Colorado’s

Ethics Agenda
2010
 Introduction

In recent years, Colorado’s ethics agenda has been at the top of everyone’s mind. From
Amendment 27, which put campaign finance disclosure requirements and contribution
limits into the state constitution in 2002, to HB1370, which strengthened ballot measure
disclosure requirements in 2010, Coloradans have demanded high standards for ethics
and transparency from public officials and groups that try to affect election outcomes.
Founded in 2006, Colorado Ethics Watch’s core mission is to ensure that these high
standards are enforced through legal actions and increased public awareness of ethics and
transparency issues.

In 2010, Colorado legislators and other public officials made progress toward the goal of
eliminating corruption, increasing transparency and closing loopholes that might allow
individuals or businesses to abuse both the system and the public trust. As beneficial as
many of these reforms were, there is more to be done. In 2011, the Colorado legislature
must take a hard look at unresolved issues and commit to fixing these problems before
they snowball into “business as usual.”

In its 5th year of ensuring accountability and promoting transparency, Colorado Ethics
Watch has identified six legislative and regulatory changes that should be addressed in
2011. This year’s Ethics Roundup goes into detail about those six issues, explaining the
situations that illustrate each problem and the needed legal reforms to address them.

From imposing criminal penalties for bribery of a candidate to regulating private

fundraising by government officials, each of these six issues highlights people and
problems similar to those featured in the previous two editions of the Ethics Roundup.
This year, however, Ethics Watch is doing things a little differently. Rather than just
focusing on the problems that arose in 2010, Ethics Roundup 2010 identifies the worst
behavior, analyzes what underlying issues enable this behavior, and concludes that a
specific set of legislative and regulatory fixes would be most effective in ensuring these
misdeeds are not allowed to happen again. These six fixes should be Colorado’s Ethics
Agenda for 2011.

The six specific reforms advocated by Ethics Watch are:

1. Close Loopholes in Disclosure Laws for Ballot Initiative Elections

2. Impose Criminal Penalties for Bribery of a Candidate
3. Strengthen Ethics Rules for Unpaid Members of State Boards and Commissions
4. Improve Collection of Campaign Finance Penalties
5. Regulate Private Fundraising By Government Officials
6. Reform the Independent Ethics Commission’s Investigation and Hearing Process

Many people were in the news and in court, drawing our attention and earning notoriety
in this report. These include Douglas Bruce for his efforts to avoid having to testify in a
campaign finance case, unidentified supporters of Tom Tancredo who allegedly offered
bribes to get Dan Maes to drop out of the race for governor, and State Board of Education

1
member Peggy Littleton for doing business with charter schools under her jurisdiction.
The Pinnacol Assurance board, Colorado Independent Automotive Dealers Political
Committee and the Colorado League of Taxpayers are also highlighted in this report.

Colorado Ethics Watch is dedicated to using every legal tool at our disposal to ensure that
Colorado government is ethical and transparent. From our vantage point, however, it is
evident that in many respects the legal tools available don’t match up to the challenge
presented by groups and individuals who skirt ethical standards. We hope that this year’s
Ethics Roundup will serve as a guide for legal reform to make sure Colorado will enjoy
clean and transparent government for years to come.

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 Close Loopholes in Disclosure Laws for Ballot Initiative Elections

Colorado's ballot initiative system was severely abused this year, with four of the
six voter-initiated measures on the statewide ballot making it to Election Day without
disclosure of who paid for the printing of petitions or the collection of signatures to
qualify those measures for the ballot. 1 Reform already in place for 2011 should curb
some abuses, but the legislature should strengthen enforcement of subpoenas in
campaign finance cases and require non-profits that independently spend on ballot
issue campaigns to disclose their spending.

In theory, this should be the last year Colorado sees shenanigans like those from
the proponents of Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101, who denied knowing how
a petition drive to get those measures on the ballot was funded. 2 A ballot disclosure law
sponsored by Rep. Lois Court (D-Denver), taking effect January 1, will require issue
committee registration no later than when 200 petition sections are printed. 3 This should
make it harder for ballot issue proponents to pretend that they managed to qualify an
issue for the ballot without reaching the $200 reporting threshold. But the problems in
Colorado's system went beyond proponents' failure or refusal to disclose how they paid to
get an initiative on the ballot.

Douglas Bruce revealed a gaping hole in campaign finance enforcement when he

resisted having to testify in the first of two lawsuits filed over Amendments 60 and 61
and Proposition 101. Mr. Bruce evidently understood that administrative law judges in
campaign finance cases have no power to enforce their own subpoenas and gamed the
system for months, forcing the Attorney General to file a new lawsuit as part of a
cumbersome process to have the subpoenas to Mr. Bruce enforced by a Denver District
Court judge. 4 Mr. Bruce’s antics led to calls for reform from both the Colorado Springs
Gazette 5 and The Denver Post. 6 Legislators should take the advice given by these two
editorial boards seriously and give judges in campaign finance cases more authority to
enforce their own subpoenas.

Another issue is that independent groups are permitted to spend freely on ballot
initiatives without disclosure, so long as the group does not have a "major purpose" of

1
Joe Hanel, Ballot funding remains mystery, The Durango Herald, October 29, 2010;
Eileen Welsome, Ballot measures’ sponsors appeal order to divulge financial backers,
The Gazette (Colorado Springs), July 27, 2010.
2
Eileen Welsome, Hearing lifts veil on campaign for disputed measures, The Gazette
(Colorado Springs), May 26, 2010.
3
2010 Colo. Sess. Laws ch. 270.
4
Wayne Laugesen, OUR VIEW: Why Douglas Bruce ignored subpoenas, The Gazette
(Colorado Springs), June 9, 2010; Armando Montaño, Suthers to file contempt motion
against Douglas Bruce, ‘Mr. X’, The Colorado Independent, June 11, 2010.
5
Laugesen, The Gazette, June 9, 2010.
6
Better tools to track initiatives, The Denver Post, October 21, 2010.

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influencing elections. 7 This year, the Independence Institute appears to have disclosed its
spending in support of Amendment 63, the proposed constitutional amendment on health
care, as in-kind contributions to the official pro-63 committee. 8 Another non-profit
group, the Pretrial Justice Institute, operated a website in opposition to Proposition 102 9
but was not legally required to register as an issue committee because of the "major
purpose" rule. 10 These organizations deserve credit for voluntarily revealing their
involvement in these campaigns, but voters should not have to rely on the good faith of
outside groups to find out who is financing a campaign for or against an initiative. The
legislature should expand the independent expenditure disclosure law passed in 2010
after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision 11 to require disclosures by individuals
and groups other than issue committees that spend to support or oppose ballot initiatives.

7
Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 2(10); Campaign and Political Finance Rule 1.7(b), 8
C.C.R. 1505-6.
8
Health Care Choice for Colorado, Report of Contributions and Expenditures
(Amended), July 19, 2010.
9
http://www.votenoto102.org/ (visited November 8, 2010).
10
See Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 2(10)(a)(I).
11
2010 Colo. Sess. Laws ch. 269.

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 Impose Criminal Penalties for Bribery of a Candidate

Colorado’s Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA) provides that “[n]o person shall
offer or give any candidate or candidate committee any money or any other thing of value
for the purpose of encouraging the withdrawal of the candidate's candidacy.” 12 This law
was tested late in this year’s gubernatorial race, when the campaign of Republican
candidate Dan Maes stood by allegations made by Joseph Harrington, a Maes supporter
from Douglas County. Mr. Harrington alleged that supporters of Tom Tancredo were
discussing a potential offer to Mr. Maes of “a bunch of money in a 501(c)(4) non-profit
foundation, in exchange for getting out of the race - with the money coming from some
un-named wealthy donor.” 13

Tancredo supporter Ross Kaminsky denied the specifics of Mr. Harrington’s

allegations, but confirmed that he discussed with Mr. Harrington and an unidentified third
party the “idea of some kind of commission, not a government paid job, but something
that would be funded with private money” as an incentive to exit the race. 14

After the Tancredo campaign denied any knowledge of any scheme to bribe Mr.
Maes to withdraw, Mr. Harrington posted on his Facebook page a video tape of himself
playing a voice mail message purportedly from Bay Buchanan, Mr. Tancredo’s campaign
manager. 15 On the tape, the voice identified as Ms. Buchanan mentioned poll results
showing that Mr. Tancredo was gaining on John Hickenlooper, then said “He’s got to
find somebody that he trusts to talk to us, somebody who he trusts their word” and that
“the time is absolutely now.” While the voice on the tape did not mention any financial
offer in order to induce Mr. Maes to drop out of the race, that would seem to be implied
because there would be no need to “find somebody that he trusts to talk to us” if the plea
were simply that Mr. Maes should drop out due to his sagging poll numbers.

Whether Mr. Maes ever received an illegal offer to drop out of the election
may never be known, but the episode focused attention on the penalties – or lack
thereof – for bribing a candidate to drop out of a race. The statute itself does not
prescribe a specific penalty for a violation. 16 Amendment 27, which revised Colorado’s
campaign finance laws in 2002, specifically included this statute in the list of statutes that
can be privately enforced through a complaint filed with the Secretary of State and heard
before an administrative law judge. 17 Amendment 27 did not, however, specify a penalty
for violation of the candidate bribery statute. According to a 2009 ruling of the Colorado

12
C.R.S. § 1-45-115.
13

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=135454869837839&id=553868138&ref=mf
, visited on October 28, 2010
14
Lynn Bartels, Blogger: I never offered Maes money to quit the race, The Denver Post,
October 19, 2010, http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16377771.
15
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=453813723138, visited on October 25,
2010; Bartels, The Denver Post, October 19, 2010..
16
C.R.S. § 1-45-115.
17
Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 9(2)(a).

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Court of Appeals, the penalties prescribed in Amendment 27 only apply to violations of
contribution and voluntary spending limits contained in the amendment itself and not to
statutory violations. 18 The FCPA’s general penalty provision, in turn, applies only to
those provisions of the FCPA that, unlike the ban on candidate bribery, are not
specifically mentioned in Amendment 27. 19 Thus, civil penalties for violating the ban on
offering bribes to candidates to induce them to drop out are unclear at best.

The larger question is why this form of bribery would be treated as a civil matter
under the FCPA, instead of a crime. All other forms of bribery prohibited under
Colorado law carry criminal penalties. For example, offering money to a voter to induce
him or her to vote, or not to vote, or to vote a certain way is a misdemeanor crime. 20
Colorado’s criminal code makes it a misdemeanor to “trade in public office,” which is
defined as offering money to public or political party officials as a way to obtain
appointment to a position or nomination as a candidate.21 Bribery of a public servant and
financially rewarding a public official for past official action are both felony crimes. 22
There are also felony penalties for private sector bribery 23 and sports bribery. 24 Bribing a
duly nominated candidate to drop out of an election is at least as serious as these other
forms of bribery.

In view of the gravity of an effort to circumvent the political process by

attempting to buy off a nominee for public office, civil penalties are not enough.
Colorado’s ethics agenda needs to include felony criminal penalties for bribery of a
candidate.

18
Sherritt v. Rocky Mountain Fire Dist., 205 P.3d 544, 546 (Colo. App. 2009).
19
C.R.S. § 1-45-111.5(1.5)(b).
20
C.R.S. § 1-13-720.
21
C.R.S. § 18-8-305.
22
C.R.S. §§ 18-8-302 and 303.
23
C.R.S. § 18-5-401.
24
C.R.S. § 18-5-403.

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 Strengthen Ethics Rules for Unpaid Members of State Boards and Commissions

Ethical lapses by members of unpaid boards and commissions made headlines in

2010. Three members of the state board that oversees Pinnacol Assurance, the state
workers’ compensation authority, accompanied Pinnacol executives on a golf vacation to
Pebble Beach, California, apparently at Pinnacol expense. 25 State Board of Education
member Peggy Littleton was revealed to have earned large commissions as a real estate
broker working for charter school operators, 26 even though as a member of the State
Board of Education she would be involved in hearing and deciding a charter school’s
appeal of a school district’s denial of one of her clients’ charter school applications. 27

Both of these actions would be illegal if performed by a paid government

employee. 28 The primary ethics law for unpaid members of boards and commissions,
however, prohibits only official acts that directly benefit businesses owned by
commission members. 29

There are good reasons not to subject unpaid members of state boards and
commissions to the full range of regulations that apply to full-time government
employees. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to ask those board members to avoid
accepting gifts or entering into business deals with people whom they also regulate.
The legislature should amend the ethics statute that applies to members of unpaid boards
and commissions to include these restrictions.

25
Arthur Kane and Tony Kovaleski, Lawmakers Outraged By Pinnacol Trip,
TheDenverChannel.com, May 25, 2010.
26
Pam Zubeck, Talking Out of School, Colorado Springs Independent, October 14,
2010.
27
C.R.S. § 22-2-207(1)(t).
28
Colo. Const. art. XXIX, § 3(2); C.R.S. § 24-18-108.
29
C.R.S. § 24-18-108.5.

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 Improve Collection of Campaign Finance Penalties

At a time when the state cannot afford to squander a single resource, hundreds of
thousands of dollars remain uncollected for outstanding campaign finance penalties.
Failure to collect penalties does more than deprive the state of revenue. Failure to collect
sends the message that there are no real consequences for defying campaign finance laws.

Campaign finance laws in Colorado are primarily enforced through civil penalties
payable to the state. 30 Penalties can arise from simple violations such as missed filings or
more egregious violations like making or accepting unlawful contributions. Late filing
penalties are normally imposed by the Secretary of State and accrue at the rate of $50 per
day unless the Secretary grants a request to reduce the penalty. 31 Other penalties are
typically imposed through the private-party complaint process in the Office of
Administrative Courts. 32 Penalties for violations of contribution and spending limits are
set at “at least double and up to five times the amount contributed, received, or spent.” 33

Some of the largest accrued fines have been imposed on committees that
repeatedly miss deadlines over the course of years without requesting a waiver or
reduction of the penalty. One group, the Colorado Independent Automotive Dealers
Political Committee, amassed $528,500 in fines over a period of three years. 34
According to the Secretary of State’s TRACER campaign finance disclosure website, the
top ten delinquent committees accrued fines totaling $457,900 during the 2010 election
cycle. 35 In other cases, committees that have been assessed fines by an administrative
law judge simply cease operations and fail to pay, as in the case of the Colorado League
of Taxpayers, fined $7150 for disclosure violations in the election for Garfield County
Commissioners in 2008. 36

One reason penalties are nearly impossible to collect is that no personal

liability attaches to the debts of most committees. An issue or political action
committee can avoid collectors by becoming inactive, simply dissolving, or by
ignoring the debt while continuing business as usual.

30
Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 10.
31
Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 10(2).
32
See Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 9(2).
33
Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 10(1).
34
John Ingold, Half-million-dollar fine becomes issue in secretary of state race, The
Denver Post, October 12, 2010.
35
http://tracer.sos.colorado.gov/PublicSite/QuickStats.aspx, visited on November 10,
2010. The top ten delinquent filers were Colorado Reform Party, Advocates for Better
Representation, James R. Phillips, Women of Color United, Olds2008, Jose G. Silva for
Colorado, Colorado Independent Auto Dealers Political Committee, Committee to Elect
Jeff Shaw, Colorado Right-to-Work Committee, and Colorado Federation of Republican
Women Small Donor Committee.
36
David O. Williams, GOP operative Shires still has not paid fine in 2008 Garfield
County election, The Colorado Independent, October 8, 2010.

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 By law, candidates are personally liable for fines assessed against their candidate
committees. 37 There is no parallel provision making anyone personally liable for fines
assessed against issue committees, political committees, or other committees. Imposing
personal liability on registered agents for delinquent committees other than candidate
committees is one alternative the legislature may wish to consider to improve both
compliance and fine collection. 38

Another possible solution would be to empower the Secretary of State to close

committees and prohibit them from operating if the committees miss several consecutive
reports or fail to pay outstanding fines. Under existing rules, the Secretary of State can
administratively close a committee if it fails to file reports for two years. 39 Authorizing
dissolution after a committee has missed three or four consecutive reports or incurs a
significant amount of unpaid fines would improve both compliance and fine collection.

37
Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 10(1).
38
David O. Williams, Secretary of State hobbled in battle against clean-elections
violators, The Colorado Independent, December 4, 2009.
39
Campaign and Political Finance Rule 2.10, 8 C.C.R. 1505-6.

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 Regulate Private Fundraising by Government Officials

As state tax revenues fail to keep pace with Colorado’s growth, public officials
are increasingly turning to private contributions as a source of revenue for public
activities. Questions of transparency around private grants should be answered by a new
state law, but ethics questions around fundraising by state officials remain. To avoid
conflicts of interest, the legislature should enact ethics rules regulating fundraising by
public officials from private individuals and corporations under their jurisdiction.

According to the State Taxpayer Accountability Report (STAR), “Operating

Grants and Contributions” rose substantially during Fiscal Year 2008-09 (the most recent
year for which data is available), largely making up for decreasing tax revenue. 40 The
“Operating Grants and Contributions” category includes federal as well as private grants,
making it impossible to determine the extent to which private funds are being raised by
the state. A new reporting requirement enacted during the 2010 legislative session should
improve transparency of both federal and private grants and allow Coloradans to
understand the extent to which private contributions are funding government
operations. 41 In the City and County of Denver, disclosure of private grants has been
required since 2007. 42 Denver disclosure reports reviewed by Ethics Watch reveal
significant grants from corporations such as Pepsi Cola Company, Wal Mart, and Oracle,
as well as several grants from non-profit organizations and donations from individuals.

As Colorado’s revenue crisis continues, we must expect government to keep

looking to private grants as a source of funds for critical operations. Ethical concerns
may arise when public officials attempt to raise funds for government operations from
corporations and wealthy individuals whom they regulate. In a recent non-binding
advisory opinion, the Independent Ethics Commission (IEC) said that fundraising by
legislators on behalf of quasi-governmental bodies “may carry the actuality or appearance
of impropriety” when that fundraising includes solicitations to lobbyists and corporations
and carries “the appearance of a climate in which interested parties donate . . . in
exchange for support of legislation.” 43

The IEC’s concerns are well-founded, but legislators and executive branch
officials deserve clear, binding guidance as to the ethical restrictions around
fundraising from private parties on behalf of governmental and quasi-governmental
agencies. 44 The legislature, with advice and guidance from the IEC, should craft
statutory restrictions on fundraising by public officials. For example, legislators should
be prohibited from fundraising from corporations who have, or are likely to have
interests, in matters before committees of which the legislator is a member. Executive

40
State Taxpayer Accountability Report FY 2008-09 at p. 2.
41
House Bill 10-1178, codifed as C.R.S. § 24-73-1301 et seq.
42
City and County of Denver Exec. Order 134 (Dec. 20, 2007).
43
Independent Ethics Commission Advisory Opinion 10-14, Acceptance of a Luncheon
from a Political Subdivision, September 16, 2010.
44
See Colo. Const. art. XXIX, §1.

10
branch officials should be prohibited from fundraising from persons actively seeking
government contracts or positions. 45

45
Independent Ethics Commission Advisory Opinion 10-18, Organization and Funding
of Gubernatorial Transition, November 5, 2010.

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 Reform the Independent Ethics Commission’s Investigation and Hearing Process

An overhaul of the Independent Ethics Commission’s (IEC) complaint process is

long overdue – a fact the Commissioners recognize. As currently structured, the process
for submitting complaints to the IEC regarding potential ethics violations by public
officials is ineffectual, overly litigious, and unduly burdensome on the person requesting
an investigation.

According to the constitutional mandate that governs it, the IEC bears ultimate
responsibility for investigating and hearing non-frivolous complaints:

Any person may file a written complaint with the independent ethics
commission asking whether a public officer, member of the general
assembly, local government official, or government employee has failed to
comply with this article or any other standards of conduct or reporting
requirements as provided by law within the preceding twelve months. 46

The state constitution also requires the IEC to “conduct an investigation, hold a
hearing, and render findings on each non-frivolous complaint pursuant to written rules
adopted by the commission.” 47 To fulfill its duty to determine whether an ethics
violation has occurred, commissioners “have the power to subpoena documents and to
subpoena witnesses to make statements and produce documents.” 48

The IEC’s approach to its responsibility to investigate has improved over the
course of the three non-frivolous complaints that have proceeded to a final decision, but
still falls short of fulfilling its constitutional mandate. In its first non-frivolous case, the
IEC refused to conduct any investigation beyond the minimal review required to
determine that the complaint was not frivolous. 49 The IEC took this position even though
the language of the state constitution makes it clear that the IEC’s duty to investigate is
triggered only after the IEC has determined whether the complaint is non-frivolous. 50 In
the second non-frivolous complaint, the IEC did engage staff to investigate some facts
and have those facts presented at the hearing, however, the IEC still required the
complaining person, who was not represented by counsel, to act as a prosecutor at a
hearing where the respondent was represented by a lawyer from the Larimer County
Attorney’s office. 51 In the third case, on Complaint 10-01 against a legislator, the IEC
dismissed the complaint as groundless after the investigation revealed no evidence that an
ethics violation occurred. 52 While the complaining party did not dispute the absence of

46
Colo. Const. art. XXIX, § 5(3)(a).
47
Id. § 5(3)(c).
48
Colo. Const. art. XXIX, §5(4).
49
Procedural Determination, In the Matter of Mike Coffman (IEC Complaint 08-01),
November 3, 2008.
50
Colo. Const. art. XXIX, §5(3)(c).
51
Summary of Final Action, Fry v. Burns (IEC Complaint 09-08), April 19, 2010.
52
Summary of Final Action, O’Dell v. Morse, IEC Complaint 10-01, May 26, 2010.

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evidence, the IEC’s dismissal of the complaint without the type of hearing prescribed in
the IEC’s own rules seems a clear violation of the requirement that the IEC hold a
hearing on each non-frvolous complaint. 53 The IEC should change its rules to
recognize the practical reality that not every non-frivolous complaint should result
in a full-blown trial. Its rules should change to authorize the more flexible procedure
followed in the third case.

The IEC should also take control of the investigation and hearing process. It
currently advises potential complaining parties that “the person filing a complaint has the
burden of proving the allegations set forth in the complaint.” 54 This advice is contrary to
the constitutional requirement that the IEC “conduct an investigation, hold a public
hearing, and render findings on each non-frivolous complaint.” 55 Adversarial hearings
before the IEC have been unnecessarily time-consuming and contentious because the IEC
has not exercised control over the process that precedes the hearing. In addition, the
prospect of having to act as a prosecuting attorney has undoubtedly deterred persons with
knowledge of possible ethics violations from coming forward to the IEC.

To reform the system, the IEC should start by recognizing that the state
constitution does not require the IEC to conduct a trial or any similar adversarial process;
it merely requires that the IEC conduct a “public hearing.” 56 The IEC should also engage
its staff to have primary responsibility for investigating complaints. Once a complaint is
submitted to the IEC asking whether a violation has occurred, the Commissioners and
their staff must preliminarily determine if the complaint is frivolous. If non-frivolous, it
is the IEC’s responsibility to conduct an investigation of the facts alleged. In doing so,
commissioners should exercise their subpoena powers to take statements and obtain
documents that would support proposed findings to be contained in a report to be
submitted by the staff to the IEC.

The IEC should reconsider what type of “public hearing” it will conduct when
determining complaints and revise its rules accordingly. The IEC should resolve
complaints based on its own investigation at a duly noticed public hearing during which
the parties have an opportunity to object to proposed factual conclusions of IEC staff who
investigate the complaint. At such a hearing, a party could present evidence on disputed
issues or simply be heard on the proper application of ethics standards to the established
facts. The Commissioners (not opposing attorneys) should ask questions of any witnesses
a party may wish to present to question the findings of the investigation report. Ethics
committees of the state legislature have conducted hearings in a similar manner, and state
and federal courts frequently utilize a “special master” proceeding under which a

53
Colo. Const. art. XXIX, § 5(3)(a).
54
Colorado Independent Ethics Commission, “FYI 4 - Filing a Complaint with the
Independent Ethics Commission,” http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/DPA-
IEC/IEC/1251580838448, accessed on November 12, 2010.
55
Colo. Const. art. XXIX, §5(3)(c).
56
Id.

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master’s report is presented to a judge, who resolves objections to the report from the
parties at a hearing. 57

The IEC’s dismissal of Complaint 10-01 was a step in the direction of this
procedure – the IEC dismissed the complaint at a public meeting after its investigation
revealed a complete lack of evidence suggesting an ethics violation by the respondent. 58
Under revised rules, Complaint 10-01 could have been resolved in a short public hearing
during which staff presented the results of the investigation and the IEC could have
dismissed the complaint when the complaining party did not object or present any
evidence to contradict the report’s proposed findings.

Finally, the IEC’s rules regarding penalties and sanctions merely state that it has
authority to “impose penalties as provided by law.” 59 The rules and/or the statute
governing the IEC 60 should be revised to describe more specifically its authority to issue
censures, monetary penalties when authorized by law, 61 and/or injunctive relief.

57
F.R.C.P. 53; C.R.C.P. 53.
58
Summary of Final Action, O’Dell v. Morse, IEC Complaint 10-01, May 26, 2010.
59
IEC Rule of Procedure 9.A.
60
C.R.S. § 24-18.5-101.
61
See Colo. Const. art. XXIX, § 6.

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