High-profile Denver lawyer David Lane said today that the contempt-of-court citation brought against Douglas Bruce by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office is “political.”

“The Attorney General’s Office has no love for Douglas Bruce,” he said in a telephone interview. ”I’m always suspicious of them going after somebody like this.”

But it’s important to remember what the case is really about. It began with a  campaign finance complaint filed months ago by Denver lawyer Mark Grueskin against the backers of Amendment 60, Amendment 61 and Proposition 101.

In that complaint, Grueskin alleged the backers should have formed issue committees and disclosed the financial sponsors behind the massive signature-gathering effort that led to their placement on the ballot.

Bruce was subpoenaed to be deposed in connection with the case. Despite efforts to distance himself from those measures, Secretary of State’s Office records show eight professional petition circulators responsible for gathering thousands of signatures lived for a while in a house he owns in central Colorado Springs.

Bruce tried to get the subpoena quashed. Although the administrative judge refused, Bruce still didn’t show up for the deposition.

The administrative law judge didn’t have the authority to hold Bruce in contempt and referred the matter back to the Secretary of State’s Office. That office, in turn, enlisted the aid of the Attorney General’s Office.

Thus, the AG’s Office was acting as the legal representative of the Secretary of State’s Office and didn’t have any stake  in the game other than to make sure one of the basic tools of the judicial system — a subpoena — was honored.

The AG’s Office got a court order from District Judge Brian Whitney compelling Bruce to comply with the subpoena. Process servers subsequently attempted to serve him with the judicial order 30 times.

But Bruce — never one to shun the limelight — was suddenly nowhere to be found.

Fed up with the cat-and-mouse game, the AG asked the judge to find that Bruce had been dutifully served and to issue a contempt-of-court citation.

The judge agreed. And that’s basically where things stood until Aug. 3 when David Lane waded into the fray.

The case was set for a hearing Aug. 18, but Lane asked for a week’s delay because he has some business in Gitmo.

The AG’s Office said it was willing to give Lane an extra week, but nothing more, saying “undue delay” will prejudice the state.

“One possible outcome of the contempt hearing is that the Court will impose remedial sanctions requiring Mr. Bruce to sit for a deposition and to produce documents  in the underlying administrative case,” the AG stated. “Such sanctions will be completely meaningless if they occur too close to (or after) the Nov. 2, 2010 election.”

 ”By all appearances, Mr. Bruce has made every effort to avoid providing the subpoenaed information, and retaining counsel now, over five months after he was first subpoenaed and over three months after the commencement of those proceedings, only further contributes to the delay in resolving this matter.”

To summarize, Bruce is fighting hard to avoid giving this deposition. And the question is, why?

Issue 300, the so-called citizen initiative authored by Colorado Springs resident Douglas Bruce, got on the citywide ballot last November with a lot of help from out-of-state residents, including Michael Rhodes, city clerk’s records show

Although Rhodes was not present during a campaign finance hearing in Denver on May 24-25, spectators and witnesses heard him telling a Denver petition circulaton firm that it had a “cherry opportunity to make a stupid amount of money” by circulating petitions for three statewide measures at a conservative rally.

Rhodes is the head of ProVote America, a petition circulation company based in Los Angeles. He has not responded to emails requesting an interview.

Rhodes was the second-largest collector of signatures for Issue 300, gathering 2,162 signatures, or 14.5 percent, of the valid signatures needed to get on the ballot. Rhodes also gathered thousands of signatures for three statewide measures that will be on the November ballot.

Opponents say the measures, called Amendment 60, Amendment 61 and Proposition 101, would have a devastating impact on the state economy. Amendment 61, for example, would forbid the government from issuing bonds, which would stop big construction projects like the Southern Delivery System.

Issue 300, which ends payments to the city from its revenue-producing entities, will reduce city coffers by $100 million over the next eight years, Vice Mayor Larry Small has said.

Residents of Colorado Springs will be feeling the impact for years to come.

Former reporter Perry Swanson and I went to the City Clerk’s Office a couple of months ago and built a database of the petition circulators on Issue 300. Our research showed that at  least 14 of the 16 top signature gatherers listed below do not live in Colorado Springs. Here’s what we found:

Despite urging by the Secretary of State for immediate action, a petition for a court order that would compel Colorado Springs resident Douglas Bruce to appear at a deposition in connection with three campaign finance complaints is languishing in a Denver district courtroom.

After District Judge Morris Hoffman recused himself, the request was subsequently assigned to Judge Brian Whitney, a court clerk said. A spokesman in Judge Whitney’s office said this morning that no action has yet been taken on the petition.

The petition was filed late Friday by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which represents the Secretary of State Bernie Buescher. The AG said the matter required “immediate attention and disposition” by the court because of Bruce’s “repeated refusals” to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas.

The three finance complaints were filed against the proponents of three issues that will be on the November ballot. Known as Amendment 60, Amendment 61, and Proposition 101,  the ballot issues would collectively reduce the income of state and local governments by $2 billion, critics allege.

Among other things, the measures would roll back the state income tax, cut the school mill levy rate, prohibit the state from borrowing, and eliminate taxes and fees related to motor vehicles and telecommunication accounts.

Professional petition circulators gathered thousands of signatures needed to get the measures on the ballot. Secretary of State records show that eight of those circulators lived in an apartment house owned by Colorado Springs resident Douglas Bruce.

Bruce is the author of the 1992 Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits the taxing and spending ability of local and state governments.  He also authored Issue 300, which effectively eliminated the city’s stormwater enterprise, and will cost the city millions of dollars in the coming years.

The circulators living in his house collected a total of roughly 75,000 signatures for the three statewide measures. Some of those same petition circulators also helped gather the signatures that put Issue 300 on the ballot, records show.

The circulators living in the Bruce-owned apartment have moved out. Two of them, contacted by cell phone, refused to discuss their work in Colorado.

The campaign finance complaints allege the proponents of the measures should have formed issues committees and reported the expenditures and contributions involved in the massive-signature gathering effort.