<p>Well, if an athlete contributes something of equal or better value to a school by attending, maybe someone could make the case that an academic superstar also contributes something of value to a school by attending!</p>
<p>MoT:</p>
<p>Maybe. It looks like an ambiguity to me. Regardless, it’s just a mess of a law. To me, it’s just one more argument for a representative government. Pure democracy is an idiotic way to run a country.</p>
<p>I strongly oppose messing with constitutions, especially the US constitution, but also state constitutions. Colorado apparently messed up, and really needs to fix this. (I am not saying don’t amend, but only amend for serious purpose, and think about it first) </p>
<p>Garland, the NJ state constituion was written when? 1700s? Includes the following:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here we are in 2007 and finally the legislature realizes this language is very un-PC and should be changed, removing the offensive word “idiot” and substituting I don’t know, “incompetent”? They don’t want to use the word “handicapped” The point is, the word “idiot” after all these years was deemed offensive. My little joke was that the lawmakers feared that the constitution might be referring to them.</p>
<p>Looks like “idiot” and “insane” are offensive. Here is the official explanation:</p>
<p>“Approval of this amendment concerning the denial of the right to vote would delete the phrase ‘idiot or insane person’ and replace that phrase with ‘person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting’ in describing those persons who shall be denied the right to vote.”</p>
<p>And someday “lack the capacity” will be deemed offensive and there’ll be a move to change that - idiots!</p>
<p>So, if one is a graduate student at a Colorado public university, and has a teaching assistant job, Said student couldn’t accept grants for research or scholarships? Crazy. Hmm.</p>
<p>is THIS constitutional, to put this in an amendment…I would think maybe this might be looked into</p>
<p>Legislation may be enacted to facilitate the operation of this article, but in no way shall such legislation limit or restrict the provisions of this article . . ."</p>
<p>cgm:</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think that would be unconstitutional. It basically says that you can’t muck with the intent of the amendment. But, as I’ve said, I’m not legally trained in any way. Just a guess.</p>
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<p>Talk about an instant brain drain! If I were a professor at one of the state colleges in Colorado, the day that I got the call from Stockholm would be my last day as a state employee. I’d quit, accept the million dollars and the Nobel medal, and find another job elsewhere. I’m sure that plenty of schools like HYPSM would be eager to take me on.</p>
<p>Colorado does have a Nobel prize physicist who’s a government employee: Eric Cornell. I assume this is not retrospective!</p>
<p>For the CC lawyers: </p>
<p>Would this constitutional amendment be opened to challenges on the grounds of discrimination and the Equal Protection Amendment?</p>
<p>The State of Colorado better increase the wages of the vast majority of its employees so their kids can afford college- by the numbers there are many more low than high income wage earners empoyed by the public sector, including states. The scholarship student can’t work on campus…glad it was another state that gives the rest of us the lesson. Ouch, something to not like about the state.</p>
<p>Don’t you know that “big money” (not unions, of course) are trying to buy legislation by offering legislators lots of free gifts. And if they can’t give the money directly to the legislator, then they will give it to the legislator’s son or daughter or spouse. It would be like telling the governor’s wife to invest $1,000 in cattle futures and have it magically turn into $100,000 by the end of the year. (Hypothetically, of course).</p>
<p>This is what happens when people don’t want to actually think about an issue like bribery. They know what they’re against and they shouldn’t have to prove it. Don’t want another Columbine, then pass a law that says that “Anyone bringing a weapon to school shall be expelled”. But, what about a butter knife, a toy gun, a paring knife accidentally put in the lunch bag by the kid’s mother? Let’s keep drugs (other than marijuana which is good for you and should be legalized anyway) out of our schools. “Anyone bringing drugs to school shall be expelled”. What about aspirin, birth control pills or vitamins? Life is so much easier when you eliminate “gray” issues.</p>
<p>That’s what’s at work here. Some citizen group decided that laws against government corruption weren’t strict enough and pushed this constitutional amendment through. There were doubts raised in the press about the effect on scholarships and awards like the Nobel prize, but nobody (including government employee unions) made a big deal about it. But this way you don’t have to actually PROVE corruption, you only have to show that the rules were broken.</p>
<p>BTW, to MarathonMan88 (and any others) the AG’s job is not to advise petition preparers or the ill-informed of the potential results of voting for a particular amendment. In any event, he wouldn’t have been believed by the proponents because he is a Republican (and ergo in the pocket of the lobbyists that they are seeking to protect us from).</p>
<p>And finally, digmedia and ColoradoMomof2 did you vote against the amendment - I know I did.</p>
<p>NJres–I got the joke. I was trying (unsuccessfully, I guess…) to riff off of it (note to self–use smilies.) :)</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the AG’s interpretation and the law may easily be permissible. In fact, there may be no federal constitutional issues here because this involves regulation of state employees’ (and their dependents’) conduct, which of means of course the state has a legitimate interest here because the conduct may have impact on an employee’s JOB performance or decisions.</p>
<p>You see, inherently it’s an ethics matter. In jurisdictions with ethics regulations and filing requirements, the state or local employee is prohibited from received gifts and must declare certain monetary assets. However, the reasonable standard, like that in New York State, is that there is a common sense threshold ($5000) and that educational gifts and the like are exempt from declaration.</p>
<p>But is a scholarship a gift? and from whom? When does a gift become a bribe? or for that matter, a Nobel prize become a bribe?</p>
<p>Now suppose that a CO student whose parents are government employees receives an Intel or Siemens-Westinghouse or Davidson fellowship and wishes to make use of those awards/scholarships out of state. Presumably that, too, would be out of the question?</p>
<p>It strikes me that the people who are going to be most hurt by this ruling are not the affluent and influential. They’re going to be the children of firefighters, policemen, teachers, garbagemen, and so on.</p>
<p>Marite, are you kidding? Bestowing gifts etc is a tremendous problem in the world of public/government procurements. Many jurisdictions are now re-writing or adapting ethics regulations to get control of this problem. If I am a purchasing officer for a large public agency, and one of my vendors has a scholarship program and just happens to select my college-age child for it, that potentially is a significant breech of ethical conduct if I accept that gift. Of course it will depend on the circumstances. Was the scholarship open to any applicant? Did any chief officers of the company have any control of the award?</p>
<p>Believe me, in some public agencies today, you cannot accept a holiday calendar, ink pen or meal from a vendor. It depends on what the specific regulations stipulate.</p>
<p>This seems to be the prime example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. (Given the apparent wording of the amendment, “when does a gift become a bribe” is almost irrelevant. And I also agree with marite that the US Constitution has nothing in it that would trump this kind of amendment.)</p>
<p>If the Colorado constitution is not amended to clarify or repeal the current amendment, any challenges would wind their way through to the Colorado Supreme Court, which would interpret the phrase “gifts or other things of value” to determine whether it included moneys earned as a result of awards, and other financial aid. You see, this is where it gets sticky - the amendment not only bars gifts (and one can rationally argue that the Nobel Prize money or scholarships and financial aid are not “gifts”) but “other things of value.” </p>
<p>In Massachusetts, there is a procedure by which the Supreme Judicial Court can offer opinions on the interpretation of statutes and state constitutional provisions to the Legislature without having a real case in front of it (something forbidden under the Federal system). This allows for quicker interpretations. Does Colorado have something similar, by which the Colorado Supreme Court could rule on the AG’s interpretation in time at least to help the 2008-2009 school year?</p>
<p>Lakewashington. </p>
<p>No, I’m not kidding. The point is whether a scholarship is a gift. In most cases, it is not, because scholarship competitions are open to all. It’s different if the CEO of Crooked Co., Inc, promises to bankroll 4 years of college for the D or S of some important folk in government as opposed to the child of your local street sweeper getting a $500 scholarship (of which there are many in our school district). Do members of the legislature count as government employees, by the way?</p>
<p>There are corrupt people in all walks of life, both in the public and private sectors. But in order to curb the corruption of some, a lot of students will be hurt. And they probably are the ones most in need of financial aid in order to attend college in or out of state. </p>
<p>So what will the meek of CO inherit?</p>
<p>Marite, again, it depends upon what the text of the law says. If the law says educational assistance such as scholarships are gifts, then that’s the law.</p>
<p>It seems to me that this thing needs much fine tuning, which would have been done (hopefully) had it originated in the legislature. As I said, in New York and other jurisdictions, the ethics law has monetary thresholds. And the strictist limitations are imposed on procurement personnel decision makers, not general employees.</p>
<p>And legislators are government employees, but they typically have their own rules about gifts and things of value (or may not, as in notorious “play to pay” New Jersey).</p>
<p>Lakewashington.<br>
I understood the point being made. </p>
<p>But what is a gift as opposed to a bribe? If I show up at some CO government employee’s dinner with a bottle of wine, would I be violating this newfangled law? </p>
<p>About educational assistance— If a student wins a competition, is that considered educational assistance or prize money? How about merit aid vs. need-based aid?</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>As I read it (and it’s just my interpretation, of course), the amendment is so badly written that it would seem to exclude practically anything for which there is no return of equal or greater value.</p>
<p>I agree with others that this is an amendment with good intentions but bad effect. One of the problems with pure democracy is that there is very little process involved to have people look at the law and point out places where the law may be too restrictive and, thus, need revision. And, of course, the electorate is badly informed, which means that something that looks good on paper can be passed fairly easily, despite even well-known side effects.</p>