Colorado Ethics Law Prevails

Denver Post Editorial:

In a refreshing outbreak of common sense, the Colorado Supreme Court on Monday restored the voter-approved Amendment 41 ethics law — ruling that critics of the measure can't overturn the will of the people merely because they are afraid the ballot measure might be enforced in an unreasonable manner, if it ever were to be enforced. ...

The court, in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey, [! ]  specifically avoided ruling on the underlying merits of the amendment Colorado voters approved in 2006 by a margin of 62.3 percent to 37.7 percent. Instead, the state high court simply ruled that the challenge to the law was premature — because "The amendment's ethics commission is not yet in existence, and it has not yet had the opportunity to implement the amendment."

Under the long-standing principle of "judicial restraint," courts don't waste their time writing term papers about hypothetical problems. They have enough to do resolving actual cases posing actual problems. For example, suppose you bought a new stereo and your neighbor sued you just because you might play it loudly at 3 a.m. and disturb his sleep.  It's hard to imagine a court would entertain such a frivolous suit in advance of any actual action on your part that infringed on your neighbor's rights. Yet, that's basically what a Denver district court did last year when it threw out Amendment 41 after plaintiffs, including a lobbyist, a legislator, a county commissioner, a university professor and others, challenged the ban on gifts as "overbroad and vague," and claimed it cast a "chilling effect" on their First Amendment rights.

Critics of the law made outlandish claims, including that it would prevent a university professor from receiving a Nobel prize or children of state employees from accepting scholarships. Such worst-case scenarios assume that anyone would file such absurd complaints in the first place and that the ethics commission would uphold them if they did.

But as the high court wisely noted Monday, Section 5 of the law establishes an independent ethics panel to hear complaints, issue findings, assess penalties and issue advisory opinions on ethics issues stemming from the measure. ...

Now, the ethics commission needs to get to work and translate the will of the people into reasonable and enforceable ethics rules that will help restore public confidence in state and local government.

In Colorado, at least. 

 

Comments

[Michelle Meaders]

Chief Justice mary Mullarkey spoke beautifully at NM Chief Justice Pamela Minzner's memorial service here last year. She apparently has a major mobility problem; I hope it doesn't make her have to retire soon. Don't we have great women judges?