Financial Issues Dog Second Colorado Egg-As-Person Campaign

Wendy Norris is a freelance writer based in Denver, Colorado, and covers the Rocky Mountain West for RH Reality Check.

One doesn't often encounter political campaigns that take a vow of poverty but Colorado "personhood" supporters have blazed virgin trails before. But that pledge may already be as tarnished as a forgotten purity ring.

At an Aug. 25 press conference at a Denver area post office, ultra-conservative religious activists kicked off another state ballot measure as a thinly veiled attempt to ban abortion, hormonal contraception, in-vitro fertilization and stem cell research by amending the state constitution to provide legal rights to fertilized eggs. Supporters boldly proclaimed Personhood Colorado would be the first all-volunteer campaign in the state's history.

That low-rent promise was delivered in the group's third quarter campaign finance report filed with the Colorado Secretary of State on Oct. 9.

The campaign's cash-on-hand balance was a modest $864.93 after paying a non-itemized expenditure of just $2.55 over the three months when the group was preparing for its ballot hearing and cranking up its petitioning process.

To place the constitutional amendment on the November 2010 ballot Personhood Colorado must collect 76,074 valid signatures by Feb. 15. A steep order for a group that has raised very little money and spent less than the price of a fancy pants cup of coffee.

More curiously though, the third quarter expenses racked up to mail call-to-action letters and petitions to a reported thousand campaign volunteers who previously worked on the defeated 2008 personhood ballot measure at the much-ballyhooed summer press conference remain unknown and undisclosed.

There was no record of photocopying, envelope purchases or postage expenses on the financial report. Though the group's Web site and subsequent news stories are replete with photos of volunteers happily collating packets and hauling tubs brimming with stamped envelopes into the post office.

Attempts to reach the 2010 ballot co-sponsors Gualberto Garcia Jones, director of Personhood Colorado, and Leslie Hanks, a long-time Colorado Right to Life activist, to determine who covered the estimated $1,000 cost of the mailing were not successful.

The peculiarities on Personhood Colorado campaign's recent financial disclosure form may very well be an oversight by fledgling activists. Or it could point to a much more cynical attempt to thwart public accountability by a well-oiled theocratic political machine.

If, in fact, the undeclared outreach effort expenses were an oversight, it wouldn't be the first time personhood activists have failed to fully report their financial activities.

Personhood Colorado's predecessor, Colorado for Equal Rights, amended half of its 13 total reports filed during the active campaign season to account for omitted donations and expenditures. The 2008 group led by Kristi Burton, a then-19-year-old law student who launched the first-in-the-nation ballot measure, was levied a small fine for campaign finance violations for skirting the rules after a Colorado blogger lodged a formal complaint.

In addition to the reporting snafus, the parallels between the two groups are remarkably similar. Both were founded in June — Burton's campaign launched in 2007 and Garcia Jones teamed up with Hanks in 2009. And while both got off to a slow fundraising start, Burton raised $2,400, or four times more than Garcia Jones by the end of third quarter reporting period.

Garcia Jones, a former legal adviser to the anti-abortion fundraising powerhouse American Life League, was recruited to the renewed Colorado effort by Hanks and anti-abortion activists Keith Mason and Cal Zastrow.

Mason, from Wichita, Kan., and Michigan resident Zastrow moved to Colorado to work on the 2008 campaign with Burton. Following a 73-27 electoral drubbing at the polls, the duo founded Personhood USA in June 2009 to launch multiple state efforts to pass constitutional amendments in 2010. Burton is not officially involved with the renewed effort but has been feted by American Life League as a rising star in the movement.

The new suburban Denver-based national group is organized as a 501c4, an advocacy-oriented federal tax-exempt nonprofit organization, and is not required to report its financial backing until January 2011 — months after the election. A loophole in Colorado law does not require this particular strain of political nonprofit to report its activities to state compliance officials. When state legislators cracked down in 2007 on campaign abuses by IRS-designated 527 nonprofit organizations that ranged from allegations of money laundering to deceptive advertising, political activists flocked to the less monitored c4 organizations.

And it's this uncoordinated nature of federal and state campaign reporting rules that creates fertile territory for shadowy activities and less than timely accounting to the public.

Luis Toro, senior counsel for Colorado Ethics Watch, explained that state campaign finance rules on expenditures for issue campaigns are murky at best. A new law to clamp down on petition circulation abuses by issue committees was closely monitored by the statewide watchdog group after allegations were raised in court that a variety of 2008 ballot groups were defrauding voters on the actual intent of the proposed law in order to compel them to sign petitions.

But serious transparency problems remain.

There is no legal requirement to either acknowledge or track funds from so-called "friendly allies" outside the confines of the state-based ballot groups' own books.

Rich Coolidge, spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State, confirmed that issue committees are not subject to the same disclosure laws as candidates, who face much more stringent rules on reporting independent expenditures made by outside groups that can affect an election. Likewise, there are no monetary limits on the amount of contributions issue committees, such as Personhood Colorado, can accept from donors.

Case in point: Twelve days before Election Day 2008, the lobbying arm of the American Life League dumped $200,000 into the Colorado for Equal Rights campaign to push Amendment 48. Yet, other than an obscure major donor report, the contribution never appeared on any of the campaign's financial reports.

The lack of accountability on who is truly financing the reinvigorated personhood ballot efforts raises concerns that money could again pour into the state from well-heeled national anti-abortion groups without full disclosure to the voting public.

It goes without saying that national activists are again using Colorado and other states as electoral proving grounds to challenge Roe v Wade since federal legislative efforts have been fruitless.

"Now with Personhood Colorado, affiliated with Personhood USA, we're again seeing national interests at play," said Monica McCafferty, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, a leading opponent of last year's attempt to pass the first state personhood measure.

"Coloradoans should question if Personhood Colorado really has the state's best interest in mind. Access to affordable health care is already tough enough for Colorado families. If the initiative makes it on the 2010 ballot, Colorado voters will once again be asked to weigh in on a deceptively worded ballot measure – written by extremists with ties beyond Colorado – that would restrict or threaten access to health care."