Corporate Crime Ballot Initiative Scares Colorado Chamber

by Mike Hall, Feb 27, 2008

Apparently Colorado corporate types want to do the crime, but not the time. At least that’s how you could read the Denver Chamber of Commerce’s fierce opposition to a corporate accountability ballot initiative that Rocky Mountain activists are seeking to place on the November ballot.

While it carries an unwieldy name—Criminal and Civil Liability of Businesses and Individuals for Business Activities—the proposed Initiative 57 carries a simple message: Business execs will be held accountable for corporate misbehavior.

Initiative 57 would make heads of companies and top execs personally liable if they commit fraud and or condone it by not reporting it. It establishes both civil and criminal—i.e., jail time—liability.

The secretary of state’s office gave permission last week for the initiative’s backers to begin collecting signatures to put it on the ballot. But the Denver Chamber of Commerce is threatening to go to the state Supreme Court to keep it off the November ballot.

Business groups say they fear a flood of frivolous lawsuits. But the initiative builds in safeguards against that by putting any money awarded in a civil suit into the state’s general fund, not the plaintiff’s pocket.

Lew Ellingson, a Qwest Communications International retiree who backs the accountability initiative, told Denver TV station KUSA:

If they’re being ethical, if they’re being legal, what is there to fear?

Good question, Lew.

If you live in Colorado, click here to sign an online petition saying that you’ve had it with Colorado corporations breaking the rules and leaving Colorado taxpayers to pay the price.

Click here, here and here to learn more about how Colorado working families are mobilizing for the November elections.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (3)