What is Amendment 49?
by T.L. James | 11:57 pm, September 3, 2008 | Comments Off
Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute explains that this fall’s Amendment 49 is not about attacking unions, but about ethics in government:
“Amendment 49 is not a labor issue and I’ll repeat that,” he said, which he did.
What is it, then? “It’s a restriction on government. It’s an ethics issue.”
His proposal would prohibit all state and local governments in Colorado from deducting payments that benefit “private organizations and special interests” from paychecks they issue. It doesn’t mention unions specifically, but they clearly would be most affected.
Deductions for taxes, Social Security, Medicare, liens, garnishments, child support, retirement plans, health insurance premiums and charitable gifts wouldn’t be affected…
Caldara maintains it’s a conflict of interest for, say, school board officials to be funneling money to local unions through paycheck deductions and then getting a check back from the same unions in the form of campaign contributions.
Automatic dues deductions also make it easier for unions to raise the money it takes to fight against citizen amendments they fear might cut in to their power…in this case, some $25 million in dues diverted from members’ paychecks to fight Amendments 49 (no special interest withholding) and 47 (right to work) and other issues in this election cycle.
That’s a whole lot of wages — withheld, processed, and disbursed to unions by government employees whose time is paid for with your taxes. Meanwhile, Caldara is trying to raise a mere $500,000 to promote passage of Amendment 49…without the benefit of automatic deductions.
