NEWS ITEM

Court Blocks Colorado Initiative Barring Public Sector Unions From Making Campaign Contributions

Finds Initiative Violates First Amendment Rights of Unions, Members

July 17, 2009 – A Colorado state court judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking on federal constitutional grounds an initiative that would have prohibited all public sector unions with active contracts from making state or local campaign contributions. The initiative, known as Amendment 54, would have barred contributions from entities that hold "no-bid" contracts with state or local government, but then defined collective bargaining agreements to be such "no-bid" contracts. Amendment 54 also would have prohibited public sector unions’ political committees from making contributions, but it did not similarly restrict corporate political committees.

Altshuler Berzon LLP was part of a team of lawyers that represented public sector unions and their officials in their lawsuit challenging Amendment 54. These plaintiffs are also represented by Isaacson Rosenbaum P.C., Buescher Goldhammer Kelman & Dodge, P.C., and the Colorado Education Association. The lawsuit has been consolidated with a similar suit brought by corporate organizations.

The court enjoined Amendment 54 after holding that plaintiffs demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on several First Amendment grounds, including that the initiative is insufficiently tailored and vague, and that its discriminatory treatment of unions’ political committees violates the Equal Protection Clause. The court emphasized that the initiative’s application to collective bargaining agreements was "curious and problematic; they simply do not fit formally or functionally with the rest of the amendment or its asserted state interests." In particular, the court noted that "a public employee union cannot escape Amendment 54's contribution ban, except by refraining from fulfilling its basic mission: the exclusive representation of public employees. Amendment 54 forces affected unions to choose between the two main reasons that its members associate (collective bargaining and collective political voice) and to fulfill only one of those purposes. . . . [U]nlike all other affected contract holders, public sector unions and their political committees are banned from making any political contributions in the state because of what they are rather than because of what they do. There is no legitimate state interest to support this application of Amendment 54."

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