DENVER — A panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Boulder County must allow Rocky Mountain Christian Church to expand its Niwot campus from 128,000 square feet to around 240,000 square feet, The Daily Camera reports.
The ruling upholds a November 2008 jury verdict that found the county had violated federal law by treating the church differently than a secular institution, “unreasonably limiting” religious institutions and imposing a “substantial burden” on religious practices.
The church was represented on appeal by Washington, D.C. attorney Kevin Baine of William & Connolly, joined on the brief by the firm’s Eva Petko Esber and Curtis Mahoney, Eric Rassbach and Lori Windham of the Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and Tom Macdonald of Denver’s Otten Johnson Robinson Neff & Ragonetti.
Boulder Deputy County Attorney David Hughes represented the county, and was joined on the brief by Jean Dubofsky, H. Bissell Carey III, John Bauer, and Dwight Merriam of Robinson & Cole in Boston.
Former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky and Democratic Party lawyer Mark Grueskin are forming a nonprofit group to educate voters about the judicial performance evaluation process in light of an anti-retention campaigned led by Clear The Bench.
Dubofsky’s and Grueskin’s move to form a 501(c)4 organization was disclosed Saturday at the semi-annual meeting of the Colorado Bar Association board of governors. The name of the group wasn’t revealed.
For now, the bar association itself is “on the sidelines” as the anti-retention campaign is concerned, Executive Director Chuck Turner told the more than 100 governors meeting at the historic Stanley Hotel. The board makes final policy decisions on behalf of the 17,000-member association.
Clear The Bench has targeted Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey and justices Michael Bender, Alex Martinez and Nancy Rice.
Editor’s note: Read the full story in this week’s print edition of Law Week Colorado.
DENVER — Congress passed the health care reform bill in March, but Colorado lawyers are still sorting out the legal ramifications of the new law. Colorado’s AG John Suthers joined his counterparts from a number of other states in a lawsuit challenging the implementation of the reform.
The ACLU of Colorado presented a debate at CU Law last month on the merits of the lawsuit. The full video of the debate can be viewed here. Dave Kopel, an attorney and research director at the Independence Institute, supported the lawsuit, while Jean Dubofsky, a former Colorado Supreme Court justice, while Dubofsky questioned Suthers’ standing to sue the federal government. Attorney Judd Golden of ACLU’s Boulder chapter moderated.
Health care reform will be approached from a different angle in an all-star panel discussion, “Mandatory Health Insurance: Is It Constitutional,” Thurs., May 13 at 6:00 p.m. at the Denver office of Kutak Rock.
The event, which is free to attend and nets two CLE credit hours, will again feature Dubofsky, along with Larry Naves, arbiter with JAG and former Denver District Court chief judge, Simon Lazarus, public policy counsel at the National Senior Citizens Law Center, and Richard Westfall, partner at Hale-Westfall and former Colorado solicitor general. The presentation is sponsored by the local chapter of the American Constitution Society.
By Matt Masich, STATE BILL COLORADO
DENVER — Is Amendment 54 a valid way to fight pay-to-play politics or an unconstitutionally overbroad limit on political speech? The state’s highest court will hear oral arguments tomorrow in a case that will resolve that controversy.
Passed into law as a ballot initiative last year, Amendment 54 was widely seen as a move to curtail political contributions from labor unions. The amendment forbids recipients of large sole-source, or “no-bid,” government contracts from contributing to any political campaign in Colorado, except campaigns for federal office. The measure also forbids contract-holders’ immediate family members from contributing on their behalf.
Critics said the amendment’s donation ban violates First Amendment free speech rights. They also said the ban applies to more people in more situations than is warranted by any actual corruption.
Two groups of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the state challenging the amendment shortly after it took effect in January. One group is composed of labor unions, and the other includes nonprofit board members. They all claimed the amendment unjustly prevents them from making political donations.
The case appeared in Denver District Court. In June, Judge Catherine Lemon issued an injunction stopping Amendment 54 from taking effect until an appellate court could rule on its constitutionality. Lemon gave sharp criticism of the amendment in her findings of fact.
“Amendment 54 is so overbroad that it has substantially slipped to the moorings of its justification,” Lemon wrote.
The goal of preventing government corruption is legitimate, she said, but the amendment’s scope exceeds what would be necessary to accomplish that. For instance, the amendment bans applicable sole-source contract holders from donating not just to candidates for offices with authority over their contracts, but to any candidate at any level anywhere in Colorado.
“The connection between the breadth of this ban and its legitimate objective is not merely insufficiently close, it is indiscernible,” Lemon wrote.
In her interpretation, she found the amendment’s language about immediate family members of sole-source contract holders likely forbids them from making political contributions.
Supreme Court Takes Case
The state appealed Lemon’s injunction, and the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. The high court considers it so important to resolve quickly that it fast-tracked the case, shortening the time the attorneys have to file briefs.
At oral arguments on Dec. 3, Maurie Knaizer of the attorney general’s office will represent the state. Bob Liechty of Cross & Liechty filed an amicus brief supporting the state’s position that the amendment is constitutional. Mark Grueskin of Isaacson Rosenbaum will argue for the union plaintiffs. Former Supreme Court Justice Jean Dubofsky will argue for the nonprofit plaintiffs.
Doug Friednash, who is working with Dubofsky representing the nonprofit plaintiffs, said Amendment 54 would have “a substantial impact” on the 2010 campaign season if the Supreme Court were to uphold it.
“[Nonprofit board members] are really forced to decide if they want to serve on boards, generally without pay, to serve the community. If so, are they willing to give up their political speech and association rights? It’s an unfortunate choice that they will be forced to make if this law is upheld,” Friednash said.
Former University of Denver Chancellor Daniel Ritchie, one of the plaintiffs Friednash represents, is the unpaid chief executive officer of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, which has a sole-source contract of more than $100,000 with the city. Under the contribution ban, he would be unable to give money to state political campaigns.
Another plaintiff is Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown. Because he sits on the board of Visit Denver, which also has a large sole-source contract with the city, Brown would be barred from making contributions to his own self-funded campaign.
Liechty, who is arguing on behalf of Clean Government Colorado to get the amendment reinstated, said he agrees that it might be unconstitutional in situations such as Brown’s.
“We’ve argued you can make an exception in the amendment so that he is allowed to fund his own campaign. We don’t have a problem with that,” Liechty said.
But Dubofsky said the amendment is too flawed to fix.
“I am hoping the Colorado Supreme Court will say there are just too many problems with this, and we can’t construe it and construe it and construe it in ways that will make it constitutional,” Dubofsky said.
Liechty also disputes the plaintiffs’ assertion that banning contract holders from contributing to all state campaigns is excessively broad. The amendment was intended to be that broad in scope to prevent an East Coast practice called “wheeling,” in which money is given to one candidate who passes it to another to obscure the fact that influence is being bought.
“They just really overreached,” Dubofsky said. “The whole notion that this is a problem in this state is difficult to comprehend. We’ve never had a problem with this.”
