Nonprofit cash being spent in Colorado campaigns still impossible to trace despite 2019 law
Article subtitle:
Outside spenders in Colorado's recent primary found ways around transparency, making money tough to track.
Article publisher:
Colorado Sun
Article date:
11 July 2020
Article category:
Colorado News
Medium
Article Body:
Otside groups spent nearly $1.7 million on eight highly contested Colorado legislative primary races.
But it isn’t always easy to figure out where the money came from, despite a 2019 law touted as bringing more transparency to a system that includes cash from dark-money funded nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors.
In other instances, discerning where the money came from is possible if you have time to track all the state and federal committees involved until the funder is revealed.
Colorado’s independent expenditure committees, also known as super PACs, may take unlimited cash to make independent expenditures as long as they avoid coordinating with candidates or political parties.
Those super PACs outspent candidates in all but one of the eight legislative races where outside money topped $40,000. In only one contest did the candidate favored by big money lose....