Colorado lawmakers consider caps on city race donations, as big money flows in Colorado Springs elections

Mar. 20—As Colorado Springs sees hundreds of thousands of dollars pour into the mayoral and City Council races, the General Assembly is considering a cap on donations from individuals and committees giving to candidates in municipal elections across Colorado.

The bill introduced last week, HB23-1245, would cap donations from individuals to candidates at $250 and donations from small-donor committees to candidates at $2,500, among other requirements. The proposed caps are meant to help limit undue influence from single donors and encourage candidates to connect with more people in the community, said sponsor Rep. Jennifer Parenti, a Democrat who represents Erie, Firestone and surrounding communities.

"It creates an imbalance of power when you have got one person or one organization who can disproportionately contribute to a political race," she said.

Across the state, some of the largest donations in city elections come from oil and gas companies and developers, Parenti said.

The law could apply to Colorado Springs because it does not have any campaign donation limits, but there is some question about that because it is a home rule city.

Without any caps, developers, business interests and dark money groups have heavily backed certain candidates in the upcoming April 4 election. For example, Defend Colorado has given $100,000 to Citizens for Responsible Leadership and $200,000 to Citizens for Protecting our Water. The committees are backing City Councilman Wayne Williams for mayor and a specific slate of council candidates. Defend Colorado is a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors. At the same time a committee backed by a Denver-based business called Stand Against Monopolies LLC has put $100,000 into ads blasting Williams.

The top three mayoral candidates have also significantly outraised competitors with help from business interests. Williams is in first place with about $540,000, followed by former City Councilwoman and El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark who has raised about $400,000. Businessman Yemi Mobolade has raised about $360,000. His donations on average have been significantly smaller. Businessman Andrew Dalby is also among the top spenders in the race after giving himself a $375,000 loan, according to city campaign finance disclosures.

A few Colorado Springs nonprofits and leaders say caps on donations could help, but likely would not solve what they see as the most troublesome problem in local elections — dark money. Another statewide group, the Colorado Municipal League, opposes the bill.

Former Mayor Steve Bach said he would support limits on campaign donations to ensure candidates don't get priced out.

"I would not have been able to compete in any way with the amount of money that is being spent in this campaign," said Bach, who was a newcomer to politics when he was elected in 2011. He would also like to see requirements to ensure all donors are disclosed. Some nonprofits do not have to disclose donors in elections.

The Citizens Project Executive Director Mike Williams said he supported the idea behind the bill to involve more people and make elections more equitable.

"I like the spirit of it," he said.

But he was concerned it would not go far enough to limit the impact big spenders can have and they would likely find ways to work around the rules. It is important to limit donations because at times special-interest groups can weigh in on local elections and sway the conversation away from those issues most important to voters, he said. In southeast Colorado Springs some of the biggest issues for voters have been investing in public transportation, working to address homelessness in a humane way and investing in neighborhoods without contributing to gentrification.

Integrity Matters, a nonprofit Colorado Springs resident group, said in a written statement it would like to see a measure that would include caps for nonprofits, businesses, labor unions and other entities and achieve full transparency.

"We do support dialing down the obscene amount of money and forcing transparency in reporting, especially eliminating Dark Money groups; we don't want to provide the wealthy elite with more power by stripping the small donors of their relatively modest means of participating in our elections," the group said.

The nonprofit filed a campaign finance complaint against Wayne Williams. The City Clerk's Office and the Human Resources Department later found he hadn't broken city rules. Integrity Matters also has a related committee to weigh in on the April election that has raised a modest amount of money compared to other committees in the race.

The Colorado Municipal League, a group that works on issues on behalf of cities, opposes the measure, but declined to elaborate. The group typically supports local control on similar issues.

Parenti said she could see cities disagreeing on the level of donation caps. Instead of relying on a statewide measure, residents in home rule cities like Colorado Springs can run ballot questions to place limits on donations and address the issue themselves, she said.

Since introducing the bill last week, she has received positive feedback on it from residents.

"I think there are a lot of people out there who are really looking for this," she said.