Same idea surfaces in Colorado

Something similar to the South Dakota and Alaska measures surfaced this year in Colorado, too, and the same questions surround it. The Rocky Mountain News called it a "proposal to bar no-bid government contractors from contributing to political candidates," which is the core of both Alaska's "Anti-Corruption Act" and South Dakota's Initiated Measure 10.

The group proposing it is called Clean Government Colorado, which sounds a lot like South Dakotans for Open and Clean Government -- and like South Carolinians for Responsible Government, for that matter. Clean Government Colorado is run by Tom Lucero, "a University of Colorado regent."

But the Rocky Mountain News found another part of the measure:

The proposed constitutional amendment would ban those contractors or any organization with exclusive collecting bargaining rights - namely, labor unions - from giving political contributions for two years after expiration of the contract.

Any company that violated the rule would lose access to no-bid contracts for three years, and any official taking such a donation could be removed from office.

"Until you change the culture of how government does business, there's this automatic distrust with the citizens," said Lucero, a Republican. "The Clean Government Amendment is specially engineered toward addressing the idea of 'pay to play.' "

The proposed amendment would continue two recent trends in ballot initiatives: Making government more transparent and changing state law in a way that irks union leaders.
...
Jess Knox, executive director of Protect Colorado's Future, said the measure would not shut down corporate contributions but would eliminate a valuable way that union members have to communicate during elections.

Plan would bar some contractor donations
Rocky Mountain News (CO) - July 31, 2008

So the Colorado measure has a strong anti-labor union component, but it would allow corporate contributors to continue doing business as usual.