Citizens United has turned its attention to Colorado. Yes, that Citizens United, the group behind the disastrous U. S. Supreme Court ruling that decided corporations and labor unions could spend unlimited amounts of money in support or opposition to candidates (supposedly independent from the candidates themselves).

When 74% of Colorado voters passed Amendment 65 in 2012, we made it clear that we didn’t want big money drowning out the voices of regular Coloradans in our elections.

Not only does Citizens United plan to come to Colorado and run ads to influence Colorado elections, they want to do it without any transparency. Citizens United wants Secretary of State Scott Gessler to give them permission to spend money right before the election without disclosure.

Citizens United is putting a movie together on competitive Colorado races and wants to be able to buy radio ads, tv commercials, mailers and billboards making value judgments about the candidates up for election, all without disclosure. They are claiming that because they make movies they should be treated like the press and not required to report their spending.

The Secretary of State is holding a hearing June 3 on whether or not Citizens United should be required to file campaign finance reports. We’ll post an update on the outcome soon.

UPDATE June 5, 2014:

Colorado Common Cause submitted comments June 4, 2014.