (4) does not have to report where it got the money that it gave to the SuperPAC. Common Cause joins others in condemning American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS for doing just that.

Sanctimoniously outraged, Common Cause is spearheading several initiatives aimed at changing federal and state law, including the U.S. Constitution, to limit free speech. The funny thing is that in the course of doing so, Common Cause is using the very same tactics it ostensibly abhors to hide the funding sources of its initiatives.
In Colorado we have a type of committee called an “issue committee,” which is analogous to a SuperPAC, but instead of spending money on candidates it spends money on ballot initiatives. Common Cause set up an issue committee, called Coloradans Get Big Money Out of Politics, which I’ll refer to as “Coloradans Get.”

Coloradans Get dutifully files its disclosures including who are its contributors. In the period between June 26, 2012 and July 26, 2012 Coloradans Get raised almost $95,000, but over $68,000 of that sum came from Common Cause, a 501(c) (4) organizations, by the way. One might assume, reasonably, that given its self- appointed role as guardian of transparency, Common Cause discloses all its donors even though the law doesn’t require it to. Such would be a reasonable assumption but an erroneous one.

Common Cause accepts anonymous donations. On an ironically named “Donor Transparency Policy” page, Common Cause has a section making clear that it does take anonymous contributions. On the “Privacy Policy” page, Common Cause states, “Your right to privacy is important to Common Cause. . . . Individuals who wish to make anonymous donations may do so by contacting Bette Marchant, Vice President for Finance.”

To be sure Common Cause does disclose the names of many donors, and for many of those donors the organization indicates a “contribution level,” but this is less informative than one might expect. That voluntary disclosure excludes much information requires of others by both Colorado and Federal rules, including contributor address, the occupation and employer for large contributors, and contribution amount. Moreover, a review of Common Cause’s most recent Annual Report reveals that of the more than $7.5 Million it received in individual contributions, no more than $1.4 Million, or less than 20%, could be estimated by their voluntary disclosure. That’s hardly the full transparency they demand of others.

In sum, we have a 501(c)(4) organization accepting anonymous contributions and giving more than many Coloradans make in a year to Coloradans Get without having to report where it got that money. While certainly Common Cause is complying fully with the law, like Moliere’s famous Tartuffe, it makes an ostentatious show of piety while being nothing more than a hypocrite.

The Green Cult Of Secrecy

KVSloan — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 01:55:31 +0000

Evidently, to the environmental movement, transparency does not work both ways.

Case in point: at a “Uranium Confab” held in Moab UT a couple weeks back, speakers from various and sundry environmental groups provided the rustic looking crowd of about 30 with their take on how mining, uranium mining in particular, effects water, air, local communities, native culture and the like, and calls for reform, many centering on aggressive government action and increased transparency and public (meaning environmentalist) involvement in the permitting process, on the first day of their 2-day event.

I’m not sure what was discussed the second day, as this roving journalist was asked quite pointedly not to come back to the meeting, held in a public room at the Moab Arts Center, on the second day.

Now, for the record, it was not because I was creating a disturbance; I did not leap up on a chair screaming “LIES, DAMN LIES!!” even when such behavior would be clearly warranted – I even suppressed snickers and politely refrained from rolling my eyes at the most egregious of statements. So for what offense was I cast out of this sanctum of environmental and community justice?

Why, I was not one of them, of course. The Sanctum of Environmental Justice is apparently a very exclusive club. Sort of like Skull and Bones, conspicuously absent the dress code, one supposes.

I was not only barred from the second day, however; earlier during the first day, there was a session entitled “The Colorado Model: Legal and Regulatory Strategies” put on by Travis Stills, managing Attorney for the Durango, CO Based firm Energy and Conservation Law, and Jeff Parsons, a lawyer for the Western Mining Action Project, and the lead attorney retained by Telluride’s Sheep Mountain Alliance in their quest to deny the residents of Western Montrose County a uranium mill. As I prepared a fresh page for notes and eagerly settled in to hear what these two had to impart, I was approached by Jennifer Thurston from the Information Network For Responsible Mining (INFORM), the emcee and chief organizer of the event, who asked who I was (I told her), and informed me that this particular session, and the strategy session at the end of the day, were not open to media, due to the “sensitive information” being disseminated.

For anyone who has watched these groups operate over the past several years, it is not too difficult to figure out what Sensitive Information might have been disseminated to this crowd of folks who harbored a hatred for mining, combs, and shaving cream. The Colorado Model is quite simple, really – find a proposed mining , or other energy development, project that you do not want to see the light of day (that would be all of them); have attorneys pore over the applicable documents at each stage of the permitting process; find something, anything , to initiate a lawsuit over (legal standing means little since, thanks to the Equal Access to Justice Act, losing the lawsuit bears no financial burden); and once that lawsuit is settled, take your taxpayer-provided legal fees that you collect from the Government and find something else to sue the permit applicant over. Repeat until the energy company you have targeted simply gives up or moves on.

Since no one other than certified and vetted tree huggers were allowed to listen in, one presumes that these folks fear that this legal ruse might not be met with much laud from the masses who just are not sophisticated enough to fully embrace the cause of environmental justice.

At any rate, what I did hear was creepy enough. John Weisheit of the group “Living Rivers”, for instance, after speaking about what a horrible a piece of legislation the 2005 Energy Policy Act was for permitting some production of energy, and how the Colorado River was “already depleted – and now we are polluting what is left”, enlightened the captive crowd with what the real problem was – technological progress (“technology does not solve problems,” he said, “it creates them”; I almost began to feel sorry for him and several audience members, burdened as they were by their problematic cell phones and laptops) – and, chillingly, the suggested solution: “We have to, yes, look at population control.”

Now, I for one tend to get nervous when I hear people with an affection for using the state to achieve their ends talking about “population control”.

The next session was a panel discussion involving several Native American speakers from groups including the Sierra Club, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment, and the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM) (For the record, “Dine”, besides providing an excuse to use a nice connective consonant in the acronym, means “people” in the Navajo language). During this session I was introduced to the term “environmental racism”, which I gathered to mean that if you support economic development on or near native land, then you clearly hate natives.

Among their other gripes, however, was the hint that not all the tribal members were in lockstep with their acronymned brothers and sisters, as one of the complaints was of divided communities. Apparently some of the Dine have been beguiled by the white oppressor’s jobs, wealth, material improvement and economic opportunity. Perhaps they simply need sister Elizabeth Warren to come out and reacquaint them with the subtleties of their shared culture.

I also learned that one of the strategies these particular groups intend to use to try and halt the uranium industry involves filing a brief with the inter-American Commission on Human Rights, on the grounds that these facilities amount to a violation of the basic human right to drinking water. Getting an international body to intervene is the natural follow up step when domestic processes do not generate the desired outcome. Watch for Occupy Wisconsin to petition the U.N. to send a special envoy to Madison in short order.

Following an actually somewhat interesting presentation on an Assessment of Radionuclides from the existing White Mesa mill (and the entertaining questions which desperately sought to validate preconceived notions of negligence and rampant polluting, disappointingly not really verified in any way by the presentation), came another captivating panel discussion with Robert Tohe from the Sierra Club, Bradley Angel from Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice (where do they come up with these names?) and Jeri Fry from Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste Inc. The session was meant to focus on impacts to local communities at each stage of a uranium mill’s life, but much of the discussion centered on how to handle the inconvenient dilemma of these horrid facilities actually creating jobs and improving the economy.

The answers were… interesting. One panel member suggested that they need to convince the locals that uranium mills are worse than unemployment. Ms Fry, discussing the trouble with navigating the issue that many local residents strongly support the mines and the mill, characterized the problem as being one of “small minded people exhibiting small minded thinking”. There followed statements of how the industry “captures” local communities with such nefarious deeds as funding hospitals and community centres (the bastards).

Their recommended tacks to combat this odious jobs and opportunity message include focusing on vague and unsupported future costs (health concerns, clean up, etc), and to suggest that massive government funded efforts to clean up old mining sites (to be shut down by government funded efforts) will be a prime job creator in the west for years to come. And, of course, their Holy Grail – a renewed push for subsidized wind and solar jobs (no, there was no mention of how solar panels would be constructed without first being able to mine the raw materials. Stop obfuscating the issue, you environmental racist.)

At this point in the proceedings, I was approached by Ms Thurston for a second time, who was “very curious” as to who exactly I was. I reiterated that I was a freelance journalist covering an event that came across my desk, which seemed to have local implications. She appeared rather indignant that I had not registered with her beforehand, as required by the First Amendment (right?) She intimated that this was an invite-only gathering, which I pointed out was odd since it had been advertised on the radio, and that in any case, I had received an email inviting me to it. She muttered something and strode off.

I should point out that Ms Thurston’s less-friendly demeanor occurred shortly after a member of the Grand Junction-based left-enviro organization Western Colorado Congress recognized me. It could be a coincidence.

The final (for me) session was the most interesting; a presentation by Lauren Pagel, the Policy Director for EARTHWORKS, in from Washington D.C. She outlined the legislative goal of these groups – to do away with the 1872 mining law, seen as an obstacle along the approach to their ultimate goal of stopping mining. To that end she mentioned some bills that she thought were just great; Rep. Heinrich’s (D-NM) H.R. 1452 for instance, the Uranium Resources Stewardship Act, which, in a nutshell, would change the mine leasing process in such a way that instead of mining companies deciding where and how to mine, that task would be left with federal land managers (generally the BLM). The only problem with this, that Ms. Pagel saw, was that the BLM does not always hold the environmentalist’s concerns properly front and center, and might therefore sometimes actually approve a mine.

She also mentioned legislation that terrifies the anti-development crowd, specifically Rep. Amodei’s (R-NV) National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, HR 4402. Not only would this bill streamline the permitting process, but would enact some much-needed reforms to the Equal Access to Justice Act, actually making it so that obstructivist groups could not bilk the taxpayers for their legal fees when employing the Colorado Model.

(Now may be a good time to stop what you are doing and write or call your Congressman and Senators, and urge them firmly but politely, to do everything in their earthly power to see that this bill passes. Immediately. This will be here when you get back.)

The bottom line is that the environmental movement, as they openly stated in Moab, does not want mining. Any mining. Or any other fossil fuel. Or nuclear power. Ever. Period. And they are not only willing, but eager to use the state and taxpayer dollars – private wealth, often generated in no small part, directly or indirectly, by the energy development they so vehemently oppose – to shut it all down, regardless of the economic consequences.

It is little wonder that they want to keep that secret.

(This article can also be seen on Americans For Prosperity Colorado's Monkey Wrenching America website.)

Transparency for Higher Ed Struggles, Bears Fruit in K-12

bendegrow — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:31:08 +0000

A couple months ago I noted that Colorado's education transparency train was rolling forward. While the locomotive hasn't been derailed, since that time the engineer has pulled the brakes a couple times. HB 1118, the open union negotiations bill, was sent to its death in a Democratic-controlled Senate committee. Meanwhile, Rep. B.J. Nikkel's higher education transparency bill — HB 1252 — has spent many weeks accumulating dust while the session clock quickly approaches midnight.

But just within the past few days Coloradans have been reminded why having the sunshine is so important. Witness the latest investigative report from 7News' John Ferrugia and Arthur Kane:

In a time of tight budgets, teacher layoffs and increased fees, school districts are still spending money on expensive meals, teacher parties and even gift cards, a CALL7 “You Paid For It” investigation found.

CALL7 Investigators reviewed check registers and credit card databases for the major metro school districts and found thousands of dollars spent on a public relations consultant, gift cards, staff parties and meals at top restaurants. While the totals would never fix the districts' budget deficits, the spending shows that administrators are not cutting potentially wasteful at the time many schools are cutting education resources.

Typical of the genre, the story features a couple “Aha” moments in which local school district administrators have a hard time trying to justify some questionable expenditures. Metro area voters who may have to decide a number of local school tax initiatives this fall might be none the wiser if not for such investigative work.

It's important then to remember that a 2010 law requiring significant online financial transparency from Colorado school districts really made this story possible. A local news agency conceivably could have used the Colorado Open Records Act to uncover some or all of the information featured in the report. However, it would be difficult to generate the “probable cause” needed to spend even more resources and man-hours on an investigation.

The Independence Institute was at the forefront of the call for school spending transparency in 2009 and in 2010. More recently, my former intern Devan Crean and I were able to shine the spotlight on how well (or how poorly) local K-12 agencies were complying with Colorado's Public School Financial Transparency Act. In the immediate aftermath of that report, we heard from several school districts eager to fix their shortcomings.

Let's be clear. The results of neither the 7News investigation nor our 2011 issue paper necessarily indicate some sort of concerted effort among local education agencies to hide their financial activities. Jeffco Public Schools, a district featured in the article for a concerning apparent conflict of interest, actually posted a searchable spending database before the 2010 law was adopted. While transparency may sometimes prevent problems from occurring, in large bureaucracies it often may only help to show the problem is there.

On the other hand, my colleague Amy Oliver has found evidence that indicates why some higher education officials have lobbied this year against transparency legislation. Nine days remain until the end of the legislative session, and HB 1252 finally is scheduled to be heard tomorrow by House Appropriations. The likelihood of both passing the House and speeding through the Senate at this point seems like a daunting challenge.

The fight to preserve and expand government sunshine is ongoing. In spite of setbacks, we need to keep urging Colorado's education transparency train forward to make some more progress. And soon. If you can't defend it, don't spend it!

TRANSPARENT BS: Sal Pace Loves Him Some Sunshine, Except On His Extensive Criminal Record

ColoradoPeakPolitics — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:13:33 +0000

On Sunday, Charles Ashby of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel wrote up a piece on Colorado's less-than-stellar record on ethics and openness in government. A report by the Center for Public Integrity, Public Radio International and Global Integrity gave Colorado a miserable D+ in ethics.

In the article, Congressional candidate and state Rep. Sal Pace (D-Urination) was quoted praising Colorado's transparency laws, despite Pace's own struggles with ethics in government and transparency regarding his own extensive criminal record.

Pace's quote:

“There are strong transparency laws on the books in Colorado,” Pace said. “Sunshine laws require public notice for meetings and require open records for elected officials’ calendars and correspondence. The public holds awesome power, if they choose to utilize it, to keep their elected officials honest.”

Does Pace actually think he can just paper over his own embarrassing past with Common Cause platitudes?

Remember, this is the same politician who received a taxpayer funded bonus of almost $7,000 for working on the political campaign of then-Congressman John Salazar. How's that for ethics in government?

It's also the same political candidate who has a criminal record of two public urination arrests, a bench warrant for failure to appear on the second public urination arrest and a charge of felony burglary to boot.

In order to help Pace out with the idea of transparency in government, click here to see the police and court records of Pace's past brushes with the law.

Since we uncovered the felony charge, the second public urination arrest and some driving record charges last September, Pace has yet to discuss his criminal record on the record.

If you believe so much in transparency, Rep. Pace, why don't you discuss how your bad judgment in the past will make you a better member of Congress?

(Photo Credit: Peoples Press Collective)

Colorado education transparency train rolls on

bendegrow — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 01:50:01 +0000

Yesterday Colorado's House Education Committee gave a bipartisan endorsement of HB 1152, a measure sponsored by Rep. B.J. Nikkel (R-Loveland) to create a publicly-accessible, Web-based financial database for the state's colleges and universities. Higher education has been one of the few sectors of government to avoid the online transparency trend. My colleague Amy Oliver demonstrated how the existing open records law is not enough to fulfill citizens' right to know.

Colorado's K-12 establishment first experienced its own uncomfortable confrontation with the issue in 2009. Senate Bill 57 — requiring school districts to post online revenue and expenditure databases — was never supposed to see the light of day. But the loud voices of everyday citizens, demanding “show me the money,” kept the Senate Education Committee from killing it quietly.

While interest groups eventually were able to buy time and rally opposition to derail SB 57, they recognized the growing steam behind calls for change. Rather than jump in front of the oncoming transparency train, the school board and school executive associations hopped on board. The lobbyists steered it clear of few of the more promising provisions, but 2010's House Bill 1036 represented a largely positive step of good faith openness.

By that time large districts like Jefferson County and Douglas County had set the standard for searchable online financial databases — which goes above and beyond the requirements of HB 1036. The legislation phased in a series of new posting requirements, but enforcement has been mostly dependent on bottom-up pressure. As of last fall only 26 of the state's 178 school districts were fully in compliance, a number that almost surely has risen in the intervening months.

Is the law perfect? By no means. There is room for improvements, some of which will be made more feasible by technological advances. Is the K-12 transparency problem largely solved?

No. It has been crucial to open up the books so taxpayers can go online and see how money is spent. But it also would improve oversight to open up the full policy making process so employees, citizens and their watchdog (the press) can observe all of how the sausage is made. House Bill 1118 by Rep. Kathleen Conti (R-Littleton) would require school districts and unions to make the bargaining process open to public scrutiny.

Let's face it. In a tough economy and tighter budget times, everyday citizens have become more engaged with how scarce tax dollars are being used. But part of the process remains unseen. Union agreements bind many local school boards in how they use public funds, while also setting priorities and policies for local schools and classrooms. Of 41 Colorado districts with union negotiations, all but 2 remain essentially closed from public view. What other private group do we allow to have secret meetings with government officials over tax dollars and official policies?

Two efforts last year to open union negotiations — an unsuccessful one in Jefferson County and a mostly successful one in Colorado Springs — initially fueled the momentum. This year the pressure is coming from Douglas County residents, who have posted an online petition to support union bargaining transparency.

To be absolutely clear, we're talking about a measure that would empower eyes, not voices. It wouldn't be productive to let citizens and members of the press to chime in and disrupt the process, but it would be valuable to allow them to observe the tradeoffs and the justifications for union perks, such as taxpayer-funded leave days. Teachers also would have the opportunity to see whether their union truly bargains for them in good faith. And unions would be reminded that they are bargaining ultimately against taxpayers, not district administrators.

Government higher education is one step closer to following the lead of K-12 and other agencies, and posting their finances online. Meanwhile, school districts and teachers unions face the prospect of having backroom dealings brought into the light. Opponents may win one or both of the current battles, but the larger tide is turning against them. Public education is closer to becoming more truly public property. Colorado's transparency train rolls on.

TREATS FOR TRANSPARENCY: How One Local Activist Has Resorted To Baked Goods To Fund CORA Requests

ColoradoPeakPolitics — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:00:10 +0000

School districts, despite designing the curriculum for civics courses, are generally allergic to transparency. They prefer to take their ever-increasing slice of the General Fund pie, in addition to local property taxes, without having to show taxpayers how their money was spent. It appears they often forget that they are spending the public's money and as such have a responsibility to justify and identify each expenditure.

This troublesome trait reared its head earlier this year when the largest school district in the state, Jefferson County, which has an annual budget of over $1 Billion, refused to open its negotiations with the teacher's union to the public. As teacher salaries and benefits represent the vast majority of the district's budget, it would seem only logical that to provide true transparency you'd need to open up the salary and benefit negotiation to the public.

Unfortunately, the school board felt otherwise and held the negotiations in secret.

This allergy to transparency is popping up again, this time a few miles north of JeffCo in the Thomson school district that encompasses Loveland and Berthoud. The district is proposing a local $153.6 Million tax increase for school funding for this year's ballot, on top of the $3 Billion tax hike known as Prop 103 proposed by Boulder Senator Rollie Heath.

In an effort to find out how the existing budget was being spent, local liberty activist and head of Liberty Watch, Nancy Rumfelt, has been filing Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests regarding current district spending. The district has responded to some of the requests, but included bills into the hundreds of dollars for doing so.

Many of the things Rumfelt has asked for are simple data points like how much the district spent on a poll gauging support for the tax increase and the total budget for the Thomson online school. As Rumfelt is a citizen activist, without the financial backing of super heiresses like Pat Stryker, the burden of the CORA request costs have added up.

In fitting with her local activist profile, Rumfelt is hosting a bake sale in Loveland tomorrow to raise the money for the requests (full details after the jump). The money raised will go directly towards greater transparency. Treats for transparency if you will. Per Liberty Watch:

The monies raised will be used to pay the fees required for access to the data and then also to publish ads in the local newspaper so that citizens can have access to all facts and issues related to 3A Mill Levy Override tax increase. While the mill levy override is a local issue, the issue of transparency in government affects us all and government answers to citizens which many public officials and employees seem to have forgotten!

Other Northern Colorado activists, like Amy Oliver, are adding their own baked goods, with Oliver contributing "clarity cookies" and "procurement poundcake" to the fundraiser.

Just as Ross Kaminsky has found a novel way to finance his political commentary through derivatives trading, Rumfelt is using her own grassroots approach to funding her quest for greater transparency. Conservatives simply don't have the resources afforded to the Left in Colorado by their billionaire backers. They have to be inventive.

We'd love to see Jenny Flanagan out there hawking cupcakes and candy canes to fund Common Cause Colorado, but that probably wouldn't make a dent in their lawyer fees used to sue anything that's conservative and moves. Much easier to just deposit Pat Stryker's latest six figure check.

Cupcakes for Transparency in Education
BAKE SALE!
401 S. Lincoln Ave Loveland CO
Saturday October 8, 2011
10am-1pm
Amy Oliver will be there with "clarity Cookies" and "Procurement Poundcake"
Join us for some fun as we sell some cupcakes, cookies and more!
Questions? Send an email to: libertywatchco@yahoo.com

STAPLETON TO PERA: Time For Some Transparency

ColoradoPeakPolitics — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:09:00 +0000

For some reason, groups like PERA and ColoradoWINS, who receive taxpayer dollars, feel that they are not obligated to be transparent with those taxpayer funds. In the case of the Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA), State Treasurer Walker Stapleton feels differently and is in a position to do something about it — so he sued PERA for refusing to allow him access to essential financial data.

Stapleton wanted access to data for the top 20% of beneficiaries, like the age of retirement and last five years of salary, without employee names, so he could begin to understand how exactly PERA has dug a deficit hole of $21 Billion in unfunded liabilities.

In denying Stapleton access to essential data, PERA gave a litany of tired and specious excuses, like claiming it would cost too much money or the data wasn't essential to Stapleton's job — claims that The Denver Post editorial board called "either laughable or concerning."

Not allowing Stapleton access to the data, so he can get a sense of where the problems lie, is equivalent to telling your accountant planning your retirement that they have no right or need to see your income for the last couple of years. It's a ridiculous attempt at blocking Stapleton from information essential to his duty as State Treasurer and as a board member of PERA.

As Stapleton rightfully pointed out to the Post, more transparency is exactly what the financial system needs, especially when it comes to funds worth billions of dollars:

“If responsible board members had asked these questions at an Enron or a Countrywide or a Lehman Brothers, we would have gone a lot further in addressing the problems that occurred,” Stapleton said. “Our objective in this is to make sure PERA as a plan is kept solvent for current and future employees of Colorado.”

PERA has laughably claimed that they will be solvent for future retirees based on a supposed 8 percent rate of return when for the last decade the rate of return has been a measly 3.3 percent. A fourth grader could tell you that doesn’t add up.

Like many pension funds around the country, PERA is in trouble. Like many public employee, taxpayer supported entities, like the public employee union ColoradoWINS, PERA doesn’t want anyone finding out exactly what is going on.

The Denver Post may not be fans of Stapleton going to court to get his rightful access to essential financial data, but we are glad he did. Entrenched special interests never let go of the reins without a fight.