Colorado Times Recorder: Twenty-seven members of the Colorado General Assembly are currently committing a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of between $1,000 and $5,000, though it’s unlikely any of them will be charged for it. After all, it’s a misdemeanor which a certain portion of the legislature commits annually and, to my knowledge, no one has ever faced a single consequence for it. What’s the crime? Failing to file their annual personal financial disclosures (PFDs) as mandated by the law.

This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s about good governance and transparency, and it’s enough of a hobbyhorse for me that I’m fairly certain my many hundreds of records requests for past and present disclosure reports played a role in eventually nudging the Secretary of State’s office to make the forms available online a few years ago. Despite the increased ease in accessing the reports, though, one old problem remains unaddressed: many lawmakers simply do not file them.

Transparency in government is a good thing. It’s one of those things we expect from modern, developed states. And there was a time when Colorado’s track record on government transparency was sterling: we were on the early edge of state transparency laws in the midcentury, and the 1967 passage of the original Colorado Open Records Act (or CORA) put us in the minority of states who passed open government laws prior to the Watergate scandal, which ultimately accelerated the adoption of reforms around the country. 

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