DENVER – A university group looking for solutions to the flood of money in politics has come up with an unusual solution – more money.
Colorado has some of the lowest campaign donation limits in the country – $200 for candidates for the Legislature, and $1,100 for governor.
Denver University’s Strategic Issues Program recommended Tuesday that the state blow the lid off those limits and let people give whatever they want to a candidate or political party.
The current limits are supposed to keep excess money out of politics, said James Griesemer, the panel’s chairman.
“You know, that’s not how it’s working. We’re not reducing the amount of money in politics,” Griesemer said. “All we’re doing is rechanneling it.”
While candidates and parties cope with low limits, outside groups – the ones with a vague names like Americans for America – can spend unlimited money and never reveal their donors.
Supreme Court decisions – especially the Citizens United case – have opened the door to unlimited spending by corporations and rich people. Although many members of the DU panel disagree with the high court, they decided to “take the world as we find it” and recommend new laws for the era of unlimited political money, Griesemer said.
The group also tackled the “dark money” problem.
The last several elections have seen millions of dollars in secret money flow into Colorado through nonprofit groups operating under sections 501(c)4 or 501(c)6 of the tax code. Such groups are allowed to spend on politics, and they don’t have to reveal their donors.
For example, the donors behind most of the money spent for and against the campaign to legalize marijuana in 2012 were never revealed, because the money flowed through nonprofit groups.
The DU panel recommended that such nonprofits be forced to reveal who is funding them if they want to participate in Colorado politics.
Elena Nunez, director of Colorado Common Cause, liked the recommendation to force political nonprofit groups to reveal their donors.
But Common Cause was a prime author of the state’s low donation limits, and Nunez said getting rid of them won’t solve any problems.
“That still drowns out the voices of everyday Coloradans who can’t write $1,000 checks, $100,000 checks or more,” she said.
A better solution, Nunez said, is to push for a U.S. Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
The Strategic Issues Panel tackles a difficult problem every year by inviting state leaders from across the political spectrum to study it in detail.
