Anonymous dough flows into Colorado initiative campaigns
By Erin Rosa 08/13/2008
Contributions of anonymous cash totaling more than $2.4 million are bankrolling anti-labor and anti-affirmative action campaigns in Colorado. The money is coming from nonprofit organizations that are not required to reveal their financial donors, prompting a former House member and state Senate candidate to consider legislation that could strengthen disclosure for certain nonprofit organizations that get involved with politics.
Three state campaigns — Amendment 46, to ban affirmative-action programs; Amendment 47, to restrict the way unions organize in the state, and Amendment 49, to bar automatic union dues deductions from public employee payrolls — have each predominantly funded their coffers with the help of anonymous nonprofit contributions, records with the secretary of state's office show.
Nonprofits are traditionally “social welfare” organizations that register with the federal Internal Revenue Service, but recently they have been used in Colorado to fund political causes, all while keeping secret the names of donors who have paid for campaign costs or for petition efforts to put a proposal on the ballot.
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