NEWS ITEM

Colorado Supreme Court Strikes Down Initiative Barring Public Sector Unions From Making Campaign Contributions

Finds Initiative Violates First Amendment

February 22, 2010 -- The Colorado Supreme Court today affirmed a preliminary injunction blocking on federal constitutional grounds an initiative that would have prohibited public sector unions from making state or local campaign contributions.

The Colorado initiative, known as Amendment 54, would have barred entities that hold "no-bid" contracts with state or local government from making political contributions. The initiative defined collective bargaining agreements to be such "no-bid" contracts. Amendment 54 also would have prohibited public sector unions’ political committees from making contributions, but it did not similarly restrict corporate political committees.

Altshuler Berzon LLP was part of a team of lawyers that represented public sector unions and their officials in the lawsuit challenging Amendment 54. These plaintiffs are also represented by Isaacson Rosenbaum P.C., Buescher Goldhammer Kelman & Dodge, P.C., and the Colorado Education Association. The lawsuit has been consolidated with a similar suit brought by corporate organizations.

The Colorado Supreme Court, reviewing the trial court's preliminary injunction decision de novo, sustained the plaintiffs' challenge on several First Amendment grounds, including that the initiative is insufficiently tailored and vague, and that its discriminatory treatment of unions’ political committees violates the Equal Protection Clause. The court emphasized that the initiative's purported justification -- the appearance of impropriety -- cannot justify its application to public sector unions because "the government does not and cannot select the union with which it contracts" and the benefits of a collective bargaining agreement "flow through to the employees without benefitting the union in any direct way." Accordingly, the court concluded, "the potential of pay-to-play corruption in a collective bargaining agreement [is] exceedingly remote." The court also held that the contribution ban for all "no-bid" contractors was unconstitutionally overbroad in several respects. After concluding that many of the Amendment's provisions were unconstitutional, the court determined that the remaining provisions standing alone did not constitute a meaningful enactment, and struck down the entire initiative.

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