We were awfully busy here at the Rocky Mountain Progressive Network before the 2004 elections. It wasn't easy to keep up with Governor Owens' and then-Secretary of State Donetta Davidson's brazen attempts to suppress the Colorado vote, as investigative journalist Greg Palast wrote at the time:

Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson just weeks ago removed several thousand voters from the state's voter rolls. She tagged felons as barred from voting. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that, unlike like Florida and a handful of other Deep South states, Colorado does not bar ex-cons from voting. Only those actually serving their sentence lose their rights. There's no known, verified case of a Colorado convict voting illegally from the big house.

Because previous purges have wiped away the rights of innocents, federal law now bars purges within 90 days of a presidential election to allow a voter to challenge their loss of civil rights.

To exempt her action from the federal rule, Secretary Davidson declared an "emergency." However, the only "emergency" in Colorado seems to be President Bush's running dead even with John Kerry in the polls...

Remember this? You ought to -- as it turned out, Davidson's "concerns" were pure GOP hogwash.

Democrats called Davidson and Owens' statements "overt voter intimidation" aimed at keeping people away from the polls...

"This is the classic move by Republican tacticians: create an environment of fear that discourages voters from showing up on Election Day, for this is the only way they know how to win," said Sue Casey, Kerry-Edwards 2004 Colorado state director.

Donetta's gone now, as you know, rewarded for her screwups and voter intimidation in 2004 with a spot on the Federal Election Assistance Commission. We've got a new Secretary of State now.

Earlier this spring, I was talking to a Democratic Colorado legislator about Davidson versus current Secretary of State Gigi Dennis. He told me that Davidson was "partisan, but stupid" -- whereas Dennis was much scarier being partisan and not stupid. We then watched as Dennis gave an insulting wink and a nod to Colorado's highly dubious and failed Accenture voter database consolidation project, effectively papering over Donetta Davidson's biggest disaster as one of her first acts in office.

We saw only one misstep from Gigi Dennis this year: in her zeal to guarantee close Republican ally Bob Beauprez an uncontested gubernatorial primary, she went too far in her efforts to put opponent Marc Holtzman out of his misery. In hindsight, she probably didn't need to work so hard at it -- but by getting so obviously involved, she made her anticipated trade-up to Bob Beauprez's running mate politically impossible.

Which all must seem fine now, since Gigi is proving herself to be plenty valuable making sure Republicans have every possible advantage going into November. She's making Donetta proud.

State heeds GOP, alters finance rules

Republican Secretary of State Gigi Dennis made controversial changes to Colorado campaign-finance rules after requests from lawyers who work for the state GOP, gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez and a powerful Republican political committee, records show...

The changes in question, if allowed to stand, would severely harm unions and small-donor commitees in this election. Her decision directly countermands the repeated findings of the legislature. Further, a baseless race-baiting claim from the Trailhead Group that illegal immigrants "could be" contributing to political campaigns through their unions prompted Dennis' Donetta-style "emergency order" that the citizenship of all pooled donors be verified. Which is ridiculous, unprecedented and keeps to the GOP talking-point so perfectly that the dirty collusion behind her order is unmistakable.

What's next, you ask? Well, Gigi Dennis bears little physical resemblance to Florida's infamous Katherine Harris. She's much more witty and congenial. But when the chips are down this November, will she have given you any better reason to trust her impartiality than Harris did in 2000?

These early indicators support an emphatic "no." Looks to me like she'll be smiling her cutesey cherub smile the whole way, in the hope you'll notice it and not the fix being in.