By Greg Campbell, FACE THE STATE

Although a campaign finance complaint from last November still has weeks to go before its hearing in front of an administrative law judge, plaintiff Clear the Bench Colorado (CTBC) has won some key battles in its effort to prove that a consortium of groups behind the Know Your Judge website constituted a political committee that failed to comply with laws governing spending and electioneering.

Last week, an administrative law judge denied a motion by Know Your Judge to quash CTBC’s subpoenas and another motion seeking a protective order limiting the amount of discovery in the case.

At the heart of the complaint is CTCB’s allegation that Know Your Judge—which was funded by defendants the Colorado Bar Association, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, The League of Women Voters and the Colorado Judicial Institute—illegally advocated for the retention of three Supreme Court justices without filing as a political committee. CTBC was formed expressly to convince voters to oust those judges, and, as a political committee itself, was bound by spending and reporting rules.

CTBC issued subpoenas seeking “any documents and communications regarding CTBC, the 2010 Colorado judicial retention election and/or specific Colorado Supreme Court justices subject to a 2010 retention vote; any communication among the Respondents regarding the above subjects; any documents relating to expenditures made in connection with the retention vote; any documents or communications relating to all public appearances by Respondents regarding the retention vote; and all communication between Justices Michael Bender, Alex Martinez and/or Nancy Rice and the Respondents.”

Know Your Judge, which is represented by a team of lawyers—including former Speaker of the House Terrance Carroll—said in its motion to quash that the subpoenas were irrelevant, unreasonable and overly broad. They argued, in part, that the “subpoenas seek to improperly embarrass and harass the Defendants and three specific Colorado Supreme Court Justices. The Complaint would have the (administrative law judge) believe that the major purpose of the website and other public service announcements was to support the retention of three Colorado Supreme Court justices.”

Know Your Judge has argued that its site was purely educational and did not take a position on retention. But CTBC director Matt Arnold—who is representing himself in the case—took issue with the site directing visitors to the Colorado Office of Judicial Performance website, where the three justices are recommended for retention. Arnold argues that this shows the defendants intended to influence the election.

Judge Judith Schulman was unconvinced by Know Your Judge’s motions, writing that “intent clearly is a relevant factor in establishing the elements of CTBC’s claim that Respondents constituted a political committee.” She also denied the defendants motion for a protective order, noting they’d failed to show that the records requested under subpoena contained any “privileged or private information that requires special protection.”

The matter is currently scheduled for a hearing Feb. 23. If the complaint is upheld, the defendants can be levied fines of $50 per day for late reporting, plus two to five times the amount of contributions. The latter fine would equal between $170,000 and $425,000.

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By Brad Jones, FACE THE STATE

The upstart campaign to turn out three Colorado Supreme Court justices got a boost Sunday from The Pueblo Chieftain, its first endorsement from a major newspaper. Clear The Bench Colorado, the all-consuming cause of Denver activist Matt Arnold, has this year pushed to the forefront the issue of judicial retention, usually an afterthought for most voters.

Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll has backed a “no” vote on two of the three targeted justices, though the the newspaper’s official editorial voice so far has been silent on the matter.

The Chieftain, in urging its readers deny retention to Justices Bender, Martinez and Rice, wrote, “These justices consistently have upheld tax increases without requiring voter approval, in direct defiance of the TABOR amendment to the Colorado Constitution.”

The paper points to three decisions in particular: The upholding of a school property tax “freeze,” the classification of certain taxes as “fees” exempt from TABOR, and the suspension of state tax credits “at the expense of Pueblo steelworkers’ paychecks.”

The endorsement provides a much-needed dose of positive press following a court decision that placed strict fundraising limits on the campaign, which until recently had been able to accept unlimited donations. That change comes late in the election season, however, and Clear The Bench has operated on a shoestring since its inception.

None of the three targeted justices has organized a formal campaign to be retained on the bench, though a coalition including the Colorado Bar Association and the League of Women Voters is mounting an effort to promote the positive reviews penned by the state’s Judicial Performance Commission. Clear The Bench is pushing its own evaluations, which are of course far less flattering.

No state Supreme Court justice has ever been denied retention under Colorado’s voter-approved “merit selection” system, in place since 1966.

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Source: Brushfire TV

STATE BILL COLORADO

A campaign to oust three Colorado Supreme Court judges is profiled this week on an Internet TV station called Brushfire TV.

The segment features a sit-down interview with Clear The Bench and its founder, Matt Arnold. The interviewer is Lu Busse, chair of the 9.12 Project Colorado Coalition. The piece opens with footage shot of Arnold on the Capitol west steps at a rally on Sept. 13.

Arnold, a military veteran, recounts how the high court’s 2009 mill-levy tax decision prompted him to begin the issues campaign to advocate for the non-retention of four of justices. They overturned a lower-court decision that held that only voters could approve a tax increase.

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STATE BILL COLORADO

Here are headlines from this week’s Colorado Statesman, the state’s political weekly newspaper.

Clear the Bench benched over campaign violations
Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer has ruled in favor of Colorado Ethics Watch (CEW) regarding campaign finance violations committed by Clear the Bench Colorado (CTBC). Spencer’s ruling requires Clear the Bench to file as a political committee within 20 days of his Sept 22 ruling.

Buescher a target of complaints
Bernie Buescher’s calendar is getting a lot of attention these days.

InnerView with Pat Schroeder
Pat Schroeder — a Denver Democrat who served 12 terms in Congress and was briefly a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary in 1988 — was in town last week for the annual conference of the English-Speaking Union of the United States, an organization she chairs. Schroeder also was the keynote speaker last week at a luncheon celebrating the 40th anniversary of Colorado Common Cause.

Conservative ‘architect’ Rove predicts Buck beats Bennet
Republican political “architect” Karl Rove sounded a call to action — elect conservatives to office — to stem the tide of red-inked federal budgets during a speech before 350 folks attending a Heritage Foundation fundraiser at the Denver Marriott Tech Center on Wednesday.

A Dog of a day for Tancredo
More than a thousand cheering fans packed a country western dance hall Sunday afternoon during a Broncos game to hear a controversial Arizona sheriff and the country’s best-known bounty hunter endorse third-party gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo.

Tax amendment foes foresee economic nightmare
Imagine Invesco Field at Mile High filled nearly to capacity with newly unemployed Coloradans. That’s the image that opponents of Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 want voters to have in their minds as they cast their votes this fall on the three anti-tax amendments.

Coalition raises big bucks in fight against ‘ugly 3’
This year’s battle over three anti-tax initiatives has pitted Republicans, Democrats and business leaders with lots of money to spend against a small issues committee with very little in the bank. The Goliath in the battle over Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101 is Coloradans for Responsible Reform, which is bankrolling the opposition. CFRR, the issues committee put together by the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the business community, has been around off and on since 1994. Its most notable campaign prior to this year was to support Referendum C in 2005.

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By Greg Campbell, FACE THE STATE

Updated below with comments from Marroney and Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey’s office.

Fentress Architects

This diagram shows floor assignments for tenants of the new judicial complex. SCAO: State Court Administrator’s Office; OAG: Office of the Attorney General

Whether it’s Stan Garnett or incumbent John Suthers, the winner of the Attorney General’s race will be the top law enforcement officer in the state—but when he moves into his agency’s new digs at the sprawling $258 million Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center once construction is completed in 2013, his stature won’t be reflected in his location within the building. Although the office was originally planned to be in the crowning spot on the very top floors of the new complex, the state Attorney General will not be the king of that particular hill.

The top two floors with the best views of the city are now slated to be occupied not by an elected official, but by a bureaucrat—the very bureaucrat, in fact, in charge of deciding where in the building tenants would be located.

“I know the Attorney General’s Office feels like they’re being short-changed because they got moved from the top of the building,” said Bill Mosher, the managing director of real estate developer Trammell Crow, and spokesman for the project that officially broke ground Monday morning. “Our client is the State Court Administrator and if they tell us they’re going on the 11th and 12th floors, that’s what we do.”

Jamie Cotten / Law Week Colorado

Bill Mosher, left, with state court administrator Jerry Marroney

The state court administrator, former Pueblo District Judge Jerry Marroney, supervises the Colorado Judicial Branch, which is divided into 22 districts with 304 judgeships and some 3,600 employees. He oversees the Branch budget and manages personnel, payroll and myriad fiscal duties. And according to Mosher, Marroney called the shots on where the various agencies would be located within the new building once it’s completed.

The Judicial Center is being constructed on the lot between 13th and 14th avenues and Lincoln and Broadway, and will be the 600,000-square-foot home to seven different judicial agencies that are currently scattered around downtown in 10 different locations.

The state court administrator wasn’t always on the pinnacle of what is now planned to be a 12-story building.

Soon after the project was approved by the General Assembly in 2006, preliminary plans included as part of a feasibility study showed the complex being composed of two main structures: a five-story courthouse building that would contain the Colorado Supreme Court, the Colorado Court of Appeals, judicial chambers and attorneys offices; and a 10-story office building for the public defender’s office, the office of alternate defense council, the office of attorney regulation, and the AG’s office.

In those original plans, Mosher said, the state court administrator was to be located in the smaller court building. The AG’s office was on the top of the stack of offices in the high-rise.

But the plans were changed more than a year ago, he said. To accommodate the soaring ceilings of the courthouse design and stay in compliance with height restrictions on the north end of the property where the courthouse is to be located, the office building was made taller and State Court Administrator’s Office was relocated.

Attorney General John Suthers

“The State Court Administrator’s office … moved themselves to the top floor of the office building,” Mosher said. “It’s their building and they’re paying for it (through court fees and lease agreements), so they put themselves on top.”

According to Mosher, some within the Attorney General’s Office felt slighted by the change, even though their location within the building hasn’t changed. But if there are any lingering bad feelings, no one’s talking about it.

“We’re not going to comment on where we are placed in the new building,” Attorney General John Suthers’ spokesman Mike Saccone wrote in an email Friday. “You will need to talk to the folks at Judicial if you want more information about why specific entities are located where they are in the new building.”

Marroney spokesman Rob McCallum said Marroney was unavailable to comment before Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony and referred all questions to Mosher.

“Whatever Mr. Mosher told you, I will agree with regardless of you telling me or not (what Mosher discussed),” McCallum said. When asked if Marroney would be available to comment after work hours or over the weekend, McCallum said, “He’s going to tell you to call Mr. Mosher.”

In terms of a territorial dust-up, it’s a minor one compared to what Mosher has seen in the past on other projects in downtown Denver. His company also constructed the Wellington Webb Municipal Building at 201. W. Colfax Ave., and had to contend with 45 different agencies all vying for the best views, the best offices and the best access for their employees. And they also built the Denver Post building next door and had to accommodate two competing newspapers in the same facility.

“They didn’t even want to be in the same town, much less be in the same building,” Mosher recalled.

Compared to that experience, he said, “This group’s been fabulous to work with.”

---

Jamie Cotten / Law Week Colorado

Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey, right, watches as Gov. Bill Ritter makes his mark at the groundbreaking of the state’s new judicial complex in Denver.

Update: State Court Administrator Jerry Marroney, when contacted Monday at the groundbreaking ceremony, said that although he signed off on the location of his office and agrees that it belongs on top of the new Ralph L. Carr Justice Center, the decision to put his agency above the Attorney General’s wasn’t his—he said Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey made the call.

“The Chief Justice made the decision,” Marroney said, adding that it was based on the fact that his office is appointed by and represents the Supreme Court. “It’s not about me.”

Rob McCallum, State Court Administrator spokesman, replied to a phone message on behalf of Mullarkey, who confirmed that the decision was hers.

The news provides yet another wrinkle of intrigue—Attorney General John Suthers was quoted in a Business Week blog in January saying that he would vote against retaining Mullarkey and two other Supreme Court justices in November. Mullarkey pre-empted such a vote by announcing her resignation earlier this year; she’d served on the Supreme Court since 1987.

(The Business Week blog is offline, but read an analysis and some quotes from it on this Clear the Bench Colorado blog.)

“I think (the Attorney General’s office) thought it was political,” Marroney said. “They were accusing the Chief Justice of making the decision because of Suthers’ comments, but if you look back at the drawings, this thing was (planned out) like a year before Suthers ever made those statements. … It has nothing to do with politics.”

“It was not my call,” he said of his involvement in getting the top floors of the new building, which is slated for completion in 2013. “(Mullarkey’s) my boss. And I don’t think she’s wrong.”

Suthers’ office, in an e-mail last week, declined to comment about the Attorney General’s location within the building.

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By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
A group dedicated to the ouster of three state Supreme Court justices reacted Monday to a Friday ruling that the group must register as a political committee, arguing that the ruling “undermines transparency and accountability in judicial retention vote.”
The Friday ruling by Administrative Law Judge Robert Spencer essentially sets a precedent, stating that committees that advocate for or against the retention of a state judge or justice must register as a political committee. Clear The Bench Colorado had registered as an issue committee.
The issue for Colorado Ethics Watch — which filed a lawsuit against Clear The Bench Colorado, setting up Spencer’s ruling — is about restrictions on campaign fundraising and reporting. Issue committees have no limitations on contributions, but political committees are limited to $525 per person.
On Friday, Ethics Watch — which has been accused of being a liberal-leaning organization, though Ethics Watch maintains it is bipartisan in its approach — said the ruling is a victory for Colorado voters who approved Amendment 27 in 2002. The voter-approved state campaign finance overhaul required that judges being voted for retention on an election ballot be considered candidates, argued Ethics Watch.
“The law does not permit a wealthy few to unduly influence the judicial retention process through large contributions against judges and justices whose rulings they don’t like,” said Luis Toro, director of Colorado Ethics Watch. “Ethics Watch prevailed (Friday) in setting precedent to keep big money out of judicial elections, but today’s decision is also a victory for an independent, nonpartisan, merit-based judicial system in Colorado.”
Clear The Bench Colorado — which like Ethics Watch has been accused of being partisan in nature, except leaning to the right — is seeking to oust the three state Supreme Court justices standing in retention elections this fall. The justices are Michael Bender, Alex Martinez and Nancy Rice, all of whom were appointed by Democrat former Gov. Roy Romer.
The group is berating the justices for a past ruling in favor of a plan by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter to freeze property tax mill levies in local school districts, as well as allowing the Legislature to eliminate tax credits and exemptions for businesses without a vote of the people. The group believes the justices have redefined taxes as fees to allow for tax increases without a vote of the people under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
In a news release issued Monday, Clear The Bench Colorado director Matt Arnold said Judge Spencer’s ruling “makes a mockery of the process of citizen civic engagement.” He said the ruling achieves the opposite of Colorado Ethics Watch’s intention of restricting campaign finance spending.
“Big-money special interests will now be more prone to attempt to influence judicial retention elections behind the scenes, using vehicles other than the open and accountable ‘Issue Committee’ organization types such as Clear The Bench Colorado,” wrote Arnold.
“In fact, big-money legal establishment special-interest groups are already active this year in promoting a ‘retain’ vote for judicial incumbents” continued Arnold. “They’re just significantly less honest about their intentions.”
Spencer ordered Clear The Bench to register as a political committee within 20 days, but declined to sanction the group. Arnold had argued that his organization worked closely with the Secretary of State’s office in deciding to register as an issue committee.
Clear The Bench is concerned that it is now required to comply with the judge’s ruling at such a late date — mail ballots are currently being prepared to go out to voters.
“Forcing CTBC to re-file under a different set if rules — changed in the final quarter — makes a mockery of justice,” said Arnold.

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STATE BILL COLORADO

The Broomfield 9/12 group is rallying at Colorado’s Capitol today in an event featuring speaker Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger, commentator and author.

The event is dubbed “We Are The People.” Afterwards, a VIP reception with Breitbart will be held at Denver’s Broker Restaurant.

Prominent at the rally are members of Clear The Bench Colorado, a political group hoping to win voter non-retention of three Supreme Court justices in the November election.

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By Todd Engdahl, EDUCATION NEWS COLORADO
Two top Senate leaders Wednesday unveiled a revised version of Senate Bill 10-003, the higher education flexibility bill, that would give state colleges and universities greater freedom to set their tuition rates and more flexibility in their financial affairs but also create new requirements for maintaining student access and affordability and for improving quality.
The proposal also would give advisory student members on college boards the right to vote – but only on budget matters. (That wouldn’t apply to the University of Colorado Board of Regents, whose members are elected by the voters.)
Also up consideration at the Statehouse is a resolution to allow video keno games in bars and restaurants, with revenue going to colleges.
The rewritten version of SB 10-003, originally introduced last Jan. 13, will have its first hearing, in the Senate Education Committee, on April 28, just 10 working days before the legislature must adjourn. It was unveiled during a “stakeholder” meeting Tuesday.
The bill has its origins in a study committee that met last summer but since January has been the subject of lengthy behind-the-scenes discussions about tuition policy, how much financial freedom colleges should have and how to best deal with an intensified financial crunch that’s expected to hit higher ed beginning in 2011-12.
Senate Majority Leader John Morse, R-Colorado Springs, and Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, have been leading the effort. College presidents, who’ve long sought more freedom to manage their budgets, the Department of Higher Education and the business-backed civic group Colorado Concern also have been part of the talks.
The proposed revisions to the bill cover a wide range of issues.
Tuition and budgets
Beginning in 2011-10, college boards could set their own resident and non-resident tuition rates. (Currently annual ceilings are set by the legislature.)
But, boards could not raise resident undergraduate tuition more than 9 percent a year unless a higher increase was needed to cover “significant decreases” in direct state support.
Beginning next Nov. 10 (and every Nov. 10 after that), each college and university would have to submit detailed, five-year financial projections to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education and the Joint Budget Committee. The projections would have to include projected tuition revenue, other sources of revenue and funding plans for various levels of increase or decrease in direct state funding.
Those reports also would have to include a governing board’s plan for preserving accessibility and affordability for low- and middle-income students, plans for use of need-based financial aid, and plans for improving student retention.
By next Dec. 10, and every December thereafter, the CCHE would have to give the JBC an overall higher ed system plan for handling reductions in state support.
College quality
The revised bill also would require each governing board to annually give the commission a five-year plan for performance goals in areas such as access and affordability, improved student success, improved quality of instruction, improved operational efficiency and substantial additional information.
The CCHE would be required to establish benchmarks by which to evaluate each institution’s plan and annually review progress. Those progress reports would have to be submitted to the JBC.
Institutions that failed to meet one or more benchmarks by 5 percent or more would lose some of its tuition-setting freedom.
(The bill would repeal the existing system of performance contracts.)
Enrollment
The bill also would change the current controls over numbers of resident and non-resident students, allowing colleges to admit as many non-residents as they chose. But, colleges would have to admit all qualified Colorado applicants based on admissions requirements, plus the additional 20 percent of Colorado students colleges can admit for other reasons. (That’s the so-called “window.”)
Financial operations
The revised bill also proposes various changes in the degree to which certain state construction, purchasing and financial rules and procedures apply to colleges and universities. It also contains some provisions that would apply only to the Colorado School of Mines.
The higher ed flexibility discussion comes at a time when college and university spending has been maintained only through increased tuition and federal stimulus funds. Some legislators fear higher education may have to be cut by $300 million in 2011-12, with a similar cut for K-12 aid.
It’s unclear how the bill might fit – or conflict – with the ongoing higher education strategic plan study that was commissioned by outgoing Gov. Bill Ritter. The administration in the past has urged that no major changes be made in higher education until after the strategic plan is finished at the end of this year.
College presidents and some legislators have been pressing for action to be taken sooner.

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Erin Toll

Ted Harvey

By Don Knox, STATE BILL COLORADO
DENVER — The apparent benching of the state’s top real estate regulator by her higher-ups at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies is shining a light on both the regulatory and legislative functions of state government.
Is the story of Erin Toll a case of a too-tough regulator overstepping her bounds? Is the story of Sen. Ted Harvey a legislator who’s also a regulated person improperly using the legislative process to strike back?
Is it both? Is it neither?
Today, State Bill Colorado encourages our readers to listen for themselves.
Toll, Colorado’s real-estate regulator, was put on leave last week, but neither she nor her bosses are talking about the reasons. She also was schooled by legislators in another way: Colorado’s Senate preliminarily voted March 12 to return mortgage regulation to a board instead of putting it in Toll’s hands.
What prompted such moves?
Toll, a lawyer and former state insurance regulator, found herself at the center of a political firestorm when she confirmed to the Associated Press earlier this month that she was investigating the mortgage company that employs the senator – and mentioned the senator by name.
That disclosure followed a legislative hearing at which Toll, Harvey and other Republican senators sparred – politely, it should be noted – about two issues concerning Toll’s regulatory behavior.
* Whether a board or a single individual should decide whether enforcement actions go forward for “appraisal management companies.” In Colorado, boards make many regulatory decisions but frequently act lightly upon the industries they regulate. But when it comes to mortgage brokers, Toll is the sole regulator – for which she’s been frequently criticized by the industry.
* A delay in the so-called “sunset review” of the mortgage-broker regulations, first passed in 2006. The review was to take place in 2011, but a pending bill drafted by regulators, including Toll, called for the review to occur three years later. Harvey called the delay “irresponsible.”
Both issues were the subject of a March 2 hearing of the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee. SB10-077, the bill regulating the appraisal management companies, was killed eight days later. HB10-1141, the bill making changes to mortgage-broker regulations, was amended to return regulation to a board model and away from a single regulator model. (The bill, as amended, has preliminarily passed the Senate but now conflicts with the version passed a month ago by Colorado’s House and would head to a conference committee.
The March 2 hearing prominently featured Toll and Harvey as well as Republican senators Shawn Mitchell and Mark Scheffel.
The story picks up nearly 10 minutes into the hearing, where Toll describes how the original appraisal-management company bill was amended to go to the director model, instead of the board model.

Press the audio player now.

Toll tells Harvey and the other legislators that the package of changes came at the request of the Colorado Bankers Association, which is why the new version “looks so different.”

At 10:54, Harvey responds: “Thank you Madame Chair. Director Toll, I have a problem with the director model, I was wondering if you can go further about who would be opposed to that, I think when you have a board that has the ability to be a buffer between the industry and a director, kind of an appeals process, if you will, you have a board that is accountable to the community at large, the business community at large. … When you have director scenario, you don’t. I think you can see that come into play with the appraisal board, with the realtor board, … when you have a director model as you do with the mortgage industry, you don’t have an appeals process, you have a dictatorial process where whatever the director says go, and I have a problem with that.

Toll then counters: “First of all, Sen. Harvey, there is a trend across the country and shows the board and commission models aren’t working because it’s foxes watching the henhouse. … You know I’m a robust regulator, this is not my idea, this was originally a board model, this request … was made by the bankers, they felt strongly and I understand that because there are appraisers on the board of real estate appraisers who are not friendly … toward … appraisal management companies, they felt that the appraisal management companies are not held in favor by some, many, of the mom and pop appraisers. … This wasn’t my idea, Sen Harvey.

At this point, 14:07 into the meeting, Sen. Mitchell says: “I guess following on that interesting line of discussion, you’ve commented on input received from the industry which prompted industry to go neutral or in some cases support the bill. That kind of agreement arises in different dynamics, one dynamic is … there are industries that agree to bills because they’re afraid of you, and they’re afraid of you targeting them and they would rather be in your good graces than otherwise.”

At this point, Toll, sounding flustered and with a nervous laugh, defends herself, saying she’s merely enforcing the laws that the legislators themselves have passed: “ I don’t know what to comment, I don’t know what to say, I’m just like I appear. (laughs). I’ve heard some things, and seen some things, and I’ll tell you Sen. Mitchell that I do what I think is right based on what you tell me you want, I don’t make laws I enforce the laws that you tell me are right, if you really want to get into my personal beliefs … we have more than enough laws … and the problem is no one’s enforcing what we have … “

At this point, pause the audio player above.

It’s an hour later, and Sen. Harvey has just questioned mortgage lender lobbyist and former Rep. Fran Coleman about the language moving the sunset date from 2011 to 2014 (or possibly 2013). Coleman tells the senator she agreed to a request to move it to 2013 because there’s a sunset of the entire Real Estate Commission then.

Harvey, who works in the industry, resists the effort to delay the review.

Now press the audio player below.

Harvey: “Like I said before, when we passed this bill in 2007, we said there would be $1.9 million coming in from licensing fees because 9,600 mortgage brokers, there’s a significant change in the market now … I think there’s a significant need to review that with the sunset review, the industry is totally different from when we passed the bill in 2007, to suggest we should push this back to 2014, three years beyond what the law required, is … what’s the word, irresponsible of this body … even pushing it back to 2013 is irresponsible.”

Coleman responds by saying the industry adopted a middle-ground position at the request of the Department of Regulatory Agencies.

Harvey then quizzes committee chair and HB10-1141 sponsor Sen. Lois Tochtrop about the date switch. She responds, in part, “I don’t have a dog in that fight” and Toll is asked to return to the committee to respond.

Toll: “The reason is efficiencies and the state of economy right now. … This will be the seventh mortgage broker bill passed since 2007, when DORA started to do the sunset review of the existing bill, there wasn’t enough time to view the effects of the bill. … the original registration bill was in 2006, in that bill there was a sunset in 2011. In 2007 four more bills were passed, and it stayed 2011. … it didn’t make sense after one year or two years after implementation to be doing a sunset review … 2013 sounded fine, too.

Harvey: But director, I beg to differ, the bill we passed last year was just a compliance bill, it wasn’t anything drastic … what is in statute is we’ll be doing a sunset review of the mortgage licensing 2006, 2007, when we had a fiscal note that said 9,000 mortgage brokers paying these fees and now we have less than 4,000 today we have a totally different industry than we did in 2007, I think it’s totally appropriate for us to have a sunset review to review what is the current industry out there … “

As you can hear, the meeting, at least as the audio record is concerned, is civil, if tense. Toll is at first easy-going and then later flummoxed; Harvey is intent and persistent. Sometime after the meeting, Toll’s interview with the Associated Press sets of an apparent chain of events that includes Harvey’s protests, DORA’s clarification and Toll’s being put on leave. But legislatively, roadblocks are thrown in Toll’s way: The appraisal management bill, SB10-077, is killed eight days later. And 13 days later, HB10-1141 is amended to move mortgage regulation in Colorado to a board model and away from the director model practiced by Toll.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: From Toll’s vantage, tough regulators are unloved, and this is the clearest evidence yet. From Harvey’s vantage, it’s karma will eventually catch up with regulators who take the hardest possible line. And I’ll add a third moral: Don’t mess with a sitting senator.

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Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said this week he will vote to kick out three of the four Colorado Supreme Court justices in November’s retention election, according to The Business Word blog.
In a statement at an Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club breakfast, Suthers said he will vote not to retain Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey and Justices Michael Bender and Alex Martinez, while voting to retain Justice Nancy Rice. Suthers could not be immediately reached to confirm this report. Suthers has openly speculated about partisan motives of the Supreme Court in the past.
The move was praised by Clear the Bench Colorado, the group advocating the ouster of all four justices up for retention.

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