An instructive rule can be found this morning in Marc Holtzman's disintegrating campaign for governor of Colorado.

Holtzman on hot seat

Credibility problems dogged Republican Marc Holtzman's gubernatorial campaign last week as a series of contradictions and straight-out lies were disclosed in a Denver courtroom...

Holtzman's campaign manager, Dick Leggitt, admitted Friday that he lied to a Denver Post reporter in an e-mail by fabricating poll numbers that purportedly showed Holtzman's name recognition going from "10 percent to 70 percent and his favorables among GOP primary voters are now just slightly less than (U.S. Rep. Bob) Beauprez's (39 to 42)."

Leggitt also admitted he made up polling results indicating that support for ballot measures Referendums C and D was lagging.

"We didn't have any polling results," Leggitt said during the administrative court hearing. "It's what we in the election business call spin."

Yeah, that's what you all call it. We know what it is, though we have other words to describe it. Like "lying."

H/T to the Pols.

The arrogance of the Republican leadership in Congress today confounds all understanding. It's a betrayal of their solemn oath -- who were they elected to represent? Their constituents?

Answer: no. They don't give a crap about you. They think that no matter what they do, all you really care about is gay marriage bans, nativism campaigns, and rolling dead-fetus billboards. They're not worried about Tom DeLay and Randy Cunningham and all the others Jack Abramoff is about to throw under the bus.

Lobbying bill quite different from first draft

Just three months ago, House Speaker Dennis Hastert went before TV cameras to say he was "deeply disturbed" by the money-and-influence scandal that was sweeping the capital. His top remedies: to ban gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress, and to prohibit "fact-finding" trips paid for by private interests.

To get it done, he appointed his Rules Committee chairman, Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif...On Jan. 28, Dreier began circulating a draft bill that included a ban on privately financed travel; a $20 limit on gifts from lobbyists, and a ban on sports and entertainment tickets. Dreier's draft called for lobbyists to say who they were raising money for and to detail the parties they sponsor for them, such as lavish soirees at national political conventions.

The first sign of change came five days later when Rep. John Boehner of Ohio was elected House majority leader by his fellow Republicans. He had derided Hastert's proposed travel ban as "childish" and dismissed calls for an end to lobbyist-paid lunches.

Boehner made no apologies for his close ties to lobbyists, even boasting that his relationship with them was "frankly, a very good one."

[Rep. Steve] King said Hastert's push for stricter rules on lobbying was an effort to protect rank-and-file members from any voter backlash to the lobbying scandal. But King said his congressional district, in western Iowa, "surely has forgotten about all of this."

For all that, I think there still would have been more concrete reforms in the end: this bit about "nobody cares about ethics" is some pretty audacious fiction. I have no idea who they're talking to, but it probably involves collecting a check.

What really happened here (important) is James Dobson came out against ethics reform.

Conservative groups allied with Republicans started to complain. The Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the National Right to Life Committee wrote to Hastert, Boehner, Dreier and Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo. They said the provision on detailing lobbying contacts "would impose severely onerous record-keeping requirements for organizations such as our own..."

Just incredible, isn't it? They know their base is under control from the pulpit -- and the pulpit is on the take -- and poof! Ethics "reform" on Capitol Hill, handled. Now back to important matters like gay marriage bans, nativism campaigns, and rolling dead-fetus billboards.

This is how democracies get subverted, friends...

See, this is why those mobster/Colorado GOP analogies everybody likes to make are all wrong: these guys can't 'code of silence' their way out of a wet sack. We're talking about Bill Owens' stinking progenies here, too, one and all. Thanks so much, Texas.

No really, thanks, because at least it's right out where everybody can see it. Tonight's dish? Fellow Republican.

Campaign finance trial continues today

At issue is whether the Marc Holtzman for governor campaign violated Colorado campaign finance law by improperly running an issues committee during last fall's Referendum C campaign. The committee, known as 'If C wins, you lose,' ran extensive TV ads during the campaign that featured Holtzman denouncing Ref C.

Veteran Colorado lobbyist Steve Durham brought the complaint. He said the case was important because it would establish whether candidates like Holtzman can use an issues committee to promote themselves...

So you've got the oldest trickster in town, working this "impartially" (which I think you spell "for Beauprez") to smack the Holtzman campaign. And it's a good smack, too: while we were all pre-occupied with Jon Caldara's shenanigans, this was absolutely going down.

With a twist: knowledgeable Colorado bloggers remember the recent flap over at Colorado Pols involving a Holtzman staffer named Laura Teal with access to the site? Meet Andy George, the infamous Laura Teal's trusty sidekick-cum-stoolpigeon:

This morning Andy George, a former staffer for 'If C wins, you lose,' testified that the group was effectively run by the Holtzman campaign.

Holtzman's campaign manager, Dick Leggitt, has angrily denied George's allegations...

I'm pretty sure there's something in Sun Tzu's The Art of War to the effect of, "this is a very good thing." Lump it in with the apparently corrupt GOP convention voting, and I'd say there's room for the whole sorry back-stabbing lot of them under the bus.

Energy company political donations, according to OpenSecrets.org:


Hmm. Any ideas?

Colorado House Bill 06-1149 updates Colorado's disclosure laws to provide better sunshine and transparency to the activities lobbyists do with public legislation. The Center for Public Integrity did a state-by-state report card on good government and lobbying laws. Colorado received a score of 60% (59% is failing). HB-1149 selects key disclosure areas that Colorado is missing.

HB-1149 has already passed the House--write your state Senator today and urge them to send it to the Governor without further amendment.

Link

And you thought it was just Jim Welker stinking the place up.

Legislator blasts colleague as racist, 'disgrace'

Rep. Rosemary Marshall called Rep. Dave Schultheis a racist, a "son of a b---- and a disgrace to the chamber" on the House floor Friday, saying she felt he made light of an e-mail sent to a colleague that spoke of lynching.

"I seem to get my annual chewing out from Rosemary each year," Schultheis, a Colorado Springs Republican, said later. "I don't know what her problem is..."

Don't you, Dave? That's funny, because I have a pretty good idea what her "problem is."

On Thursday, Schultheis suggested that Carroll was "making a big issue" out of the e-mail before verifying that it actually was sent by a Minuteman member.

Schultheis, a member of the Minuteman Project, said there is no proof that the e-mail came from a bona fide Minuteman.

On Friday, he stood by his opinion that Carroll was "blowing the issue out of proportion," and called Marshall's attack uncalled for.

Marshall, who is black, later said she has had enough of "blatant racism."

"In this day and age, for someone to make light of a reference to lynching a black man is sickening," the Denver Democrat said. "With Schultheis, racism is his common practice. My words met his level of understanding."

Here's the thing, friends. We've got several members of the legislature -- Dave Schultheis, Bill Crane, others -- who are gun-toting Minuteman Project members personally. We've got an email obliquely calling for the lynching of an African-American legislator, over comments he made about the Minutemen.

And we've got Minuteman Rep. Dave Schultheis insisting on the Colorado House floor that it's "blowing the issue out of proportion" to be upset about a call for the lynching of one of his colleagues in defense of this organization he belongs to.

If you see a huge and obvious problem with what's going on here, put your hand up. Colorado is north of the Mason-Dixon line, right?

About five minutes ago, final vote 43-21. Great news.

Denver Post covered yesterday's successes.

Former Colorado senator Tim Wirth, speaking Friday at the Conference on World Affairs:

Wirth urges grass-roots movement

"The failures of government following Hurricane Katrina and the invasion of Iraq have shattered the confidence that our government can deal effectively with modern problems such as climate change, weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and disease," Wirth said.

The need for grass-roots movements has little to do with the power held by a Republican party that has rendered America "the sulking and isolated giant it has become," Wirth said.

Wirth views the current leadership as having undetermined America's interests abroad to the extent that "Abu Ghraib threatens to displace the Statue of Liberty" as the American moral beacon in the world's collective consciousness.

But, he said, grass-roots efforts have been the American engine of deep-rooted change for decades.

"The civil rights movement did not come from senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee," Wirth said.

Mind you, it's just a metaphor.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Cindy Knox
720-323-1558
cigcolorado@yahoo.com

April 12, 2006

Citizens Demand Trailhead Investigation:
AG Cancels Speech on "Importance of Compliance with Our Campaign Laws"

Members of Citizens for Integrity in Government (CIG) will assemble tomorrow, Thursday April 13, at 12 noon at the Colorado History museum at 1300 Broadway in Denver to demand that Colorado Attorney General John Suthers conduct a proper investigation of the Trailhead Group.

Suthers was scheduled to speak at the Colorado History museum at lunch event organized by the Independence Institute. The topic was the
"Importance of Compliance with our Campaign Laws." Given the strong
appearance of a conflict of interest due to the AG's refusal to investigate Trailhead (a group whose donors also contributed to his campaign) CIG has decided to highlight the hypocrisy inherent in Suthers' topic by assembling outside the museum.

However, after preparing to protest the event, CIG learned just this afternoon that the Independence Institute has decided to cancel its event with Attorney General Suthers. So far, no explanation has been offered.

Since we cannot deliver our message to him as originally planned, CIG members will walk from the museum to the attorney general's office at 1525 Sherman Street, across from the State Capitol, to personally deliver a petition demanding that the attorney general's office conduct a thorough investigation of Trailhead.

CIG is a recently formed citizens' group whose members are concerned about the use of malicious, dirty, possibly illegal, campaign tactics this election year.

"We are tired of the people's government being hijacked by slanderous and dirty campaign tactics. Clean campaign reform has to begin somewhere. It's time we take a stand to put integrity back in our government," said CIG spokeswoman Cindy Knox.

CIG's members are also concerned that requests to investigate and enforce Colorado's Campaign laws have gone unheeded, and summarily dismissed. Our members are troubled by the fact that the Attorney General has received campaign contributions from some of the same donors to Trailhead. Will the AG conduct an investigation into Trailhead that may implicate some of his own campaign donors? It appears not.

CITIZENS FOR INTEGRITY IN GOVERNMENT CALL ON ATTORNEY GENERAL SUTHERS TO INVESTIGATE TRAILHEAD AND ENFORCE THE CAMPAIGN LAWS OF COLORADO.

One of our members just forwarded me a press release put out today by the Democratic Party.

Seems that AG Suthers may have a conflict of interest on this Trailhead issue. The press release states that a review of filings with the Internal Revenue Service and the Colorado Secretary of State shows that several top donors to Suthers' election campaign have also written large checks to the Trailhead Group.

Lots of folks have been complaining to Suthers' office about possible violations of state law by Trailhead - the political attack group funded by big money conservative donors and responsible for a misleading robo-call campaign targeting Democratic legislators who the Republicans apparently believe hold seats that they can reclaim.

Specifically, Suthers has been asked to investigate Trailhead for possible violation of CRS Section 1-13-109, which states "No person shall recklessly make...any false statement designed to affect the vote on any issue submitted to the electors at any election or relating to any candidate for election to public office."

On March 21, 2006, the AG's office put out a statement to the effect that they didn't think Trailhead had violated that law. But if Suthers' donors are the very folks in question, then he needs to be very clear the level of investigation he conducted. Did the AG ignore complaints about the Trailhead Group because they're his friends and campaign supporters?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Okay. That was gratuitous. But I didn't start it.



Okay. Maybe I helped start it -- just a little. You hope it would have happened anyway:

Stengel spanked by ethics panel

Former House Minority Leader Joe Stengel "discredited the reputation" of the legislature with his "excessive" billing for work in the off session, including while vacationing in Hawaii, an ethics committee has determined.

The Littleton Republican charged taxpayers for 240 out of 247 non-session days last year "without regard for the consequences of his actions," the committee wrote in a formal letter filed Tuesday.

The five-member committee also questioned whether it was "hypocritical" for Stengel to file a formal elections complaint against Rep. Buffie McFad-yen, D-Pueblo, for collecting per diem while speaking in favor of Referendums C and D, when he collected per diem while campaigning against the tax measures.

It's nothing we didn't know, of course -- but I'm really glad the word "hypocritical" appeared in there somewhere. Now it's time to move on -- a little wiser about bellicose righties who doth protest too much...

An interesting email that surfaced today.

Dear Friend,

If you're getting this message you're probably a Democrat. You might not be. It doesn't matter. This email isn't about party politics. It's about something even more important.

You might be a big-D Democrat or you might not not be. But you're almost certainly a small-d democrat. You believe in and respect open government, clean politics, and basic decency in the public realm.

Clean politics and basic decency are under attack in Colorado, from a group called Trailhead. Trailhead, bankrolled by five and six figure checks from wealthy donors, is launching round after round of false, malicious "robo-calls" all across the state, targeting 10 competitive districts held by Democratic legislators. Robocalls are cheap and easy to do, and Trailhead has enough money to launch a lot of them. They already have. We know they want to continue.

Democrats have always contested Republicans, and Republicans have always contested Democrats, in the realm of ideas and they always will. That's small-d democracy, and it's a good thing.

But blatant falsehood is something else, something beyond the pale. Trailhead continues, in conspiratorial tones, to accuse Democratic legislators of taking "secret payments." There simply are no "secret payments," and Trailhead knows this.

What Trailhead is doing is beyond the pale. They need to be called to account for it.

   Read More »

In the quest to right Colorado's listing ethical ship, enemies of reform appear on all sides.

First on the Hit Parade, Ron Tupa's SB-51: a bill to ban cash gifts to legislators.

W. Slope lawmaker amends bill in bid to spike it

A Western Slope lawmaker who is vehemently opposed to a bill that bans cash gifts for lawmakers successfully amended the measure Monday to prevent elected officials from collecting speaking fees.

Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez, admitted that his effort was aimed at killing Senate Bill 51...

Larson predicted that with the amendment, the bill now stands a better chance of being rejected by the Senate or vetoed by Gov. Bill Owens.

Argument: Larson says the cash gifts ban will unfairly impact rural lawmakers.

Rebuttal: Out-state lawmakers already receive twice the per diem of Front Range reps. Need more? Raise the per diem amount and keep things on the sunny side. Maybe police your fellow Republicans a little better on the per diem thing.

Let's hope Larson's poison pill gets stripped out. And don't get me wrong: for a Republican, Rep. Mark Larson is a straight-up guy. He's not on the take, he just doesn't see a problem where lots of other people do.

Second, Morgan Carroll's HB-1149: a bill to require additional disclosure from lobbyists. Headed to the full House over much weeping and wailing. Courtesy Soapblox:

If you recall, prior debate of HB 1149 was hampered by Democrat Fran Coleman. Coleman, in a play to curry favors with lobbyists to help her husband run for her own term-limited HD-1 seat and Fran's own run for SB-32...

Rep. Carroll's bill scares lobbyists. And their friends. Some of whom are, not surprisingly, benefactors. Get this bill across the finish line and spite them all.

Write your state legislators now and urge them to support HB-1149 and SB-51, and oppose any attempt to water them down or duplicitously kill them.

There's a rumor going around that Both Ways Bob has fired his campaign manager. Does anyone have info to confirm or refute this?

The mass confusion and weakness of the right wing these days is a sight to behold.

Like I said Sunday, Rep. Welker's resignation had little to do with the content of his outrageous emails. In the end, it was emotionless decision by the Republican Party based on how those outrageous emails were likely to affect the numbers.

Welker's move no shock in GOP

"He knew the situation he was in," May said Sunday. "Jim did not want us to lose that seat.

"And he knew the likelihood that the other side was going to spend a lot of money pummeling him, and who wants to go through that?

"Nobody told Jim not to run, but Republicans laid out the situation," May said. "We were all concerned."

Former state Sen. Norma Anderson, R-Lakewood, said Sunday she's not surprised Owens intervened.

"Bill Owens is conservative, but he's not a nut," she said.

Note the messaging: Jim Welker wasn't "a nut," he was just just a poor victim of those conniving Democrats about to "get pummeled."

How about a repudiation of those emails, other than warnings that they could be a political liability? A clear statement that these opinions are not representative of Colorado Republicans?

(crickets)

That's what I thought.

Pols had the rumor yesterday, Denver Post confirms this morning:

Rep. Welker bowing out

"I talked to a lot of people who didn't want me to withdraw," Welker said. "I talked to people who thought it was time to change. The governor called me. He had concerns."

The representative, in office only three years, recently apologized on the House floor for an e-mail he forwarded to constituents and legislators that critics called racist. The e-mail contained negative characterizations of black victims of Hurricane Katrina made by a conservative black minister.

Welker created controversy last year by saying that if state law were changed to allow homosexuals to marry, it could lead to people marrying their pets.

Last week, a U.S. House committee said it would investigate Welker's Universal Communications Co., which he started in the early 1990s...

Of course, they did wait until the last possible moment to get him to withdraw. Maybe they wanted to see if Welker could bury this thing before it buried him.

There's a lesson in that, too: in the end, it wasn't what Jim Welker did that hurt him with his fellow Republicans. It was the inability to control the damage that resulted from what he did. Don't miss the distinction -- and don't forget it.

Over at Colorado Pols, they're finding more examples of Bob Beauprez "abbreviating" his resume -- Beauprez graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in physical education. But he claims in various literature that it's a "BS, Education."

There's a difference, you know.

And a reason: Bob Beauprez sought student and then medical deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam. He played varsity sports in high school, which led right into the PE major. His draft number was eventually called, but be received a 4F rating over an ulcer, according to reports, from five years earlier.

That's all a matter of public record -- but it does help explain why he'd "abbreviate" his PE major into an "education" major. An objective look at his record makes a pretty defensible case that he dodged the Vietnam draft with questionable medical claims when he was fit to serve.

This would, if an accurate depiction, make Beauprez a textbook example of what we liberals call a "chickenhawk" -- that is someone who supports war as an old man but avoided service personally. Some argue that it's the worst kind of hypocrisy there is, being as how kids get sent off to die and all.

And those pictures of Beauprez strutting around in a flight suit? Well, they either make absolutely no sense or they make perfect sense, depending on your point of view.

Via Americablog, a new AP/Ipsos poll has more bad news for the weak and disorganized radical right:

Bush 36% approval
40% approve foreign policy and war on terror
35%approve policy towards Iraq
30% approve GOP Congress
49%-33% prefer Democrats running Congress over GOP
41% tie - party that people trust to protect the country

Since Congress appears to have abdicated its oversight responsibilities, maybe the only chance we've got to learn the truth is a few brave whistleblowers who aren't afraid of being Roved/prosecuted/worse.

That's a sad state of affairs.

Accountability Office Finds Itself Accused

A senior Congressional investigator has accused his agency of covering up a scientific fraud among builders of a $26 billion system meant to shield the nation from nuclear attack. The disputed weapon is the centerpiece of the Bush administration's antimissile plan, which is expected to cost more than $250 billion over the next two decades.

The investigator, Subrata Ghoshroy of the Government Accountability Office, led technical analyses of a prototype warhead for the antimissile weapon in an 18-month study, winning awards for his "great care" and "tremendous skill and patience."

Mr. Ghoshroy now says his agency ignored evidence that the two main contractors had doctored data, skewed test results and made false statements in a 2002 report that credited the contractors with revealing the warhead's failings to the government...

No, it ain't the Iraq war, or Plamegate; but look closely and you'll see the same inputs...