Presidential candidates – including President Donald Trump – would have to release their tax returns if they want a spot on Colorado’s ballot and a shot at winning the state’s nine electoral votes under legislation introduced Friday by Democratic lawmakers.

The sponsors of House Bill 1328 say the bill was inspired by Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns during last year’s presidential campaign – breaking with a tradition for major-party candidates stretching back four decades – but argue that adding the requirement for access to the state’s ballot crosses partisan lines and is just common sense.

“We feel strongly we needed a way to have more transparency for Colorado voters,” state Rep. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, one of the bill’s prime sponsors, told The Colorado Statesman. “We have more than four decades of bipartisan consensus that the American people should understand the dealings and possible conflicts of interest before choosing a president.”

“It’s been one of the unwritten rules of American politics,” Hansen said. “Now it’s time to write it down.”

The bill’s other prime sponsors are state Rep. Edie Hooton, D-Boulder, and state Sens. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, and Matt Jones, D-Longmont. At press time, 16 House members and 12 senators, all Democrats, had signed on as co-sponsors.

Kerr said that his constituents have been clamoring for the legislation.

“This was one of those things that, if we didn’t run this bill, our constituents would have run us out of town on a rail,” Kerr told The Statesman. “This is one of the things that was communicated very loudly to me after the election – how can people be elected and not have to disclose anything around their taxes, or say they were going to and then never do it? Folks demanded we run the bill.”

“For the sake of transparency and accountability, we have a right to know where our presidents’ and our vice presidents’ interests lie,” Hooton told The Statesman.

She added that she was alarmed after the November election by stories about Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, including a tangle of business interests abroad that could involve Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cohorts.

“The Senate requires tax returns from every cabinet and sub-cabinet position,” Hooton said. “Why would we hold them to a higher standard than we would hold our president? Even his own transition team required it.”

Jones said Trump’s failure to release his returns has cast a “big cloud” over his presidency.

“The current president has all sorts of financial ties we have little idea about,” he said. “There’s a lot of suspicion that could be put to rest with those returns.”

The legislation would require presidential and vice presidential candidates to release their federal income tax returns for the previous five years at least 90 days before the General Election to the Colorado secretary of state, who would then be directed to post them on the office’s official website through the end of the year. Both presidential and vice presidential candidates would have to comply in order for the ticket to appear on Colorado’s ballot. The bill also forbids any of Colorado’s electors from voting for candidates who don’t comply.

Similar bills have been introduced in Democratic-controlled chambers in about half the states. Legal experts vary over whether states can set the requirement for access to their ballots or their electoral votes, but the Colorado bill’s sponsors say they believe what they’re proposing will pass muster.

“I feel like we’re on solid legal footing here,” Hansen said. “I think there’s pretty broad consensus states are able to decide what they put in statute for who can qualify for the ballot.”

Courts have upheld some requirements imposed by states for ballot access – including a minimum number of petition signatures and filing fees – and tossed others, such as a requirement congressional candidates sign a term-limit pledge.

Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican, won a court battle in December after arguing that state law can govern how Colorado’s presidential electors cast their ballots. The case arose when two state electors, both Democrats, said they intended to vote for someone other than their party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, as part of an unsuccessful national attempt to thwart Trump’s ability to win a majority in the Electoral College.

The sponsors say they’re confident the bill will make it out of the Democratic-controlled House and cautiously optimistic it might get past the Senate, where Republicans hold a single-seat majority.

“I hope people don’t see this as a partisan bill,” Hansen said. “There are certainly those who will look at it that way. There are a lot of United States senators on the Republican side who have asked for this kind of transparency.”

“It applies to all presidential and vice presidential candidate, regardless of party,” Jones said. “I would hope Senate Republicans would want the transparency.”

Kerr said Colorado Republicans might view the requirement more favorably than GOP lawmakers in other states.

“You look at the number of delegates that Trump won in the Republican caucus system here, and it was zero,” he said. “I know Trump was certainly not the No. 1 choice for the vast majority of Republicans in Colorado, and the state didn’t go his way anyways. I don’t believe that there’s a lot of deep love for him in the Senate or in the Republican Party in general here in Colorado, but it will be interesting to see how much the love of party and unity of party goes vs. doing the right thing.”

The bill is set for its initial hearing on Monday, April 17, before the House Finance Committee.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com