John’s, Antigua Argentina keyboard_arrow_rightBuenos Aires Aruba keyboard_arrow_rightOranjestad, Aruba Bahamas keyboard_arrow_rightNassau Barbados keyboard_arrow_rightBridgetown Belize keyboard_arrow_rightBelize City Bermuda keyboard_arrow_rightHamilton Bonaire keyboard_arrow_rightKralendijk Brazil keyboard_arrow_rightRio de Janeiro keyboard_arrow_rightSao Paulo Canada keyboard_arrow_rightCalgary keyboard_arrow_rightEdmonton keyboard_arrow_rightHalifax keyboard_arrow_rightMontreal keyboard_arrow_rightOttawa keyboard_arrow_rightQuébec keyboard_arrow_rightSt. Under those standards, Unite for Colorado would have been in the clear.Antigua and Barbuda keyboard_arrow_rightSt. SB22-237 says that a group like a nonprofit only has to register if it spends more than 20 percent of its budget on a single ballot issue, or 30 percent on ballot issues generally, over a period of three calendar years. A new law sets much firmer standards for independent expenditures. The state legislature recently tried to settle these kinds of questions more definitively. Liberal-leaning groups similarly have used dark-money protections to spend large amounts of money from anonymous sources. The group argued it was being singled out by Democrats in the Secretary of State’s Office because of its politics. Its director at the time of the 2020 spending was Dustin Zvonek, now an Aurora city councilman. It also has spent millions of dollars to support a network of conservative groups and candidates, as The Colorado Sun reported. The group also spent seven figures to oppose the state’s involvement in the national popular vote effort. In 2020, its money backed Proposition 116, which asked voters to cut the state income tax, and Proposition 117, which gave voters new authority over the creation of fees both measures passed. Unite for Colorado has supported a range of conservative causes. ![]() Unite for Colorado's work in local and state elections ![]() “The Secretary of State’s Office is reviewing Judge Goldberg’s ruling and discussing the matter with the Department’s legal counsel at the A.G.’s office,” wrote Annie Orloff, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State, in an email to CPR News. There’s also another legal battle over Unite for Colorado’s spending on the 2021 elections. The state still can appeal Judge Goldberg’s ruling. “The statute at issue uses the letter ‘a’ in defining a major purpose and the term ‘ballot question’ – not the plural or an aggregation of expenditures on several or all ballot issues or questions,’” wrote Goldberg, a Denver district judge.īut Goldberg’s ruling isn’t the end of the road. Therefore, the group argued, its “major purpose” was not to support any single ballot measure. It didn’t spend more than 9 percent of its total budget on any single measure. While it spent about 23 percent of its 2020 budget on ballot initiatives, that money was spread across multiple ballot measures. Unite for Colorado, a nonprofit, argued it didn’t trigger the reporting requirements. Money that went to shaping voter attitudes on fundamental issues like how Colorado funds its government, and how the state allocates its electoral college votes for U.S. The filing continued: “But by the November election this newcomer had spent over $4 million on ballot issue advocacy. 2022 filing by Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office. “This new organization … had no longstanding involvement in Colorado politics,” reads a Sept. ![]() The Secretary of State’s office fined the group $40,000 and ordered it to reveal its donors in Dec. ![]() State officials argued that spending millions of dollars on signatures and political advertising was “a major purpose” of the group. The state's case against Unite for ColoradoĪt issue in this case was language in the state Constitution, which says a group must register as a political committee and report financial details if it has “a major purpose of supporting or opposing any ballot issue or ballot question.”
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