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Colorado Ethics Watch uses high impact legal actions to hold public officials and organizations accountable for unethical activities that undermine the integrity of state and local government.
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"It makes one wonder why a public official made certain decisions, especially ones that benefited certain interests, when just days, months or years later they take a lucrative job lobbying for the same interests."
Craig Holman, a government affairs expert at Public Citizen, commenting on Scott McInnis' voting record, as quoted in The Denver Post, 07/25/2010.

Related Ethics Headlines

A.G. may seek court action against Douglas Bruce

By Eileen Welsome, The Colorado Springs Gazette,
May 27, 2010

Consultant to Memorial commission will be paid $285K

By Daniel Chacon, The Colorado Springs Gazette,
May 26, 2010

Gov. Ritter approves campaign-disclosure bill

By Joe Hanel, The Durango Herald,
May 26, 2010
DENVER - Companies and unions will be able to spend freely on political races, but they will have to disclose their spending to the public under a bill Gov. Bill Ritter signed Tuesday.

Part of Senate Bill 203 was necessary to bring Colorado's law into compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court's so-called Citizens United ruling that recognized corporations as people, for the purposes of political speech.

New law could block murky funding for initiatives

By Jessica Fender, The Denver Post,
May 26, 2010

Sponsors of a bill signed into law Tuesday say the new restrictions on ballot initiative backers could prevent future tangles like those those surrounding a series of anti-tax measures up before voters in November.

House Bill 1370 requires that issue committees, the term for groups backing initiatives, register with the state and begin disclosing financial information as soon as they print and distribute 200 petitions.

Lawmakers Outraged By Pinnacol Trip

By Arthur Kane and Tony Kovaleski, TheDenverChannel.com,
May 25, 2010

DENVER -- Gov. Bill Ritter called a trip by three Pinnacol Assurance board members “ill-advised,” and there is now a bipartisan call for board resignations after a CALL7 investigation exposed a five-day luxury trip by Pinnacol staff and members of the governor-appointed board.

CALL7 Investigator Tony Kovaleski followed Pinnacol board members to Pebble Beach in mid-May, showing them accepting pricey golf fees, expensive rooms and luxury food and drinks apparently at Pinnacol’s expense.

Hearing lifts veil on campaign for disputed measures

By Eileen Welsome, Colorado Springs Gazette,
May 25, 2010

The head of a professional petition-circulation company in California saw a “cherry opportunity to make a stupid amount of money” by gathering signatures to get three controversial measures on the November

Witness ties Douglas Bruce to three ballot measures

By Eileen Welsome, Colorado Springs Gazette,
May 24, 2010

Colorado Springs resident Douglas Bruce was a guiding force behind a massive signature-gathering campaign that led to placement on the November ballot of three controversial measures, testimony in a campaign finance complaint hearing revealed Monday.

Ritter will sign payday loan, campaign finance and direct file reforms into law

By Joseph Boven, The Colorado Independent,
May 24, 2010

Pinnacol Goes To Court To Prevent Records Release

By Arthur Kane, KMGH-TV 7 Denver,
May 21, 2010

Pinnacol Assurance, a quasi-governmental agency with a Governor-appointed board, is asking a Denver judge to block release of public documents requested as part of a CALL7 investigation.Despite providing similar documents to 7NEWS and other news organizations under the Colorado Open Records Act in the past, Pinnacol is claiming information about a recent golf trip to Pebble Beach is “confidential” and “proprietary.”“Pinnacol seeks a ruling from the Court declaring that the requested documents are subject to an exemption

Ethics panel dismisses complaint against state senator

By Lynn Bartels, The Denver Post,
May 21, 2010

An ethics complaint filed against a
Democratic state senator over his living arrangements in Denver has been
dismissed as "groundless."

The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission voted 4-0 Thursday to
dismiss the complaint against John Morse of Colorado Springs.

Morse has maintained from the start that the complaint was bogus and
part of a Republican strategy to boot him from office.

Council keeping finance rules

By Rachel Carter, The Longmont Times-Call,
May 19, 2010
LONGMONT — The Election Committee is out.

Higher dollar amounts are in.

And the Longmont City Council still has a long way to go.

The City Council decided Tuesday night not to scrap the city’s campaign finance rules and opted against using state regulations.

Instead, the council went through the Election Committee’s long list of recommended changes to the Longmont Fair Campaign Practices Act, voting item by item.


Colorado candidate says finance reports were a mistake

By Steven K. Paulson, Associated Press,
May 19, 2010
DENVER — GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes says he made a mistake when he asked his campaign manager to give him $5,000 a month in cash from January through April to cover "travel expenses."

"We won't do that again," Maes said Tuesday. "In 2009, we didn't have funds to reimburse us for a lot of what we were doing. The easy way to do it was in a round number," Maes said.

Attorney general's 23 attempts to serve Bruce come up empty

By Eileen Welsome, Colorado Springs Gazette,
May 19, 2010

The Colorado Attorney General’s office has made 23 attempts to serve Colorado

It's unclear whether Colo. Sen. Foster's lack of disclosure on sex-offender bill broke rules

By Tim Hoover, The Denver Post,
May 19, 2010

It's unclear whether state Sen. Joyce Foster broke any rules by not disclosing her brother-in-law was a registered sex offender when she amended a bill dealing with sex offenders, Senate President Brandon Shaffer said Tuesday.

Shaffer, D-Longmont, said that while Senate rules say members must disclose any "personal or private interest" in a bill and can't vote on the measure, deciding what meets the definition rests solely with each senator.

Outrage over sex-offender bill

By Peter Marcus, The Denver Daily News,
May 19, 2010
Critics of a measure that would allow sex offenders to choose the court-ordered treatment program they wish to attend are outraged to learn that a family member of the sponsor of the amendment attended one of the treatment programs in question.  

GOP lawyer Ryan Call says he never advised Maes on finances

By Scot Kersgaard, The Colorado Independent,
May 18, 2010

Tuesday, Ryan Call, legal counsel to the Colorado Republican Party, told the Colorado Independent that he has not reviewed gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes’ campaign finance reports and never gave Maes legal advice regarding the reports or the complaint filed against the Maes campaign.

Colorado high court to review Denver Post appeal for Gov. Bill Ritter's cellphone records

By Felisa Cardona, The Denver Post,
May 18, 2010

The Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to review The Denver Post's legal appeal to have access to Gov. Bill Ritter's personal cellphone records.

The newspaper has fought for access to the records since 2008 because the governor uses his personal cellular phone to conduct public business.

Ritter carries a state-issued phone but only occasionally uses it to place calls.

He carries a second cellphone not paid for by taxpayers on which he regularly conducts state business.

Maes: Campaign finance irregularities reflect payment for early expenses

By Scot Kersgaard, The Colorado Independent,
May 18, 2010

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes Monday said all of his campaign expenses are absolutely legitimate. Referring to a complaint filed against his campaign by a Republican activist from Grand Junction, he said, “It is frivolous and it needs to go away.”

Don't reverse progress on real estate regulation

By Arnold Okerman, The Denver Post,
May 17, 2010

Vacant homes and boarded-up businesses in many smaller towns of Colorado and the West stand out like dry tumbleweeds, ready to blow away in the wind.

Yet, in the Colorado legislature, a bill pushed by a brash, ultra-conservative senator is sent to the governor for his signature, by a body of citizen legislators who appear to be blindly, blissfully unaware that the sharply lowered level of regulation they ask for is exactly the reason those buildings are vacant — and why many, many of our people are homeless and jobless.

Maes campaign for governor draws finance complaint

By Scot Kersgaard, The Colorado Independent,
May 14, 2010

According to documents filed with the Colorado Secretary of State, Since October, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes has been paid $33,135 by his own campaign as reimbursement for mileage. Since January, the campaign has paid him $7599 for other expenses, and since February, the campaign has paid his daughter Jordan $5200 to be his assistant. Also since February, Maes has received a flat $5000 a month for mileage.

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