City Clerk: Return corporate campaign donations or answer to state

Colorado Springs City Clerk Kathryn Young defended her hands-off role Tuesday pertaining to campaign finance reports and reiterated that corporations are prohibited from making contributions directly to candidates.

Young summoned reporters to the City Administration Building for an afternoon news briefing to clarify what she called “some misunderstanding and possibly a little confusion” over corporate contributions as well as her responsibilities as city clerk.

The issue has caused an uproar in local politics since campaign filings for January revealed several corporate contributions in the mayor’s race, including $5,000 that Steve Bach received from The Broadmoor.

Mayoral candidate Brian Bahr, who has dropped $200,000 of his own money into the race, contacted Young last week to voice concerns about corporate contributions.

On Monday, his campaign filed a formal complaint, claiming Bach and Richard Skorman received “illegal” contributions that “should be disallowed under the law.”

Young told The Gazette last week that corporations cannot make campaign contributions directly to candidates.

But her comments created more confusion because previous candidates have accepted corporate contributions, including current council members.

When asked for an explanation, Young said it wasn’t her job to scrutinize campaign finance reports to determine who was violating campaign finance laws – a point she reiterated Tuesday.

“The clerk is the custodian of the records and makes them available for public review,” she said. “The city clerk does not audit what is being reported, and in many instances, neither does the Secretary of State’s Office.”

Candidates who accepted corporate contributions in the past don’t have to return them because the statute of limitations has passed, Young said.

“It’s a dead issue,” she said.

Bach, however, must return his corporate contributions and file an amended campaign finance report by next Wednesday, she said.

“If there is no response from Mr. Bach, then I will be filing the complaint that was filed yesterday with the Secretary of State’s Office, and they will take it from there,” she said.

Laura Carno, Bach’s chief of staff, said Bach is waiting for a more definitive explanation from Young.

“We’re still working on it with the City Clerk’s Office, and we hope to have it resolved in a couple of days,” she said. “It still does stand, if we have misinterpreted (the rules), we will absolutely refund the inappropriate contributions. But at this point, they haven’t presented to us anything that tells us that things have changed.”

Adding to the confusion is that Young provided Bach and other candidates a campaign finance form that says they’re required to report contributions of $20 or more “from a person.” The definition of “a person,” according to the form, includes a corporation, something that Young struggled to explain Tuesday.

“These are forms that we took from the Secretary of State’s Office. All we did was put our logo on it,” she said.

After the press briefing, city spokeswoman Mary Scott said in an e-mail that the form the state provided to the city has the definition of a “person” as it relates to the Colorado Constitution.

“But (it) does not include all the numerous references to ‘person’ in the Constitution and what is and isn’t allowed under finance law or other applicable laws. The full document has to be reviewed for all exceptions, etc.,” she said.

Skorman has apparently accepted in-kind corporate contributions. His campaign manager, Kyle Blakely, said Skorman will pay for any in-kind contributions that have been called into question.

“From the sheet that we got from the City Clerk’s Office, it clearly said that corporate donations were acceptable, so we were going off the law that’s been in place for the last 10 years,” he said. “Now that that interpretation has changed, we’ll comply with the law.”

Young said the candidates are responsible for knowing and following campaign disclosure requirements.

“The Fair Campaign Practices (Act) laws are the responsibility of the candidates,” she said. “When they come in and file their declaration, they all sign an affidavit that it is their responsibility to know and become familiar with the law.”