Pro-Gun, Anti-Abortion|Groups Sue Colorado

DENVER (CN) - A gun rights group and an anti-abortion group have sued Colorado, claiming its law requiring groups to disclose donors to their mailing campaigns is unconstitutional.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and the Colorado Campaign for Life sued Secretary of State Scott Gessler and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and its Colorado branch, Colorado Ethics Watch.

The Oct. 17 federal complaint claims that Colorado's Reporting and Disclosure Statute violates the First Amendment.

The law requires that any person or organization that spends more than $1,000 on electioneering communications submit a report to the Secretary of State, stating who donated more than $250 toward that communication.

Both organizations spent more than $1,000 in June to send political mailers, but did not report it to the Secretary of State's Office.

CREW sent both plaintiffs a notice in September, stating that for each day they did not file their disclosure information, they could be charged $50.

The plaintiffs claim the state's electioneering disclosure law is unconstitutionally vague.

"The definition of an 'electioneering communication' under Colorado law is severely overbroad, encompassing a wide variety of both pre-election political speech and pre-election non-political speech under the guise that it is an 'electioneering communication' is so broad that it is patently unconstitutional," the complaint states.

The suit comes on the heels of a 10 th Circuit ruling this month that Colorado cannot make Citizens United disclose its donors' information for production of a political movie.

However, that ruling states that Citizens United must disclose who paid for the advertisements for the movie.

With just two weeks to go until Election Day, it is not clear when U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel will rule on the new lawsuit.

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