Tag: Secretary Of State

In a year fraught by gun violence across the nation and with the anniversary of the Aurora theater shooting fast approaching, tempers over gun control have flared so high, the issue may invite the state’s first-ever lawmaker-recall votes. The efforts mounted so far have fast made a battleground of Colorado’s local politics, with organizers on both sides accusing each other of harassing petition signers, undermining the democratic process and undercutting hard-won balanced budgets.

With just moments to go before the decision deadline and the launch of the holiday weekend, the Secretary of State’s office announced its opinion that the petitions triggering a recall of state Senate President John Morse are constitutional.

“I know this puts you in a tough position,” attorney Mark Grueskin said to Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert last Thursday in the closing statement at a hearing on the legitimacy of petitions submitted to recall state Senate President John Morse for his support of gun-control legislation last spring.

Depending on your point of view, there’s good news and bad in the case of Secretary of state Scott Gessler and the $1,278 in public funds he spent to attend a Republican conference in August.

The challenges mounting on Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler's desk go beyond whether to mail ballots to residents who haven't voted in a while. He has another predicament: bar codes.

In the face of criticism that he is improperly meddling in a campaign finance case on behalf of a former private-practice client, Secretary of State Scott Gessler says he doesn't believe Coloradans should have to hire lawyers to steer clear of penalties when they simply want to participate in the political process.

Clear the Bench Colorado founder Matt Arnold this week lost another court case, the second case in the last half year, but not for lack of trying. Arnold appealed the ruling in the first case even as he leaned on that ruling to file the complaint in the second case. "I got out-lawyered," Arnold told Westword, conceding, even if unwittingly, that perhaps the both-ways legal strategy he took toward campaign finance laws over the last few months was less about winning than it was about sending messages.

In the wake of a flood of untraceable 501(c)4 funds pouring into 527 political groups such as the Western Tradition Partnership in this month's general election, state Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, said she is working to make Colorado the first state in the nation to compel the nonprofit "social welfare" groups to disclose political donations to 527s.

State Sen. Gail Schwartz and a campaign watchdog group are weighing a formal complaint against a 527 political group linked to Secretary of State-elect Scott Gessler, alleging the group failed to properly disclose a mailer deemed the “most tasteless” of this month’s election. Schwartz, a Democrat, said late last week she still hasn’t determined whether to file a formal complaint with current Secretary of State Bernie Buescher’s office regarding the mailers sent out by Western Tradition Partnership (WTP) depicting her as Donald Trump. But she said she will pursue tougher disclosure laws in the next legislative session.

Don't delay you un-registered Coloradans. Monday, Oct. 4, is the deadline to register to vote in this year's general election, which will be held...