An additional $405,000 in anonymous funds goes to ‘ethics’ measure

The newest campaign finance reports are in and supporters of a measure targeting labor unions have reported another $405,000 in contributions, all of it coming from anonymous sources.

According to an article in the Rocky Mountain News today, Clean Government Colorado, the political committee supporting Amendment 54, raised the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last few weeks, all of it coming from a nonprofit called Colorado At Its Best.

Amendment 54 is a so-called “clean government” initiative that would snuff out political contributions given by certain labor unions, as well as the immediate family members of union officials.

As was reported by The Colorado Independent previously, Colorado At Its Best, the nonprofit bankrolling the campaign, is not required under law to release the names of its contributors, meaning that the “clean” campaign has been funded primarily from donors who are anonymous.

The nonprofit is also connected to Dennis Pohill, a fellow at the conservative Independence Institute think tank, who has refused to disclose who is funding the campaign upon request.

Colorado At Its Best has now given more than $2 million to Clean Government Colorado.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.